Rev. Caldwell receives a certificate of appreciation for 50 years of service from Mayor Burnett at Monday’s city council meeting.

The first Sunday of September marks Rev. Carrol Caldwell’s 50th year of serving as a pastor and he was honored at September’s city council meeting for reaching this milestone. Looking back on his 50 years of service shows that the best of Caldwell’s ministry was not done just behind the pulpit  but through tireless community service which makes him a bright and integral thread of the Woodruff area’s spiritual and social fabric.
Caldwell began his ministry as the bi-vocational minister of Harmony Baptist Church in 1961 and served there till 1978. From there he helped start Cavins Baptist Church in 1978 with 60 members. He served as pastor there until Dec. 21, 2004,  when he retired after 26 years of service.
Retirement didn’t last long for Caldwell. The very next week he was asked by Padgett’s Creek Baptist to serve as interim pastor for just a couple of weeks. That “couple of weeks” turned into almost five years with Caldwell still going strong.

For the rest of the story see this week’s newspaper.

By Theron Willis
HOMETOWN NEWS

While the scene at Mill’s Mill earlier this week shows improvement from a few months prior with the grass being cut and moderately maintained and a significant amount of debris removed,  no demolition permit and an accompanying $250,000 surety bond has been obtained.

The respective owners of the former Mills Mill and Abney Mill properties have been ordered to appear in Woodruff Municipal Court on Monday, August 30 at 3 p.m. for failure to renovate the sites by the deadlines ordered by the Woodruff Housing and Construction Board of Appeals. Mills Mill owner Rajat Goyal will address the Housing and Construction Board of Appeals again at their Thursday, August 26 meeting 6 p.m. asking for the surety bond amount to be lowered from $250,000 to $100,000.
Goyal first appeared before the board on April 22, 2010 and was ordered to remove all debris within 45 days of the order, and obtain a demolition permit within 105 days of the order along with a $250,000 surety bond on the property. The official date of the order was May 1 giving Goyal till June 12 to remove all debris and August 11 to obtain a 12-month demolition permit and surety bond. Goyal appeared before the board again on May 27 and requested a time extension on debris removal and asked that the surety bond requirement be dropped completely because he did not have enough assets to obtain a $250,000 bond. The board granted Goyal a 30-day extension on debris removal but said it was out of their range of power to decide on removing the surety bond requirement since it is a city policy. The city later stated it would not drop the surety bond requirement.
On August 12 the city found Goyal only in partial compliance of the order. While the majority of loose roofing and debris had been removed,  full waste containers were still remaining on site, and no demolition permit or accompanying surety bond had been obtained.
City Zoning Official Mike Doles said it is still up in the air as to the August 30 municipal court hearing for Goyal.
“If the Board were to agree to the lesser amount -and he could get that surety guaranteed before the hearing date- we would likely ask the court to hold the citation in abeyance for 3-6 months,” Doles said. “All this depends on the action of the Board and the advice of the city attorney.”
Carla Luker and John Eric Mauldin, the current owners of Abney Mill, appeared before the Housing and Construction Board of Appeals on January 21, 2010 and were ordered to have the cooling tower on the site either secured with a fence or demolished by April 30, 2010 and to have a demolition permit by July 30, 2010 for the smokestack on the property. The board later amended the order with the deadlines for both the cooling tower and the smokestack moved to August 1, 2010.

Those interested are encouraged to attend the hearings.

Photo by Ernie Lambert
Politically incorrect?
This old cross caps an almost century-old gravestone in Old Bethel Cemetery in Woodruff.

Lines have been drawn over the issue of prayer opening Woodruff City Council meetings with the city officially in the camp that it will continue the practice but with a concentrated effort to be in full compliance with state law. Those opposed to prayer at council meetings are represented by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which believes that the city aligning itself with the recently passed SC Public Invocation Act isn’t enough to protect the city from a lawsuit, but the group has not brought any legal action as of yet.
The FFRF officially contacted Brad Burnett on May 24 via mail and fax stating it was notified by several concerned Woodruff residents and taxpayers who were deeply troubled by the practice of the city beginning council meetings with prayers,  many specifically referencing Jesus Christ and also the representation of a cross on the city’s seal with the word “church” underneath. The identity of the person who originally lodged the complaint to FFRF is still unknown.
Attention has become diverted mainly on the issue of prayer with a special council meeting called on Tuesday, August 3 in which the city officially adopted a written invocation policy outlining the procedure the city will follow in conducting prayer and selecting invocation givers.
Main differences in how prayer will now be conducted in comparison with how it was routinely done before is that the invocation will not be listed on the meeting’s agenda, and that prayer will occur before the gavel is sounded signifying that it is before the official start of the meeting. The Woodruff City Clerk will now handle the selection of congregation leaders to lead the invocation. The city clerk will mail an invitation every year to leaders of established religious congregations within the city limits of Woodruff. Pastors willing to participate will be placed on the schedule on a first come,  first serve basis. A religious congregation outside the City of Woodruff can be placed on the congregations list if said congregation is attended by at least one city resident and that resident makes the request.
The city was assisted in drafting the policy by Alliance Defense Fund,  an Arizona-based Christian legal group dedicated to, “aggressively defending religious liberty”,  according to their website, www.alliancedefensefund.org. ADF was notified of the city’s situation by the Palmetto Family Council, a SC-based group that is committed to “defending and strengthening South Carolina families” according to their website www.palmettofamily.org. The Palmetto Family Council and ADF were integral is passing the S.C. Pubic Invocation Act (SC State law section 6-1-160) in 2008.
The official Woodruff prayer policy is almost identical with the invocation policy that was adopted by the Board of Commissioners of Forsyth County, NC. The board,  working with ADF,  adopted the prayer policy after two Forsyth residents who attended a December 2007 meeting were shocked and offended by an invocation given by a local pastor who repeatedly invoked the name Jesus Christ and other Judeo-Christian terminology. The two residents filed suit against the county on March 30, 2007 and the county adopted the written policy two weeks later on May 14. The US District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina heard the case in October of 2009 with ADF as part of the legal team defending Forsyth County. The district court declared the prayer policy unconstitutional on the grounds that even though a private citizen routinely gives the prayer it is still considered government speech because the county’s clerk “plays a central role in the process which results in the individuals’ presence at the board meetings,” and that the focus of the prayers were on government business.
The Forsyth case has been appealed to the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and is waiting to be assigned a date for oral argument. Brett Harvey,  who is the Senior Legal Counsel for ADF,  says that Woodruff is in a good position to find out how their newly adopted policy will stand without having to go through litigation.
“That decision (the Fourth Circuit’s decision on Forsyth) will directly impact whether or not the city of Woodruff will have to refine their policy and spare the city the expense of having to litigate a wholly separate policy themselves,” stated Harvey.
On the afternoon of August 3, FFRF sent a letter to Mayor Burnett expressing their dissent with continued prayer after they received and reviewed a faxed copy of the city’s policy. “There are severe legal problems with the policy passed,” FFRF attorney Patrick Elliot said. “Some of these provisions in the policy adopted I don’t believe have any legal support,  making it unconstitutional and unable to hold up to legal scrutiny.”
Elliot does not believe that the Fourth Circuit will overturn the original decision and also says that Woodruff aligning the prayer policy with state law does not protect the policy from a lawsuit.
“If someone wanted to challenge the prayer policy in Woodruff it wouldn’t necessarily be a facial challenge against the state law.” A facial challenge is a dispute against the law itself.
Elliot said FFRF is waiting to see how the city responds to the letter and their suggestions before considering any legal action.

By Theron Willis
HOMETOWN NEWS

Photo by Diana Deaver
Steven Hyatt with his Nikon D3S standing on the steeple of St Michael’s Episcopal with St. Philip’s Episcopal in the background. 

Former area resident Steven Hyatt is gaining some artistic fame in the low country for his stunning photography of the historic places of worship in Charleston, giving people a spectacular inside glimpse of structures that many may have only seen from the outside.
The 27-year-old is originally from Pauline and spent a lot of time while growing up in Woodruff with his grandparents Keith and Rosie Thomas who still live in Three Pines. The Dorman High graduate moved to Charleston seven years ago to attend the College of Charleston where he majored in religion and philosophy.
He currently works at Imaging Arts Fine Art Photography Gallery and in the spring of last year visited the Unitarian Universalist Church located directly behind the gallery. While inside the church he was awestruck by the immense and overpowering beauty that surrounds a person from all sides in a sacred space of such size and magnificence and found himself faced with both a challenge and a mission. That mission was to convey those same sensations of wonder and reverence in a photograph,  and not just of the Unitarian church but of the different places of worship throughout the aptly nicknamed Holy City. Thus his project called Churches of Charleston was born.
Hyatt uses a process called high dynamic range imaging, or HDRI, to recreate the effect of seeing a church interior with human eyes, which is able to discern differences in dark and light tones simultaneously, something that a camera is unable to do. Using a Nikon D3S camera Hyatt shoots up to nine photographs at different exposures creating a set of images that show off details of dark and light areas respectively. He then takes those images and processes them in Photoshop to create a single picture that reveals the different areas of light and shadow.
Since last year he has photographed many historic sanctuaries throughout the city,  about 18 of the 33 he has on his list including two synagogues: Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim and Brith Sholom Beth Israel. What he has photographed so far can be viewed at www.churchesofcharleston.com.
Hyatt’s photography has excited the interest of both the parishioners of the respective churches and of the public as well to whom the interiors of most of these historic churches are an undiscovered treasure. “It’s an unknown to some people,” Hyatt explains saying that most people have only experienced the outside architectural beauty of these structures and not the inside sanctuaries.
 Hyatt believes his project has bearing in several different avenues.  “It’s relevant on multiple levels,” Hyatt explains. “It’s religiously and historically relevant and as an endeavor it’s architecturally and artistically relevant as well.”
Hyatt’s grandparents in Woodruff remember when he got his start in photography. “He’s always been very artistic,” Rosie Thomas said. “He could make a pretty picture with a cheap camera and I have those framed to prove it.”
They can remember his collection of old cameras he had on shelves around his room and are proud of the giant steps he has made artistically since then.
“I’m really proud of him,” Keith Thomas said. “The pictures from Charleston look awesome.”
Hyatt has plans to publish the church photographs in a book but says a website format has its own benefits. “It has to have an end for a book format but for a website it can be a continuous project.” 
To see more of Hyatt’s other work visit www.stevenhyattphotography.com

By Theron Willis
HOMETOWN NEWS

Woodruff City Council voted unanimously in favor of an official invocation policy for city council meetings at a special council meeting on Tuesday, August 3 at 6 p.m. called for the specific purpose of reviewing the policy of prayer at city council, in which television crews and members of the public were present. 
Mayor Burnett said the purpose of outlining the city’s invocation policy is to ensure to the city is in absolute conformity with South Carolina State Law Section 6-1-160 (which allows prayer before a deliberative public body) although Burnett says the city has never been in knowing violation of the law.
“While I do not believe we have knowingly or intentionally violated any portion of the law in the past, we are reiterating tonight that: a) we have a formal policy consistent with state law and that b) we plan to implement the policy conscientiously and fairly,” said Burnett in a written statement that he read verbatim at the meeting and provided copies of to members of the media and to anyone else who asked.
The procedure of prayer before council meetings remains relatively the same as before with two changes. Invocation will be given before the gavel sounds at the meeting signifying that prayer is before the official business of the city, and the city’s clerk will now facilitate selection of invocation speakers so that the opportunity to give the invocation will be open to more pastors and leaders of the community.
Controversy over the issue of prayer at council and also the cross on the city’s seal arises from the threat of a lawsuit from the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (www.ffrf.org) who was notified of the City of Woodruff’s practices in May by an anonymous complainant from Woodruff who has yet to reveal his identity. FFRF sent a letter to Mayor Burnett and other council members outlining their problems with the prayer policy that Tuesday afternoon.
Further developments will be covered in next week’s edition.

twillis.news@gmail.com

For more local news and events, see this week’s issue of your local Hometown News; Woodruff News, Boiling Springs Sentry, Inman Times, Blacksburg Times, Middle Tyger Times, Chesnee Tribune, Spartanburg County News and Whitmire News.

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPH by Theron Willis
HOMETOWN NEWS

Pam Whitehead looks through the letters that she hasn’t read in over 40 years that were sent to her from a special someone who fought in the Vietnam War.

Sometimes the opening of an old dusty envelope hidden away in a corner can have an effect similar to time travel.
When Pam Whitehead of Lyman recently went through a 41-year-old stack of letters she was transported back to a time long ago. To a time before she was a mother and a grandmother,  back when she was a sixteen-year-old girl in Cowpens and a fragile and fateful love was budding between her and a soldier she hardly knew who was writing to her from the foxholes in Vietnam.
Whitehead, then with the maiden name Bolton, started correspondence with twenty-year-old Army Private First Class Paul Martinez while he was stationed at Fort Lewis in the state of Washington. Martinez was buddies with a guy named Ricky who was from Cowpens and dating Pam’s sister,  Gerri at the time.
Pam says that Martinez was Puerto Rican and worked in the shipyards in San Francisco with his family before joining the Army, but she knows very little else about his life. When Ricky went back home to Cowpens on leave,  Martinez went as well to see the sixteen-year-old young lady who had become his pen pal.
That two-week leave was the first and only time Pam ever saw Martinez in person. A shy and awkward attraction developed over the course of the two weeks and hinted at when he went back to Fort Lewis, but when Martinez was deployed in Vietnam in April 3, 1969,  he began to express feelings to Pam in his letters that might have otherwise lain dormant - feelings of his love for Pam and his hope of reuniting with her once his time was through in the dreaded war.
“We can have so much together when I get out,  I know it. It’s just a matter of time…Before you know it I will be in your arms and telling you I will never let go know (now) that I have you so close to me,” he wrote in one of his letters to Pam.
Martinez was stationed in the Quang Nam Province in South Vietnam with the first squad of the 101st Airborne Division and served as a rifleman.
Pam says Martinez had poor grammar and spelling but despite that his letters brought out a romantic and eloquent side. “Pam the way love moves is the way to (two) persons meet, may it be by thought or touch,” he wrote on the back of a picture he sent to her from Vietnam.
Pam also thinks Martinez could express things in letters that he would find hard to say in person. “He was kind of shy at first (in person) but I think he was more comfortable when he started writing letters,” Pam explains.
The affection and romance that Martinez expressed to Pam made her feel in ways she had never felt before in her young life.
“I dated and had boyfriends before but he made me feel like the most wonderful person in the world, like I was an angel and that I was so precious to him,” Pam says. She was reluctant and shy to reciprocate the same intense romanticism and passion that Martinez communicated to her through his letters.
“I was only sixteen and it was all just so new and strange to read what he was saying to me,” Pam recounts. “I just wasn’t sure how to respond.”
Martinez tried not to be forceful in his letters but also asked her to grant one simple wish. “Guess what Pam, you own part of my heart… I don’t mine you owning part of me at all…it’s not even costing you a thing except a genione I Love You once in a wy’ll in your letters. is it a deal? my heart for an I Love You in your letter’s.”
Pam finally started ending her letters to Martinez with an “I love you” and other affectionate sentiments but a few weeks later she realized it was too late. On May 23, 1969 she came home from school to find an ominous package from the US Army waiting for her. Inside the package was her recent batch of letters to Martinez as well as a note informing her that Martinez was killed on May 7, 1969 while his unit was trying to take Hamburger Hill. He spent only a little more than a month in Vietnam.
The heartbreaking thing with journeys back through time is knowing the outcome of events but being powerless to change it. As Pam read back over letters from Martinez for the first time in 41 years,  she realized that the dates on the letters were a countdown till his untimely death.
“This (letter) is 26th of April,  ‘69 so how long did he have to live?” Pam asked her voice breaking with emotion.
What was also painful was realizing that the promises made by Martinez to Pam of the times they would share once his time was up in Vietnam were fated to never happen.
“We can go driving all over the place with the car windows down and the radio soft and you sitting next to me,” Martinez writes to Pam as he envisioned a peaceful place away from the foxholes and bombs.
Looking back at the letters stirred up a cauldron of mixed emotions in Pam,  making her wonder what would have happened if Martinez would have made it back from Vietnam. Would their love have survived? Would they still be together today? How would her life have been different?
But soon enough it was time to leave the past and return to the present, to carefully put away the old and yellowed letters back in a shadowy corner of her house and likewise put the thoughts of Martinez and the long - gone possibility of a different life away as well. 

Photo by Theron Willis
Construction is ongoing at CVS Pharmacy at the corner of Hwy 101 and Hwy 221, the location is projected to be open by mid-December

Take a drive down Main Street and one will see two major construction projects on both sides of town, a new Family Dollar store on the corner of W. Pine and Main St, and a CVS on Hwy 221 and Hwy 101.
Family Dollar is scheduled to have its grand opening at the end of September. The new Woodruff location is a new environmentally friendly design, which will act as a prototype for its future stores. CVS is slated to be completed and open by mid-December.
Two other potential businesses around the Hwy 221 and Hwy 101 intersection that have generated a lot of public interest have not given any official word that they are planning to build in Woodruff.
Neither Spinx nor McDonalds has made any official statement or  action that they are coming to town.
As far as McDonalds,  Mayor Burnett said he has recently talked to the Regional Director for Economic Development and was told that McDonalds has taken some promotional action that was preemptive and before the appropriate time, which includes Ronald McDonald coming to Woodruff Elementary School a few months ago and announcing that a McDonalds is coming to town.   Burnett said McDonalds told him they have not made any official decisions on coming to Woodruff yet but that they are very much interested in coming and are still looking very closely at the town.

For the rest of the story, see this week’s Woodruff News.

Photo by Theron Willis
Executive Director Lisa Abercrombie holds a mock check symbolizing the $6,000 the organization recently won.

Helping Hands Ministries of the Woodruff Area recently won $6,000 from a contest on southernsavers.com. Southern Savers is a bargain website that offers coupons and special discounts at stores across the southeast. The website held a contest in which the food bank that received the most online votes would be the recipient of $6,000. After a frenzied 24-hour period of people of the community clicking madly at their respective computers, Helping Hands found out with great joy that they had in fact won.
The $6,000 is a welcome relief to Helping Hands, which finds itself in a desperate time of low funds and overwhelming need.
Actual dollar contributions from churches were $23,000 in 2008; in 2009 it was $18,000.  Individual contributions for ’08 were $17,000, for ’09 it dropped to $10,000. Business donations took a huge plunge from $6,000 in ’08 to $1,900 in 2009.
While Helping Hands receives most of its funds for assistance from federal programs, the community donations cover their operating costs and expenses.
While no end of the year numbers can be tabulated for 2010 yet, Abercrombie says that according to the monthly figures coming in 2010 will be an even worse year. “I’m pretty sure it’s going to be even lower,” Abercrombie said. 
While donations have dropped drastically over the past two years and continue to drop, Helping Hands has found itself part of a terribly ironic inverse trend - while funds are falling the need is rising.

For the rest of the story, see this week’s Woodruff News.

By Theron Willis
HOMETOWN NEWS

(Left to Right): Terry Lanford, Attorney David Alexander, and Attorney Greg Harris at the July 6th hearing at Woodruff Municipal Court in which Lanford challenged the order made by Judge Vicki Rae Smith at a May 24th hearing. Judge Smith fined Lanford $8,070 for failing to comply with the city’s Rental Property Ordinance.

Terry Glenn Lanford appeared in Woodruff Municipal Court on July 6 at 1 p.m. along with his two attorneys David Alexander of Greenville and Greg Harris of Columbia. The city’s Building Codes and Zoning Director Mike Doles appeared on the city’s behalf. Judge John Rollins Jr. presided.
The July 6th hearing at the Woodruff City Court was called because of a motion filed to reconsider, alter or amend the judgment made by Judge Vicki Rae Smith at a previous hearing on May 24 in which Judge Smith fined Lanford $8,070 for failure to comply with the city’s Rental Property Ordinance.
Judge Rollins heard the case in Judge Smith’s stead because she has recused herself from hearing any more cases involving Mr. Lanford due to a pending SLED investigation relating to text messages and calls made to Judge Smith by Lanford perceived by Smith to be of a threatening and harassing nature.
It was established several times during the hearing that Lanford was mentally unable to speak on his own behalf due to a heart attack and stroke suffered during an attempted catheterization procedure on May 27.
At the July 6 hearing, Lanford’s attorney argued that Lanford was denied his basic constitutional right to a jury trail at the original hearing.
He said that at the May 24 hearing that Lanford’s friend and associate David Smith appeared on Lanford’s behalf to request a jury trail for the rental property issue but that that request was denied. Judge Smith did not allow David Smith to represent Lanford that day,  stating that he was not an attorney. Lanford was tried in absence that day. 

For the rest of the story, see this week’s Woodruff News.

Photo by Theron Willis
Left to right: Rita Skinner, Robin Miller, Julia Godfrey, Dr. Mukesh Gandhi, Minaxi Gandhi, Pam Vaughn, and Sharon Watts. Not pictured is Joyce Sprouse and Brandi Gentry. 

July 6 officially marked Dr. Mukesh Gandhi’s 20th year of practicing medicine in Woodruff. This milestone made Dr. Gandhi take a brief pause from his hectic schedule to reflect on what the past two decades has brought - from starting his practice in a trailer across the street from the old BJ Workman Hospital to his current location on 409 E. Georgia St which offers x-ray, ultrasound, and a wide array of on-site services.
Dr. Gandhi was born in Nairobi, Africa and grew up in India where he went to BJ Medical College. He moved to America for his residency.
Way back in April of 1990 he came close to not even coming to Woodruff. While finishing his residency at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio,  he visited the Upstate to interview for a medical center in Greenville. His plan was to practice in the Upstate in order to be close to his wife Minaxi’s parents,  who live in Charlotte. 
After not liking the practice that he interviewed for in Greenville,  he was in Charlotte about to head back to Cleveland when he ran into a Spartanburg Indian community leader who was in Charlotte at the time. The man told Dr. Gandhi about Woodruff and the now defunct BJ Workman Hospital, which was looking for an internal medicine physician for the area. He cancelled his flight to Cleveland to pay Woodruff a visit and the rest is history.
Dr. Gandhi feels that Woodruff has been a good fit for him. A place with its own set of needs where he has filled a very important medical niche in the community
“I like small towns. It’s a very unique challenge,” Dr. Gandhi said. “Woodruff never had a full-time internist that practiced in the town and I thought I would be a good asset to the hospital for heart disease and diabetes and all the major medical problems.”
Curtis Walker,  who was the hospital administrator at BJ Workman,  recalls Dr. Gandhi coming to Woodruff and agrees that there was a void in town for someone like Gandhi.
“Well,  at the time we desperately needed an internal medicine physician and Dr. Gandhi filled that need very well,” Walker said.
Internal medicine specializes in the treatment, diagnosis and prevention of adult diseases like cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and high cholesterol.
After serving as an employee for BJ Workman for a little over a year -  and working out of a trailer across the street from the hospital -  Dr. Gandhi struck out on his own in February of 1992 with his own office at his current location.
Dr. Gandhi looks back on those early years as hard and stressful where he was working in the ER at different hospitals like Spartanburg Regional and Mary Black, teaching part-time at Spartanburg Regional and doing whatever it took to build his practice and support his family.
“It was a struggle but it was a fun struggle,” Gandhi said believing that those lean years defined his character and made him the person and physician that he is today.
Dr. Gandhi said that the reason for his success is making patients his top priority and serving them with the utmost care and skill, which he said he will do till the day he hangs up his stethoscope.
“I didn’t grow my practice through any politics but by working one patient at a time,” Dr. Gandhi said. “And that patient would bring me four more patients and so on.”
When BJ Workman Hospital closed about 5 years ago, Dr. Gandhi said he worked to get the equipment like an x-ray machine and a nuclear machine to fill the void for medical services and tests  with the hospital shutting down.
“What we did was try to bring the services here (in Woodruff) because not many people have the means  to go out (to Greenville and Spartanburg) for every little test or scan because they might be elderly and have no one to take them,” Dr. Gandhi said. 
He also credits his long - serving staff for his success in the Woodruff community, several of whom who have been with him for many years.
“My jewel is (medical assistant) Pam Vaughn who has been with me for 18 years,” he said. “She’s like my right hand person.”
Another faithful and enduring employee is Julia Godfrey,  who has worked with him for at least 15 years.
Dr. Gandhi also said his wife Minaxi,  who is his practice administrator,  has been an invaluable partner from day one.
Dr. Gandhi is generous with his medical skills,  providing his services to the St. Luke’s Free Medical Clinic in Spartanburg and the Woodruff Medical Clinic. He also worked at the Detox Center in Spartanburg, which just closed down.

For more local news and events, see this week’s issue of the Woodruff News.