The town of

Brooks, in a proclamation issued Aug. 8, will honor one of its own this

Sunday, Vernon Gray Woods.

The event will

be at the town meeting hall, formerly Hardy Hall, with an open house from

3 - 5 p.m.

Woods was born

in Brooks Dec. 12, 1919 to James Benjamin Woods, 1887-1966, and Lois Jones

Woods, 1888-1970. Both of his parents were of pioneer Fayette families

in that area.

He interrupted

his college career to serve for more than three years as an aerial cartographer

and photographer for the United States Air Force's Flying Tigers in World

War II. Operating principally in the India-Burma-China theater, he flew

many dangerous bombing missions over the Himalayan "Hump."

Resuming his

education after the war, he was graduated from the University of Georgia

in 1948 with a major in agricultural engineering and minors in electrical

engineering, machine design and hydraulics.

He returned

to Brooks in 1950 and began over a 30-year career in agriculture, raising

beef cattle and operating the largest independent poultry enterprise in

Georgia. His enterprises offered many jobs to Brooks area residents.

He married

Ruth Von Strobel, 1911-1959, in 1943 and they had two children, Von Strobel

Woods and Cathy Jane Woods. His wife taught school in the Brooks District

School until her death in 1959. He married Ima Otwell Woods, 1915-2001,

in 1961.

Along with

his father, Mayor James B. Woods, he participated in the reactivation

of the Brooks Town Charter in 1964 and he served as a councilman from

1965 until 1988. He has been a lifelong member of the Brooks Christian

Church.

The public

is invited to the celebration.