VALDOSTA – When Ricky Plair started playing Santa Claus, he had dark hair and no beard. He wore the traditional fake white beard and long-haired wig.

With time, his hair whitened and he let his beard grow. He stopped wearing the fake beard and hair many years ago. He kept a white Santa beard yearround.

“I don’t cut it any more,” Plair said of his beard. “It stays this way all the time and it looks good.”

Plair passed away this past weekend, according to family and the Valdosta Police Department.

He played Santa Claus in the Valdosta Christmas parade for nearly 40 years. Last December marked the 38th time he played Santa in the parade.

Plair adopted the Santa persona when a sheriff’s deputy passed the responsibility onto him. Having no idea being Santa would become a tradition, he purchased a $750 Santa suit to play the role. He purchased four Santa suits through the years.

For a period, he was the Santa Claus at the mall. He regularly spent the Christmas season playing Santa at various events.

He referred to himself as Santa on Facebook yearround.

Plair is the son of the late Ike and Annie Pearl Plair. A Valdosta native, he worked several years as an emergency/law-enforcement dispatcher, according to past articles in The Valdosta Daily Times. Plair dispatched for many years with the Valdosta Police Department, several years with the 911 Center, and with Valdosta State University Public Safety before retiring.

Plair regularly coordinated the annual police reunion for retired and active-duty law-enforcement officers in the Valdosta and Lowndes County area.

He always said he would play Santa as long as he could. He never stopped.

“I love doing it. It makes me feel so good every year,” he said in a past interview.

He often shared stories of people asking him how long he played Santa Claus.

“I told him and he said, ‘You were doing this when I was a kid,’” Plair said, with that big booming laugh.

Funeral arrangement had not been completed Monday afternoon.