The Rev. Dr. Fred Emerson Wood was born May 6, 1928, in Herndon, West Virginia. The constants in his life were faith, family and service. He left home at the age of 17 to serve the first of two tours in the U.S. Navy during World War II and the Korean Conflict. He struggled with the inequalities and injustices he witnessed. They were particularly profound in the discrimination of African-Americans while growing up in a mining community and in his teenage years in Beckley where he graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School.
Wood attended West Virginia Wesleyan College and was assigned as the pastor of five small United Methodist churches near Buckhannon. He graduated in 1955 and went on to the Boston University School of Theology to pursue his master of divinity degree. He met a young seminarian who was completing his Ph. D. by the name of Martin Luther King Jr.
Wood served 43 years as an ordained clergyman in the United Methodist Church. The last 18 years of active ministry were served as senior pastor at Johnson Memorial United Methodist Church where he retired in June 1996.
He marched with civil rights advocates in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. He organized and served as the president of the Human Rights Commission in Wheeling. Nationally, he served on the General Commission and chaired the Annual Conference Committee on racial inclusiveness.
Wood was a member of the Martin Luther King Jr. West Virginia Holiday Commission for four years, serving on the Living the Dream Awards Committee and the Ecumenical Service of Commemoration and Celebration. A highlight of Wood's professional career was in 2003 when he was presented the Governor's Martin Luther King Jr. Living the Dream Advocate of Peace Award. In 1997, Wood was appointed executive director of Mission West Virginia, Inc., a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is to serve West Virginians in need. He retired from the position in 2002 and serves as a consultant.
He has served on many state boards assisting with helping underprivileged individuals, including the Governor's Council on Literacy and as co-chair of the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources Foster Parent Campaign. Wood has been a member of the Huntington Rotary Club since 1978, serving as president in 1983-84 and honored as a Paul Harris Fellow in 1990.
