Wanda Woodard

Bio:

Now enjoying the second half of the first century of her life here on earth, Wanda Woodard spent the first 13 years on the planet traveling from state to state and country to country. By the time she was 12 years old, she'd lived on three continents and had moved over 20 times. (No, really - 20 times). This makes for an open mind and a huge fear of commitment. A college graduate, Wanda began her career as a broadcast journalist for the Alabama Public Television Network in Montgomery, Alabama. She dreamed of being Barbara Walters and working in Washington D.C.

Three years later she was writing copy at a commercial television station and doing voice-over work on the side, and the rest is history.

Having worked for NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and a very short stint with the WB, Wanda has been a writer, voice-over talent, producer, editor, promotions director, events planner, and television ad sales rep for over 28 years. Then, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 television and radio commercials, a few hundred print collateral pieces, five full length documentaries and a couple of million dollars in ad sales later, Hurricane Katrina booted her right off the Mississippi Gulf Coast and back to family in Middle Tennessee.

She's won lots of awards for advertising, but her finest awards came for a grassroots television project of the National Veterans History Project. She loves veterans, especially the men and women who served in WWII; they don't make ‘em like that anymore!

She's had what some might call a glamorous career, but, ironically, she's more the Mother Earth type. She just didn't know it until she married at 38 and popped out two babies, one of each, and became a mom.

Her full time career, the one that pays the bills, is Marketing & Business Development Director for a large family owned and operated pest control company, Ameri Care Services, Inc., in Murfreesboro.

She's happy almost all the time, but certainly since recovering from her divorce. Her son is 11, and her daughter is 12. They have one dog, one cat, and an undetermined number of sea monkeys.

She reads fiction and trade journals; hikes quite a bit in the spring, summer and fall; loves her pooch, Brittney, almost as much as her children; believes in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit but sins frequently. She likes a Stoli Bloody Mary with salt on the rim and extra lime. She's a sucker for homemade peanut butter fudge and Mayfield Blue Cheese. She sings in public.

She's an advocate of Prozac and eight hours of uninterrupted sleep a night.

And if you're really interested, you can catch a glimpse of her life in a work of fiction called Time Off for Good Behavior (2003, Warner Press) by Lani Diane Rich. She was her dear friend's inspiration so much so that the heroine's name is even Wanda whose crazy ex-husband from Alaska is trying to kill her. It makes a great bedtime story.