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Editor’s Note: This feature originally ran on February 22, 2025 in the 2025 Progress edition (Troup County Is…). The Progress edition is a publication produced annually by the LaGrange Daily News. If you would like to pick up a copy of the 2025 Progress edition, please visit our office at 115 Broad Ste 101.

Troup County is home to Mary Beth Pelt. There is no other place she has ever called home. She was raised here, raised a family here, and has undoubtedly impacted countless lives across generations. 

Pelt currently serves as the Program Facilitator for The Exceptional Way, but that barely scratches the service of what she does in the community. She was the first president of the Miracle League of LaGrange, helping build it up to where it is today. She previously served as an educator in the Troup County School Systems and helps orchestrate the Building Community event and the Night to Shine in LaGrange.

Even with all that on her plate, Pelt always finds room to add more. 

Exceptional Way is a name many people in the community have heard, but a good portion of those are not even sure what exactly they do. 

The Exceptional Way program serves as a place for individuals with special needs to come after they have graduated from the school system that caters the environment to each individual that comes in.

“I think people have an idea that we’re there and that we do something, and they may not necessarily know what that something is, but what I love so much is that what we do is a completely unique cookie-cutter to whatever an individual’s needs are,” Pelt said. “We have some people that will come in and sit with their device in their space all day, and that’s what they do, and that’s great. And then we have others that want to be involved in absolutely everything that’s going on, from nine o’clock to three o’clock, they want to stay busy and everything in between. So I feel like sometimes people might think, oh, that’s just another facility for them to go sit. We’re not a babysitter, but we’re not a school either. We’re just there for whatever your needs are and whatever respite we can provide for your caregivers for those few hours.”

The Exceptional Way program in LaGrange currently has 32 enrollees. The program started in 2021 with less than 20.

“Unfortunately we’ve had a few pass away, but we have touched probably close to 60 lives in the few years that we’ve been open,” Pelt said.

Pelt joined the Exceptional Way in March of 2021 and just two months later they opened their doors. She has been instrumental in the growth of the Exceptional Way. Pelt and her follow Exceptional Way employees have big plans for the future.

“I want to have a place where our residents and our participants can live and thrive. Because I think ultimately, that’s what the board put together in the first place. That’s what they wanted to see,” Pelt said. “I think in the next 5 to 10 years we can make it happen.

“I think this, legitimately, think this could be a hub for the special needs. How to love on the special needs community. I truly do. We’re close enough to the Auburn, Alabama area, and there are two big foundations and organizations like the Exceptional Way that are in the Birmingham and Opelika areas, and they’re kind of who we patterned ourselves after,” Pelt added. “I really think LaGrange can be that for the West Georgia area.”

Working with individuals with special needs was not always in the cards fo Pelt. When she originally enrolled in college, her intent was to become a sportscaster. That quickly faded when LaGrange College did not have a journalism program, but she did find her way to working with special needs individuals through her passion for sports. 

When Pelt stumbled upon Doug Flutie’s autism awareness foundation (Flutie Foundation), Pelt felt a calling.
The progress Pelt has seen and made happen in terms of how exceptional education students are treated in Troup County is extraordinary. Pelt is going to continue her fight for inclusion for as long as she can.

“I can remember when I was in school, our exceptional education classes were in the backs of the buildings, and there wasn’t a lot of inclusion. There wasn’t a lot of bringing them in and letting them come take part in a pep rally, or a school function or whatever. Because even some of the participants that we have at the Exceptional Way now, I went to school with. In school, I never saw, we never saw them,” Pelt said. “We still have a long way to go, but wow there’s this push to get them out of their classroom, let them come in. We get some of the self-contained kiddos to come out, and they’ll go to art or music or PE, you know, try to integrate, try to include them.”

A graduate of LaGrange High (class of ‘99) and LaGrange College as well as the mother of a Callaway High graduate, Pelt cares deeply about this area beyond her beloved Exceptional Way individuals. 

“I grew up on Jefferson Street, and my dad would put a diaper and a bottle in his pocket, and he and I would walk to football games and sit and watch football games at Callaway Stadium. And then when we would come back, and I would do cartwheels across where the LaGrange College soccer field is now,” Pelt said. “And now, I get to walk the same streets with my kids.”

Pelt’s daughter Saralynn graduated from Callaway High in 2024 and her son is a freshman at the school. Carter, her son, is a member of the baseball team and the FFA swine team. Where Carter is, mom is not too far away and she has recently added both of her varsity baseball and swine team hats to the many she already wears. 

With Pelt’s roots firmly planted in Troup County, don’t expect her to pack her bags and find a new home any time soon.

“I know some people are like let me get the heck out of my hometown, but I truly cannot picture being anywhere else. I mean, I really can’t,” Pelt said with enthusiasm.