Judith Lee Patton Wood
Judith Lee Patton Wood passed away Dec. 10 in Las Cruces, N.M., at the age of 97. Judy was born June 6, 1923, in Ashland, Ky. She met her husband, Forrest Wood (Woody), at the high school rifle team dance. It was love at first sight for both of them.
During Woody’s term of service as an Army Air Corps pilot of a B29 bomber during WWII, they married in 1945. Woody received a scholarship to Socorro School of Mines and they made their way to New Mexico. After graduation, they lived in Hobbs and then Farmington. For the next 30-plus years, Woody worked there as a petroleum engineer for El Paso Natural Gas and Northwest Pipeline, and they raised their children, Hank and Ellen. Judy was a wonderful homemaker and also worked as a secretary for a U.S. congressman, a hospital and Red Cross volunteer, a Sunday school teacher and elder at First United Presbyterian Church, and a library assistant at Farmington High School. She and Woody were avid golfers