WOODARD, who hails originally from Indiana (USA) but currently makes his home in the Smoky Mountain area of eastern Tennessee, USA, was nurtured the youngest in a musical family of eleven children and numerous relatives. While a senior in high school, Tom became involved with the AVCO Broadcasting Corp. (Indianapolis), where he appeared as a regular cast member in the weekly television series, "Timothy Churchmouse", while simultaneously appearing in summer stock theater in the Indianapolis area.

Following graduation from high school (where he was highly active in musical theater and high school speech competition - being honored as one of the top ten speech students in the state in his senior year of high school), Tom attended a two-year community "Jr. College" (as they use to be commonly referred to) as a music and theater major before deciding to set out for Hollywood, California in pursuit of a professional career in the arts. Almost immediately after his arrival in Hollywood, Tom was signed by the then-famous Dibernardo Talent Agency, and during his relatively short time in California, he was involved in numerous projects - which included television (e.g. Tom appeared in the final television episodes of the once popular series - now in syndication, "The Beverly Hillbillies", which were filmed on location in Arkansas, and "Bracken's World", starring Dennis Coe, etc.), stage, studio work as a demo artist, and nightclub engagements with his lounge act, Public Transportation, which became a very high demand lounge act through out California during Tom's involvement with the group, and was the opening act on one memorable occasion for the once popular duo, SONY AND CHER, in Cher's hometown of Fresno, California. (Tom recalls, outside of meeting Cher, his equally most fond memory occurred while still in Indiana attending Jr. College when he had the opportunity of meeting Senator Robert Kennedy and wife, Ethel, two months before Kennedy's assassination when Bobby was running for the office of President in 1968 - and - performing at the Robert's Municiple Stadium in Evansville, Indiana at Kennedy's personal request before an estimated crowd of some 20,000 supporters. As an active "Young Democrat" member, Tom had been previously invited to attend a small private luncheon sponsored by the Civic Club in Vincennes, Indiana, with special guests Robert, Ethel, and Joan Kennedy. Tom had first performed at this special luncheon and was later personally asked by Senator Kennedy to travel to Evansville the following night to appear at the stadium to "hold the crowd" till his arrival. Stretching a planned 30 minute program to cover two and a half hours due to Kennedy's late arrival, rave reviews of Woodard's coliseum performance were published at the time in several Indiana newspapers, and a personal apology and thanks were provded personally by Senator Kennedy).

Over a course of several years, Tom has appeared in such comedy, musical, and dramatic stage productions as "Brigadoon", "Solid Gold Cadalac", "Barefoot In The Park", "The Mikado", "The Crucible", "One Foot In Heaven", "Gypsy", etc. Tom also studied dance and voice from the time he was a youngster, which eventually led him to compete professionally with the Arthur Murray and Fred Astaire dance organizations throughout the United States, winning numerous first place titles and earning a Gold Double Honors award for his dance achievements in American & Latin styles.

Tom eventually returned to college to finish his undergraduate degree in Communication Studies with a focus in Interpersonal, Organizational, and Business Communications, earning his Bachelor of Arts degree from Cal State University in 1986. With both an A.S. and B.A. now under his belt, Tom decided to continue on for a graduate communication degree, where he studied at both West Virginia University and Cal State. Even though his current involvement in the entertaiment business keeps him more than just a little occupied, Tom has his nose back in the books again, this time in the graduate program at University of Tennessee, where he hopes to earn his Ed.D. (doctorate) in Educational Psychology.

While a graduate student prior to attending Univ of Tenn, Tom financed his previous grad studies primarily through continued work in music and dance, appearing regularly as a lounge singer, and operating a dance club and studio (and teaching at other studios such as for Arthur Murray, Gene Kelly, and Fred Astaire). In addition, from 1987-1996, Tom served on the faculties at several leading universities, including Purdue University, West Virginia University, California State University, and University of Tennessee, as well as serving for six years at Pellissippi State College in Knoxville, TN. From 1988 till his move to Tennessee in 1990, Tom also produced twelve nationally marketed music sales and dance videos through Aba-Daba Productions.

While Tom's primary purpose for moving to Tennessee in 1990 was to attend graduate school at Univ of TN, he got sidetracked with his interested in finding a record label that could help him fulfill his long time interest in the country music recording industry. By 1993, Tom had his first country music single release on Allegheny Records (with promotion by Al Rita and the legendary Howard Vokes). In addition to recording for Allegheny Records, Woodard also had various releases on such labels as World International Records (WIR/Austria), NCMO (Sweden), StarQuest, BjD Records, and finally on his co-owned label, PHARAOH INTERNATIONAL, a label which has gained much recognition since 1995 when PHARAOH INTL RECORDS was awarded CMAA indie RECORD LABEL OF THE YEAR for the release of their first award winning volume in the GOLD RUSH COUNTRY compilation CD series, as well as winning Album of the Year for Gold Rush Country, volume #1, featuring such well known indie artists as Paul Mateki, P.J. Price, Lola Davis, Tom Stanko, Tony Garron, etc.

In addition to "Weekend Cowboy" and "She's My Number #1 Fan" - released first as singles and then again on volume #5 of GOLD RUSH COUNTRY, summer (1999), previous single releases (which Woodard also produced) that have received world-wide airplay in numerous countries (e.g. Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Germany, England, etc.) have included "Running On Empty", "Only One More Teardrop (Till I Fall)", "She's My X and I Know Y", "Tray Full of Ashes", "Sleeping Back To Back", etc. (Tom also hit the U.S. charts in 1993 with his first single release of "Weekend Cowboy", which reached position #23 and remained for two months, and later with "She's My #1 Fan", which hit the top 100 European chart at position #29 where it remained for over a month.)

To add to his numerous list of credits, Woodard made a move into artist management in 1995 and took on temporary management administration of country artist, Tony Garron. Producing an album ("Stop The Rain") on Garron in 1995, which made it to the European CMA top-30 album airplay chart (comprised at that time of 95% major artists), Woodard helped pave the road for Garron's 1995 CMAA award for "Rising Star-Modern Country" (awarded in Las Vegas at the Hacienda Hotel, where Garron and his band were featured performers on awards night), and booked Garron on a tour of the West Coast and Canada, sharing the stage with such major artists as Doug Supernaw and Michele Wright. Woodard is currently working on a promotional campaign for artist/SONGWRITER, BOB BERNSTEIN and preparing a promotional project for two female artists: Barbara Morrison (album due for release summer, 2001, and long-time personal friend and extremely talented artist, Lola Davis. Tom also worked on the release of a pop-rock album (July, 2000) with Dain Carlton Mergenthaler on the Pharaoh label.

TOM WOODARD has many and varied interests. As a high school and undergrad college student, Tom was highly active in music, drama and speech, and won numerous championship awards on both the state and national levels for excellence in Dramatic Interpretation, Original Oratory, Reader's Theater, and Persuasion, which eventually led him to pursue a degree in the communication discipline.
He is an affiliate of both BMI (Steinwood Publishing) and ASCAP (Goliath Alliance Group), and a member of the Sons of the American Revolution (his grandfather ancestor, George Fruits, was the last known survivor of the American Revolution who is listed in the 1977 "GUINESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS"and lived to be 114 years of age, according to official record.
Tom is also currently working on a new album centered around the life and times of his ancestor and to be titled, "ALAMO GEORGE: Last of the Original Frontiersmen", in addition to being in current production for his own "true-blue country" CD album (lots of fiddle and old fashion country sound, reminiscent of the days when country super stars Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, Faron Young, etc. graced the daily country charts). Tom hopes that both albums will be complete and available for sale over the internet, etc. within the year.