Somerset — Any follower of Somerset city council business over the last several decades remembers one thing about Peggy Dugger: The longtime council member was a tough lady.

Strong-willed on the outside, but sweet underneath the surface, Dugger kept council chambers on its collective toes by turning issues inside out with her questions during a 23-year stint as only the second woman to ever serve on the council. (The first was a woman named Mary Todd.)

“I don’t believe in voting on something I don’t understand,” Dugger said in late 2004 as her years on the council came to a close.

“It doesn’t bother me to ask questions. If you don’t know what you’re voting on, it can come back to bite you.”

Dugger’s mind may have been strong, but her health had failed her for several years. During her final years on the council, an oxygen tank accompanied her to each meeting. On Wednesday, she lost her longtime battle with her health, passing away at Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital at the age of 79.

Battling was something with which Dugger was familiar. It’s the losing part that was rare.

Dugger, a retired nurse, would go head-to-head with project engineers, fellow councilors, mayors and city attorneys without flinching.

“She didn’t care who she was battling against, as long as she felt like she was fighting for what was right,” council member John Ricky Minton said of Dugger. Minton served on the council with Dugger for about a decade.

“There are certain people who take interest in what’s going on, and others who just ride along,” said Jack Mandt, former Somerset city attorney.

“She was not one to ride along.”

Former Somerset Mayor JP Wiles was on the receiving end of many of her interrogations.

“When anybody does as good a job as Peggy does, they ask a lot of questions,” Wiles said several years ago.

“And when you stop and listen to her questions, you realize what she’s doing. She’s serving the people. If we would all do that, government would be a lot better than what it is.”

Her colleagues agree that Dugger always had the best interests of her community in mind. In fact, she decided to run for a seat on the city’s council because she had interests of her own which she felt were being ignored.

“I had questions about why I was paying the same taxes as everyone else, but didn’t have sewer,” Dugger told the Commonwealth Journal in 2004.

“When I would call (city hall), I would be told that I didn’t understand. So I decided I would join the council and find out what it was I wasn’t understanding.”

Dugger campaigned successfully against the city’s 12th Ward incumbent councilman, the late Jackie Burgin. She took her oath of office in January of 1982 — and would serve under three mayors before stepping down in 2004.

Dugger hit the ground running, establishing herself as one of the most inquisitive members of the council.

“When I came onto the council, we had no agenda,” Dugger said. She began asking to have copies of items that would be discussed in meetings left in a box for her at city hall so she could educate herself before the council meeting.

“She was a very active member of the council,” recalled Mandt.

“She was interested in all matters that the city was undertaking. She really studied the issues, and once she made up her mind about something, she pursued it. That’s what you want for a person on the city council — someone who will pay attention.”

“If she told you something, you could take it to the bank,” Minton said.

“She talked a lot, but whatever she was saying was right.”

“The community will be missing a very knowledgeable lady,” added councilor Jerry Wheeldon, who also served with Dugger for about a decade.

“When she had an opinion, it was worth listening to. She was outspoken, but you had to respect her opinion.”

Dugger voted on city issues after careful consideration — and even she admitted that her votes were often surprising.

“You have to vote your conscience,” she said in 2004.

“My husband (the late Gene Dugger) asked me one time why I had voted no to something that came up, and I said, ‘Because I have to look at myself in the morning.’”

“She had a lot of common sense, and she always did what she thought was right,” said councilor Tim Rutherford, who succeeded Dugger in the city’s 12th Ward after she stepped down.

“She wasn’t afraid to take a stand and say what she thought,” Wiles said.

“I had a lot of respect for her. People might not have always agreed with what she thought, but if she believed in something, she would fight for it. ... She always wanted what was best for the community.”

In spite of being one of the most outspoken members of Somerset’s council, Dugger ran unopposed in all but one election, and, until her last race, she had always been the top vote-getter in the city’s council elections.

Rutherford ran against Dugger once unsuccessfully — but, true to form, Dugger dropped out of politics on her own terms, opting not to run again when she reached the age of 75 with mounting health problems. Rutherford has been filling Dugger’s position on the council since January of 2005.

“I could never replace (Dugger),” Rutherford said.

“I just took her spot. You could never replace someone like that.”

Visitation for Mrs. Dugger will be held today from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Somerset Undertaking Company. A funeral will follow at 1 p.m.