It's Happening: The Farming Adventures of Former Harrison County OEM Director Laura Pysz
By Julie Perine on January 25, 2025 from It’s Happening
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For years, Laura Pysz-Laulis led the city – and then the county – in emergency preparedness and management efforts. In recent years, she has turned over a few new leaves.
Now serving as Harrison County administrator, she oversees day-to-day operations of the county budget and works closely with elected officials. That is her day job, but before and after office hours, Laura is busy raising Nigerian dwarf goats – seven with two more on the way – and nearly 100 chickens of various varieties.
“In November of last year, we moved to a farm. I already had some chickens, but the farm came with more chickens and the goats,” she said. “I’m loving the farm life.”
Laura is literally up each day with the chickens, waking up around 4:30 a.m. to make her rounds.
“I get up and start feeding all the animals – the dogs, goats and chickens – then get ready for work and drive 45 minutes there, work a full day, go home and pretty much start over,” she said.
Recent frigid and snowy conditions add a bit more work.
“I need to put out more hay to keep them all warm and fill water buckets more often because they freeze so easily,” Laura said. “Both goat pens are a good distance from the house and there’s no electric up there.”
Laura’s teenage daughters, Danika and Ziva, help when they are at the farm.
The property is on the outskirts of Shinnston. The reason Laura and her husband John purchased it is because the house is larger and more conducive to John’s physical condition. A rare blood infection diagnosed in September of 2022 left John, a sergeant with the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department, paralyzed in his lower extremities.
“He is getting stronger. He is so determined,” she said. “He can wiggle his toes, and he can transfer from the chair to the wheelchair on his own now.”
Laura works with John daily on physical therapy.
She has a lot on her plate, but they are all important facets of her life. She finds the farm work therapeutic.
“It’s my stress release,” she said. “Going home to the farm, piddling around, fixing a fence, gathering eggs or spending time with the goats relaxes me.”
Her free-range chickens lay eggs in shades of blue, green, and brown. Some are Polish, Wyandotte, and perhaps the star of the flock, an Ayam Cemani.
“He’s all black – his comb, tongue, and beak,” she said.
The upper goat pen is where Fawn, Seven, and Phoenix – three generations of the same family – live. The lower pen is home to Cricket – due to have a baby this week, Dolly – due the second week of February, six-month-old Oreo and nearly three-month-old Isabella.
Owning goats helps keep brush cleared out, Laura said, and their milk can be used to make soaps, lotions and other products.
That is one of her next ventures.
Laura said regardless of the professional positions she has held; her main objective has been to help people. She still strives to do that and couldn’t be happier that she has branched out to farm animals.
Life is a journey, she said, and looking back through the years she can see why some things happened and some things did not.
“I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be,” she said.
