After 50 years of public service and five decades guiding one of Central Florida’s fastest growing cities, Mayor Ed Wolf will tell you the title that matters most is the one he earned as an athletic director or just a citizen. 

“I’m not one that enjoys a mayor’s title,” Wolf says. “It’s either Ed or Coach.”

Mayor Wolf grew up in Leesburg and met his future wife Irish Cason at Lake-Sumter College. The couple moved to Wildwood in December 1968 — he was just 22 — and never left. When he arrived, the city had roughly 1,200 residents and covered about four square miles. It was 1968.

“You could almost throw a rock to the four corners of the city limits,” he says.

Today Wildwood covers 56 square miles and nearly 18,000 people call it home. The city he arrived in no longer exists. The city he helped build is one of the fastest growing communities in Florida.

Before he ever sat on the City Commission, he spent 34 years at Wildwood Middle School as an agriculture teacher, football coach and athletic director. He was appointed to the commission in 1975, won his first full term in 1976 and was elected mayor in 1988 — making him one of Florida’s longest-serving elected officials.

This year the city honored him for 50 years of public service and the Florida League of Cities presented him with the John Land Years of Service Award. He accepted graciously, but would have preferred to be back on his farm in a tee shirt and cutoffs.

“If someone calls me an atypical mayor I wear it as a feather in my cap,” he says.

What kept him here was never the politics. It was the people.

“The people that lived here are the most unpretentious, real, true people,” he says.

He recalls a story about an Oxford farmer.

“The story goes that Bobby Leatherman, an old Oxford farmer in coveralls, walked into a Leesburg Cadillac dealership and couldn’t get a salesman’s attention until he pulled out a wad of cash. That’s Wildwood — substance over appearance.”

He never had children of his own. His students, colleagues and fellow citizens became his family.

On Father’s Day, a former student called to tell him he had been a true inspiration.

“It hits you,” he says. “That’s the whole purpose.” 

He often gets hundreds of birthday messages on social media and says it humbles him. 

The city he oversees today has 200 employees including 68 in the police department. A point of pride is response times.

“There was a time when we had just two guys on the road,” he says. “Now our response times are great. I am proud of that.”

After nearly 60 years he has no regrets and no plans to move.

“I did this because I wanted to give something back,” he says. “I really love Sumter County and wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

Photos by Gina Horan and provided