Becky Long • Clay County Progress Former sheriff Tony Woody relaxes at the Clay County Progress office as he recalls moments in his life and the 23 years he spent at the helm of the sheriff’s office. He was in town for his granddaughter Faith’s high school graduation.
By Deby Jo Ferguson
Staff Writer
Tony Woody retired from the Clay County Sheriff’s Office after serving as sheriff the longest time in the county’s history. Now Woody, who has survived several health scares, is happily spending his days working again — this time on a large farm in Kentucky where he settled after he left office.
Woody, 77, is the son of the late Kathleen and Robert Woody. He has one son, Anthony and Tony is married to Jacqueline Woody.
Tony lived his passion for the rodeo for 32 years and he raised cattle, fulfilling dreams from his childhood. In 2019 the Sheriff Tony M. Woody Law Enforcement Center was dedicated in his honor for being at the helm of law enforcement service 1984 to 2006. Long before all these accomplishments, Tony was the local barber before he was appointed sheriff.
“Cutting people’s hair, I probably knew about everybody in town. It was then that I was asked to take over the job as sheriff of Clay County. I told them to give me a week to think about it, but living in a small town immediately everyone that walked in to get their haircut asked if I was going to take the job. So much for secrets,” Tony laughed.
Of course Tony made the decision to take the job and so another career took root.
“I wouldn’t want to be sheriff again now, but I know I accomplished some good things when I was. We treated inmates like they should be treated, with the respect we wanted,” said Tony. “Although I didn’t have law enforcement experience, I had a lot of help from people like District Attorney Marcellus Buchanan III, attorney Jerry Townson, of Cherokee County, and I leaned on Melvin Cantrell a lot,” Tony said.
“It was scary going in as sheriff with people asking questions I sometimes didn’t know the answers to. I probably did a lot of things I wasn’t supposed to in the beginning, but I learned as I continued for the next 23 years as sheriff,” he said.
Tony played a major role in my life and gave me the opportunity to continue working for the next 10 years at the jail. He created a good working environment throughout the department.
“Back then at the sheriff’s department we were like a big family. We growled at each other but it didn’t mean a thing in the world,” Tony recalled. “Every morning I had a meeting with the deputies who were coming on duty and leaving. I tried to always know what was going on. If you didn’t have those meetings you didn’t know. I worked at the sheriff’s office from 7 a.m. until about 3 p.m. then would go home and cut hay or whatever needed done then come back and work from 6 p.m. until 11 or 12 p.m.”
While Tony managed to combine hard work with a little fun, he admits there were difficult aspects to serving as sheriff.
“There were hard times like when you had to serve a warrant on one of your friends who got into trouble. If I knew someone who had a warrant I didn’t go out and drag ‘em in with handcuffs. I’d give them a call and told em they had a warrant and needed to stop by so we could take care of this problem and nine out of 10 times they did,” he said.
Is there a difference to being sheriff today and years ago?
“There’s a lot of difference,” Tony said. “There’s so many people here now you don’t know them all. Back then I knew about everyone and when someone new moved in I would make it a point to go out and introduce myself . Some of the clubs in the residential areas would invite me to come speak at their gatherings to the people who had moved to the area. I couldn’t solve all their needs, but I was there to listen and it gave me a chance to know what was going on in the community. That goes a long way.”
To say that Tony had an open door policy is an understatement.
“Nobody that knew me came in front door at the sheriff’s office, they always came in the back door asking to see the sheriff and if I was there I always took the time to listen. Sometimes people came in and would tell me, ‘I got a little cold and need a little of the cough medicine,’ one of those was Wallace Long,” Tony laughed, noting one of his many roles.
“We delivered commodities (cheese) once a month to the folks who weren’t able to get out and pick it up. One good friend of mine who I cut his hair after he got sick even after I became sheriff, called and told me he had the worst cough and would I mind bringing him a little cough medicine when I brought his commodities. I told him sure and emptied out a Mountain Dew bottle and filled it up with some of that cough medicine.
“I took out 15 bags that day to homebound people and when I got back to the office my friend called and asked me why I didn’t bring his cough medicine. I told him to look in the bag, but he said it wasn’t in there. I thought, oh goodness who have I given that bag to? The next month when commodities came in this elderly lady called the office and left a message saying, ‘Will you tell that nice sheriff to bring me some more of that cough medicine he brought last time,;” Tony laughed.
Sometimes Tony’s kindness backfired on him.
“This other lady that I rented land from for my cattle called one day and told me to bring her some cough medicine. Said she had the flu and needed it for her throat. I took it to her and went home for dinner. When I came back to the office one of the deputies Doyce Waters came in and said, ‘I ought to kick your butt, you know where I have been?’ I had to go out to old miss lady’s house and there she was in the floor drunk as a skunk. She had drank the whole bottle,” Tony laughed.
Along with stress, happy and funny times there are also sad memories from his time as sheriff.
“We were some of the luckiest people in the world. At one time compared to the population we led the state of North Carolina in solving crimes. For seven years we didn’t have a murder here, then after that we had four. One of the saddest crimes I remember was when we had that killing across Cold Branch. This guy shot his ex-wife’s husband, shot her and then shot himself,” he said quietly. “We went up there and went through the house. The lady and her ex-husband were laying out front. There was a little boy about 6 or 7 years old sitting in the house and I asked him where his daddy was and he said, ‘He’s in the back yard, dead.’ That was so sad for that little fellow.”
Tony always knew that to have a good office you had to have good help and Tony is happying talking about some of those who stood out.
“I guess if I had to name some of my best deputies it would be Doyce Waters, Melvin Cantrell, Fred Green, Mike Arrendale, Travis Anderson, Terry Murray and Tony Ellis.
“Sometimes Melvin came into the office with some of the funniest stuff in the world, but he was smart. I have a lot of funny memories about Melvin like the time he went on a call of a suspected intruder in this lady’s house. Melvin and her walked through the house, opened the bathroom door and Melvin saw his face in the mirror and screamed. After he screamed she screamed and then she took off running, jumped into her car and left,” Tony laughed.
“But in all honesty Melvin was a good officer because he understood people and was good working with them. He also helped me a lot when I first became sheriff.
“Mike Arrendale was a good investigator, he was hot and cold depending on the day. Me and Mike would get into the biggest ruckus with each other there ever was,” Tony said. “One time I sent him down to Georgia to pick up someone I got a lead on a breaking and entering in the county. I told Mike to go down there and don’t come back until you bring someone back with you. Finally he called and said he had two people arrested, it’s all solved. Mike was different every day, sometimes he’d talk you to death and if he had something on his mind he didn’t talk to anyone but he did a good job.
“Tony Ellis was someone you could always count on. Whatever he told you he did. He had such good ethics and went to church every Sunday. Ellis was a good fellow and a good deputy,” said Tony.
“Doyce Waters was like a father figure and I went to church where he preached. I’d ask him sometimes what do you think we need to do about this or that and we’d figure it out with a good solution. Doyce did what reflected good on me like I wanted done. He was a good investigator when he wanted to,” Tony said with a smile.
“Audrey Shelton was the jail administrator and we aggravated her to death. We shouldn’t have done it but she loved every minute of it,” he said. “One time she came over to the office just a coughing. She smoked all the time so she had that cough. Melvin told me to give her a sip of that cough medicine and it helped her. Then she started coughing again so Melvin poured her another shot of it. Suddenly someone yelled back to Audrey that the jail inspector was there waiting on her and she panicked. That tickled me to death,” he said.
In addiiton to good workers, Tony believed that it was important to be out in and know your community. “You have to get to know your community to find out what’s going on,” he said. “You have to listen to the complaints even if you don’t have the ability to fix them all. “
Tony also had a solid relationship with neighboring law enforcement agencies. Surrounding county sheriffs joined together for a monthly dinner to communicate with each other.
“I had a good relationship with the sheriffs from surrounding counties which helped all of us. Sheriff Thompson from Cherokee County would probably stop by a couple times a week; Towns County, Union and Macon County sheriffs would come by the office at least once a week, then we had our monthly luncheon meetings. This close line of communication really helped us help each other,” Tony said.
Tony said the decision to retire after 23 years wasn’t as difficult as one might think.
“I had decided a year before I retired that I had all I wanted. It was time that I wanted to do what I wanted to do in my life, so at age 59 I retired,” he said. “My main two interests from the time I was a kid was rodeos and raising cattle.
“I went to visit Kentucky with a friend of mine and knew from that moment Kentucky was where I wanted to live when I retired. I had rented land my whole adult life to keep my cattle on and this looked like the perfect place to raise cattle. As far as your eye could see there was nothing but farm land. After retiring I got eight horses, 150 cows and a 500 acre farm to keep them on.”
Still, getting older is not for sissies. Tony has had his ups and downs during his retirement. After moving to Kentucky, Tony fought cancer twice, back surgery and a heart attack, among other issues which all ran consecutively.
“I never once gave up. I kept thinking I would get back to driving my tractor while going through all these setbacks not realizing how sick I really was at the time. If it hadn’t been for my son Anthony and daughter-in-law April I would have never made it,” Tony said.
“I never thought about getting old, I always had good health my whole life. There’s still a lot I can’t do that I want to but I haven’t got any complaints. If I had been a young person when I faced all the illness I might not have made it. Actually, I jumped out of bed the other morning feeling like a young man and that felt good. I don’t do that every day but it sure feels good when I do,” he said.