Stephen Wood

Stephen Wray Wood served as a Republican member of the North Carolina General Assembly representing the state's sixty-first House district, including constituents in Guilford county. Wood served eight terms in the State House from 1984–2005. Before election to the NC House he served as Professor of History and Education and Assistant Academic Dean at John Wesley College, High Point, North Carolina.

He has served as a minister in Quaker (Friends) and United Methodist Churches for over 40 years. In 2013, Wood became Co-Founder of Global Missions Group (GMG) an interdenominational non-profit based in North Carolina, with a mission "to build churches that otherwise would not be built." (www.facebook.com/globalmissionsgroup) The first project was a church built in the village of Santa Isabel, Brazil, in August 2015. GMG's most recent project was a partnership with the missions agency, Extreme Nazarene, to build a new church in Manta, Ecuador, in March 20l6). www.facebook.com/globalmissionsgroup

During his 16-year tenure in the North Carolina State House, Wood was elected Speaker Pro Tem, 1997–1999, the second Republican elected to that post during the 20th century. He became the first Republican Chairman of the House Education Committee in 1995, leading the legislature to establish landmark Charter School legislation and cut the size of the State Department of Public Instruction bureaucracy nearly by half. As part of the Japan Learning Group, he traveled with the Public School Forum in l995 to Japan, consulting with educational and political leaders in that country regarding educational reform.

He was selected a member of the Oxford International Roundtable on Education convened at Oxford University in 1999. Governor Jim Martin presented Wood the Order of the Longleaf Pine, the highest civilian award given by the state of North Carolina.

Wood is a US Army veteran, (1970–1971). He served as a Veterans Service Officer for the State of North Carolina Division of Veterans Affairs, (1987–1989). He was elected as Vice-Chairman of the Guilford County Republican Party, (1980–1984), and served on the North Carolina Republican Party Executive Committee.

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