Jim Woods is joined by his wife Nancy Woods and his family after receiving the 2019 Morris Lewis Citizen of the Year award.
Photo: Recardo Thomas
Jim Woods came to Indianola to pastor a church.
In the 44 years since that decision, he has touched the lives of thousands of individuals, at home and on his frequent mission trips abroad.
Woods was the 2019 recipient of the Morris Lewis Citizen of the Year award at Indianola Chamber Main Street’s annual banquet on Tuesday night.
Humbled, Woods accepted the award with few words, only to say that knowing all those who had received the award over the past 25 years, it was truly an honor to join them.
Cindy Baird, of Community Bank, who was last year’s recipient of the award, introduced Woods.
“He has called Indianola his home for almost 44 years now, since his decision to pastor a church here,” Baird said. “This Eagle Scout graduated from the University of Mississippi and while there was very involved on the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ. Then a call to the ministry led him to the Dallas Theological Seminary. Much of his support there came from prayer groups here in Indianola. Because of the love and support shown to him, he decided to make Indianola his home.”
Along with pastoring the Dorsett Drive Christian Church, Woods would eventually go to work at Hull Brothers Clinic, now known as Indianola Family Medical Group, Baird said, along with teaching math and physics at Indianola Academy.
“Because of his college work experience as a programmer with IBM, his first job was to introduce new IBM computers to the clinic, later to become their business manager after Mrs. Joyce Hull’s retirement,” Baird said. “He persevered in his desire to pastor a church, teach High School physics and math classes, develop a modern, computerized medical clinic, all while raising four remarkable children.”
Later, he would begin his overseas mission work, responding to a call from his hometown of Calhoun City to become a minister on a team to Honduras, Baird said.
“He approached Dr. Walter Rose about joining him,” she said. “This experience changed his and Dr. Rose’s life. The first trip led them to Los Trojas on the Honduran and Nicaraguan border. These people had never seen a doctor, a dentist or a nurse.”
Now 38 years later, the Indianola team he and Dr. Rose formed when they returned from that first mission trip has touched the lives of tens of thousands of Hondurans, as they have built 25 churches and have drilled many water wells.
Woods was joined by his wife, Nancy McClatchy Woods and their family. They have six grown children and seven grandchildren.
