Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed School Board Candidate for District 2, Mark Woodward in studio to talk about his background.
Leahy: In-studio, we are delighted to welcome to our microphones Mark Woodward. Mark is a candidate for the Metro National Public School Board in District 2. Good morning, Mark. How are you doing?
Woodward: Good morning, Michael. Thanks for having me on.
Leahy: We are delighted to have you in here, Mark. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do for a living?
Woodward: I was born in Atlanta and raised in Dalton, Georgia, and I moved to Nashville in 2001 to attend Belmont University.
Leahy: You moved to Nashville, let’s be clear now, 21 years ago?
Woodward: Yes, 21 years ago.
Leahy: You moved to Belmont. So I moved here in 1991.
Woodward: You got a decade on me.
Leahy: Why did you want to come to study at Belmont?
Woodward: Everything with Belmont clicked. I was being recruited by another school to run track and cross country, but I wanted to play music. And so I toured Belmont on a high school college tour, and everything just clicked for me there.
Leahy: It’s a nice campus, isn’t it?
Woodward: Yes. It’s beautiful.
Leahy: And it’s in Nashville. Don’t tell me what race you did, but you’re a tall guy. You’re in really good shape, slim. I’m going to guess that you probably ran the 440.
Woodward: That’s a really good guess. It was an even longer distance than that. The three-mile is my sweet spot. But I was good in high school. I was maybe the fastest fifth man on my high school team, if that tells you anything.
Leahy: I know what you mean by that.
Woodward: I could have played baseball.
Leahy: What did you play in baseball?
Woodward: I was a pitcher. I was in the division.
Leahy: Lefty or righty?
Woodward: I was a righty.
Leahy:Â Did you have a good curveball?
Woodward: Oh, yeah. I threw mainly the curveball.
Leahy: Really?
Woodward: I didn’t have a lot of power.
Leahy: But you had a good curveball?
Woodward: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Leahy: I pitched a little bit in high school, a long time ago. Not at that level at all. I threw like a couple of good curveballs in my entire career. (Laughter) How did you develop the curveball?
Woodward: You know, I had a really good coach, and I practiced a lot. I practiced a lot. I loved it. Love the game.
Leahy: So you’re a sports guy. You came here. Did you run track here at Belmont?
Woodward: I ran track at Belmont, yeah. But I wanted to study music and I wanted to be in the honors program, which is a lot to do all at the same time.
And so I ended up running instead of playing baseball because if you’re playing baseball, you got to be there at practice times. If you’re running, you can go …
Leahy: You can do your own schedule. And so did you, like, run? What was your event?
Woodward: We have a mile at Belmont. I did the 5K and the 8K. It was normally college distance. We won the Atlantic Sun Championship while I was there. Not due to my participation, I can tell you that.
Leahy: Do you still run?
Woodward: I do. I try to.
Leahy: Ever run a marathon?
Woodward: Not yet.
Leahy: You wouldn’t know it by looking at me right now, today. But I’ve run 10 marathons in my life.
Woodward: Really?
Leahy: I ran Boston. I ran New York. I ran the Marine Corps. My best time, 2:48, Yeah, you’re looking at me saying “no.”
Woodward: 2:48 is fast.
Leahy: Yeah, it was like the best athletic performance of my life ever.
Woodward: Wow, that’s impressive.
Leahy: It was 40 years ago, my friend.
Woodward: That’s amazing.
Leahy: So you came here. What have you done here since?
Woodward: I got out of college and I went on tour with a band. It was a Christian band and, always wanted to play music.
Leahy: What’s your instrument?
Woodward: I play keyboard and sing background vocals. And then I toured for a couple of years and then decided I really wanted to kind of help people and do something that was a little less being a star, being onstage.
And so I lived in a really impoverished area of town, and so I quit my job just on faith, and I did a lot of work with kids in the neighborhood and the homeless.
Leahy: We’ll talk about that more and we’ll talk about District 2, why you’re running and what your policy proposals would be.
To learn more about Mark Woodward visit Woodward4schools.com
Listen to the interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
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