Greg Free is the kind of guy whose name you've seen in a Bartow County Facebook group whether you meant to or not, and host Logan Lewis said as much before they even got rolling. Greg is a lifelong Bartow County resident, a Cass High graduate, a Navy veteran, the owner of G Free Professional Mortuary Services, a licensed funeral director and embalmer, and a Euharlee City Council member now in his third term. By the end of the conversation, Logan had learned what embalming actually is, how Greg ended up in the Navy instead of the Marine Corps, and — completely unscripted, after the cameras had technically stopped — that Greg was part of the funeral detail for President Jimmy Carter.
He almost became a Marine
Greg was born on the coast of North Carolina — his mom's family is from the Nags Head area, his dad's from Rome, and the two met in the Army. The family landed back in Rome, then moved to Euharlee at the end of Greg's fifth-grade year, settling into the first subdivision built out there, right next to the covered bridge. He graduated from the old Cass High School in 1999, the last class before Woodland opened and split the district. For a while, the plan was the Marine Corps — Greg worked summers at Allatoona's Sugar Hill/Park Marina area and ran PT with a local recruiter, a squared-away guy named Gunny Moore, and figured that was the path. Then Gunny Moore showed up at Greg's house one day, mid-conversation with his mom and stepdad about Greg's enlistment. "I don't think they're making that decision. I think I'm making that decision," Greg told him — and that was the end of it. He walked into a recruiting office instead and joined the Navy, training as a CTR in cryptology, the equipment and communications side of the job.
Why funeral service, and what embalming actually is
Nobody in Greg's family was in funeral service — no dad or grandfather to follow. He just felt the pull as early as middle school. Working part-time at a funeral home in high school sealed it, and he went on to earn his degree at Gupton-Jones College of Funeral Service. He's quick to correct the assumption that people in his line of work are drawn to death itself: "It was about people. It was about wanting to work with and help people." Asked to explain embalming in plain terms, Greg landed on an analogy Logan could actually picture: "Think about an oil change in a car. You flush out the old oil, you put in the new oil. We get rid of the old, we use a machine that helps us with that, and it replaces it with a preservative fluid that offers temporary preservation."
The emotional weight of the job came up too. Greg talked about becoming the community's "emotional punching bag" in hard moments, and about the times that don't leave you — like watching a parent carry their child's casket into a visitation. "That's one of the times in my career that I've literally had to walk in the next room and say, okay, get it together," he said. He was candid that PTSD in the funeral profession is real and, historically, not talked about. His generation of directors, now mostly in their 40s, is starting to say out loud what the older generation never did: sometimes you need a couple of days to "empty the boxes" before you're okay to keep going.
Losing a coroner's race, then winning Euharlee City Council
Greg's path into local politics started with a loss. In 2020, he ran for Bartow County Coroner against a longtime incumbent — a hard campaign to run in a COVID year with almost no in-person events. He didn't win, but he doesn't regret it: "It was never about the person holding the office at the time. It was about change is okay." Not long after, someone encouraged him to run for a special election on Euharlee's City Council. He and his family talked it through — he called it "grueling" on them — and decided to go for it. He won, and he's now serving his third term, unopposed in 2025, with the current term running through 2030. He's blunt about the money: council members make about $50 a meeting. "It's definitely not for the money. You're doing it because you want to leave your community a little bit better."
A county that keeps giving
Greg is deep in Bartow County's nonprofit world — he's the outgoing chairman of the Etowah Foundation board, wrapping up his term this December after the organization grew from local scholarships into career-readiness Future Centers in the high schools and the Bookmobile program. He's also a Leadership Bartow alum. What strikes him most is how the community funds all of it without a handful of wealthy benefactors carrying the load. He and his wife competed in a Dancing with the Stars-style fundraiser back in March 2021 — still deep in COVID uncertainty, with organizers debating whether to cancel — and the event still raised roughly $250,000. He rattled off the growing list of newer local nonprofits doing the same thing: Kevin Harris's All In or All Out ministry, Tara's Helping Hands, Good Neighbor, Red Door Food Pantry. "There's still plenty of money and volunteer work," he said. "It's crazy that this town is so giving."
The story that stopped the conversation cold
After the mics were supposedly off, Greg mentioned almost offhand that he'd been part of the funeral detail for President Jimmy Carter — one of about 100 funeral directors, drawn from Georgia and Washington D.C., who worked the service. He rode in the motorcade and still has a numbered lapel pin bearing the presidential seal. It's not the only major disaster response on his resume, either — he's also worked Hurricane Katrina with DMORT and mass-fatality incidents with Kenyon International, the firm that handles airline crash response. "If you would've told me that an 18-year-old kid from Cartersville who used to cut grass at the funeral home would one day be part of the team of funeral directors that did President Carter's service," Greg said, "I'd tell you that you're a liar."
Listen to the Full Conversation
This recap only scratches the surface. Greg also gets into his rapid-fire favorites — Godfather I and II, Casino, and Tombstone for movies, plus an underrated pick for war movies, Taking Chance — his dream Food Truck Friday lineup (Pink Floyd, a John Lennon solo set, and Whiskey Myers to close it out), his strong opinions on rubbery calamari, and a genuinely moving closing tribute to his wife and daughters, who keep the household running while he serves the city and the county. Catch the full episode below.
Listen to Episode #513
Catch the full conversation with Greg Free on Your Morning Drive, wherever you listen.
