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Retired TNG President James Woods Dies at 89
James B. Woods, who served two years as president of The Newspaper Guild in the late 1960s, died Aug. 1 after a fall at his home in University City, Mo. He was 89.
A retired editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the husband of former Missouri Lt. Gov. Harriett Woods, James Woods had a reputation as a die-hard newspaperman who spent his retirement years critiquing the daily newspaper from his living room chair.
“He would read a copy of the newspaper, and I mean every word of every page,” his son, Andy Woods, told the Post-Dispatch.
At TNG-CWA, Woods is remembered as an active union member who took on numerous leadership roles. He began as a shop steward in 1950 while working as a reporter at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and moved on to serve the Guild at virtually every level.
After serving as a unit chair, local president and vice president of the Guild’s Midwestern Region 3 in 1955, Woods was elected to the International Executive Board. He was promptly chosen to chair the key collective bargaining committee, a role he filled for the next 12 years.
“There are few in the history of the Guild who have had greater impact on the Guild’s collective bargaining program,” Guild member Rollin Everett said in nominating Woods to become the Guild’s eighth president in 1967.
After two years in office, Woods became the Guild’s first international chairman by acclamation in 1969, serving four years.
Born in Sturgeon, Mo., Woods worked his way through school in the middle of the Great Depression, becoming the first person in his family to graduate from college. His first reporting job was at the Journal Gazette in Mattoon, Ill., as a gossip columnist, among other assignments.
After 10 years at the Globe-Democrat, Woods was hired by the Post-Dispatch in 1953, where he edited an out-of-state edition for 17 years. He later served as a copy editor until retiring in 1978.
In addition to his wife of 49 years — a former reporter and subsequent state senator, lieutenant governor and president of the National Women’s Political Caucus — Woods is survived by three sons and eight grandchildren. His ashes were to be spread on the eighth hole of a golf course where he twice scored a hole-in-one.
A retired editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the husband of former Missouri Lt. Gov. Harriett Woods, James Woods had a reputation as a die-hard newspaperman who spent his retirement years critiquing the daily newspaper from his living room chair.
“He would read a copy of the newspaper, and I mean every word of every page,” his son, Andy Woods, told the Post-Dispatch.
At TNG-CWA, Woods is remembered as an active union member who took on numerous leadership roles. He began as a shop steward in 1950 while working as a reporter at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and moved on to serve the Guild at virtually every level.
After serving as a unit chair, local president and vice president of the Guild’s Midwestern Region 3 in 1955, Woods was elected to the International Executive Board. He was promptly chosen to chair the key collective bargaining committee, a role he filled for the next 12 years.
“There are few in the history of the Guild who have had greater impact on the Guild’s collective bargaining program,” Guild member Rollin Everett said in nominating Woods to become the Guild’s eighth president in 1967.
After two years in office, Woods became the Guild’s first international chairman by acclamation in 1969, serving four years.
Born in Sturgeon, Mo., Woods worked his way through school in the middle of the Great Depression, becoming the first person in his family to graduate from college. His first reporting job was at the Journal Gazette in Mattoon, Ill., as a gossip columnist, among other assignments.
After 10 years at the Globe-Democrat, Woods was hired by the Post-Dispatch in 1953, where he edited an out-of-state edition for 17 years. He later served as a copy editor until retiring in 1978.
In addition to his wife of 49 years — a former reporter and subsequent state senator, lieutenant governor and president of the National Women’s Political Caucus — Woods is survived by three sons and eight grandchildren. His ashes were to be spread on the eighth hole of a golf course where he twice scored a hole-in-one.