This column serves as a spotlight, highlighting the everyday people who work and live in Callaway County. The Fulton Sun takes a moment with someone who is not usually featured in the news but is just as instrumental in making our community the strong and beautiful place we all know and love.
William Woolery, 66, passed through Memorial Park during a 6-mile walk Monday. A frequent walker and avid fisherman, Woolery moved to Fulton about nine months ago. Woolery, who is retired, has three children, seven grandchildren and one great-grandson.
Q: What was your first job?
My first job was a cook at Howard Johnson's in Lake of the Ozarks.
Q: Who inspires you most?
I guess my dad really. He taught me to shoot and to fish. He taught me all of life's lessons. He wanted me to do right.
Q: What have you done in life that was most fulfilling?
Probably when I worked on the golf course. I went to be a superintendent of a golf course in Arkansas. I was over everything - putting in the greens and the tees and the fairways The golf course, it's got a lot of similarities - it has diseases. (When grass is diseased), they have a different smell, they have a different taste. I don't know about human diseases, I've never tasted any of those. But we did taste the grass and people look at you like you're crazy. But every disease in the grass has a different taste and smell. I helped build three golf courses, in Arkansas, St. Louis and Lake of the Ozarks.
Q: What is something you are proud of or that you've been recognized for?
Well I've been proud all my life of the jobs that I did. A lot of people don't feel this way, but I take pride in everything I do - when I was working at Waterloo in Sedalia making tool boxes, when I was building greens in golf courses, when I was cooking meals. Everything I take pride in. And my kids are the same. I taught them the same respects and I've never heard a bad word about my children.
Q: What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt?
Well, my son, he got a master's degree in mathematical analysis. That's a pretty interesting job. It's all with mathematics, of course. He works for an insurance company and he teaches managers how to manage people.
I think an interesting job would be an engineer. Maybe any of them, mechanical, electrical, hydraulics. Engineering is not a bad field.
Q: What profession would you not like to do?
I've done them all, so I don't know. I don't know if there's any job that would be a bad job. It just depends on your attitude. If you're attitude is right, I think any job would be a good job. Maybe it wouldn't be the perfect job, but you could work yourself up into a good job with it. I think you can survive any job, whether it's a dirty job or a hard job. I've worked some jobs that were pretty tough. But factory jobs are really, really tough. They push you until there's nothing left. I've had a lot of jobs that weren't much fun, but I became proficient at them.
Q: What is something no one knows about you?
Well, nobody can guess my age But I wouldn't guess I can walk five to 10 miles a day. I do every day. I have to walk because about a year ago I had a bypass surgery I was walking one day and the phone figure so I pick it out of my pocket. I'm on the side of the road and I went pfff - fell off into the ditch. I look up at the sky and I see all these clouds, and I'm going, "Hmm that's kind of a strange thing that happened to me."
I'm on my home now. I'm about a mile away. I walk five to 10 miles a day. They wouldn't guess I can walk that far. Nobody would guess I can walk that far, not even the kids who know me pretty good.
Q: What is your favorite thing about Callaway County?
I've been here a little over nine months. Well, the church probably is my favorite thing - that's my favorite thing about everything. The church is probably the most important thing to me. I go to Cornerstone Apostolic Church.