- December 4, 2025
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He’s a two-time Oklahoma Sooners national champion. He was in Hawaii during the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. He traveled to China, Vietnam and France to name a few. A talented pilot, and he excelled at horseback riding.
Back home in Longboat Key, he was ever-presently involved in his community. He served as town commissioner and president of the Kiwanis Club. But his accomplishments, experiences and talents aren’t what Woody Wolverton will be remembered for.
It’s his big heart.
“If he saw something he thought he could fix, he was kind of all in,” Woody’s step-daughter Jessica Ross said. “He’s helped out so many in the community.”
Many who knew Woody repeated that sentiment. He was a helper.
“He was very generous with nonprofit organizations with his time for certain and philanthropic with any organizations he was part of,” said Kiwanis member Susan Phillips. “Kiwanis had their pancake breakfast and their Lawn Parties. He was always the guy working the events, selling raffle tickets, flipping pancakes at the pancake breakfast. Those are our biggest fundraisers. He would do anything he could to help.”
Wolverton died at his home on Longboat Key on Monday. He was 91. His impact on the community he moved to in the late 80s with $25 in his pocket is hard to overstate.
Starting his post-Army career running a furniture store in Oklahoma, he packed up and moved down south after the stock market crashed in the fall of 1987.
He built homes, was a financial advisor, then became a stockbroker.
But his involvement in the community is what he’s best known for in Longboat. He was on the board of zoning adjustment before serving on the town commission from 1991 to 1993.
He was a huge advocate of the Kiwanis, working the phones on the club’s behalf, doing his darnedest to sell tables and tickets to the nonprofit’s annual fundraisers.
He wanted to help kids, and he did. The causes that the Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key benefited “shifted to scholarships for young adults in our community, and later to supporting foster children across our region—an enduring legacy that continues to change lives today,” wrote Kiwanis president Michael Garey. A member of the Longboat Kiwanis club since 1990, Wolverton stayed involved for decades.
“Late in his life, with what breath he had, he used to raise money for foster children,” said Kiwanis member Lynn Larson.
He was born in Lawton, Oklahoma, where much of his family is and has been for generations. Though he moved away decades ago, Woody is still remembered in the Sooner state. He was a two-time national champion for the Oklahoma Sooners football team in 1955 and 1956 during their remarkable 47-game win streak that spanned five seasons. Back then, they didn’t give out championship rings to students.
“They gave him a blanket,” Sue Wolverton recalled.
Six decades later, Woody got his ring and was honored for his both-sides-of-the-ball play — he was a center and linebacker — with an on-field ceremony with the rest of the team during the 2016 football season.
He loved to fly, and his skills matched his passion. Woody would fly recreationally late into his life, last taking to the skies at the age of 85. When he earned his type rating to fly a Citation 2, a twinjet engine, the FAA told him he was the oldest to do so at the age of 80.
“He was the most phenomenal pilot that I’ve ever flown with,” Sue said. “Even the people that trained him said he could (land) it on glass.”
His talent in the cockpit eventually intersected with his love for Sooners football. He flew Sooner coaches like Barry Switzer around the state to visit prospects. His last flight was with former Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley on a recruiting visit.
He had been flying since the late 50s. He served his country as a pilot in the Army for eight years. Owning a plane of his own was a lifelong dream fulfilled, Brendan said.
Woody loved telling stories about his escapades. One impressive tale that The Observer could not confirm explains how one of the most iconic landmarks of the West Coast was completed in 1961. Woody swore to friends and family that the "needle" on the top of Seattle's Space Needle was placed there. This occured while he, a 27-year-old pilot for the Army stationed at a base in Washington, piloted a helicopter holding the last piece of the needle while four workers stood atop the structure guiding the heavy metal beam into place and screwing it down.
A far-fetched tale? Yes. Somehow still believable coming from Woody? Also yes.
A formative experience in Woody’s life happened when he was just 7 years old. After being uprooted from Oklahoma to stay with his father, who was on active duty in Hawaii, Woody woke up to one of the most consequential scenes in American history.
Wolverton said that on Dec. 7, 1941, he looked out of the window and saw Japanese planes strafing the fields outside. He went and woke up his mother and father. Women and children, including Woody, were loaded onto a bus that was painted Black to hide from the invaders above and taken away from the fighting to a mountain.
“They lived off of the land,” Sue said. “So he still didn’t eat fruit until the time he passed away.”
He was a dedicated family man. His son, Brendan Wolverton, said he would drive his RV to take the kids and grandkids to sporting events far and wide. Brendan remembers a family trip to a lake in Texas in 1969 when the boat his father was piloting ran into a submerged drum barrel full of cement, destroying the lower unit of the engine.
“He drives all night long. He found a dealer who had a lower unit that was willing to replace it,” Brendan said. “Dad jumps in the truck, drives to Houston which is about a six, seven-hour drive. Drives all day, they replace the lower unit and he’s there by the following evening. He had to be up about 36 hours and spent several days getting the boat fixed and had it back so we could ski and enjoy the rest of the vacation.”
Brendan said he was a parent who led by example. When Brendan stubbornly refused to take his piano lessons, Woody signed up for piano lessons of his own, which nudged Brendan to give it a go. His grandkids called him Papa Woody, and his dual-faceted way of showing his love for them can be explained from a story Brendan tells of when Woody sent all his Christmas gifts up to Oklahoma for his grandchildren to open… with a condition.
“They had to pass an etiquette test before they opened the presents,” Brendan said. “Some of the questions were hard even for me, but I never saw kids so excited to take a test.”
Woody met his third wife, Sue Louis, when he came into her office to complain about a realtor. “All I’m gonna tell you is that if she worked for me, I’d fire her,” Woody told Sue. That meeting stuck with Sue who, two and a half years later, asked the secretary if that man who walked into her office back then was single. While he didn’t remember the five-minute meeting between the two very well, he agreed to meet Sue for a date at Patty George’s. Football was on all the TVs (it was the end of college football season) and Woody asked Sue if she supported a team.
The University of Oklahoma.
“He said you’re full of bull,” Sue remembers. “I said no, my kids went there and my daughter graduated from the University of Oklahoma. He said so did I.”
Then they found out they were both pilots, though Woody was a little more experienced in that regard. He asked how many flight hours she had, and she responded 450.
“I have that many hours upside down and backwards,” she remembers him responding.
After a wonderful first date, Sue told Woody she was moving to Atlanta the next day. That didn’t stop the two. He called her every day.
He loved his family, his football, his flying. And he loved his dogs, always having at least a pair of Bichon Frisé as companions. One night, Woody tragically lost one of his beloved dogs after being caught under the pool cover.
“He called me crying and he said I need you, I just really need you,” Sue said. “He told me the puppy was seven months old and died, and he needed me to be there. I flew back to Atlanta and never left him.”
Sue and Woody were married on New Years Day, 2006.
“His love for Sue was above all things, and I really think the cornerstone of his life was his dedication and commitment to his wife and it was wonderful to see,” Phillips said. “He had a big heart.”
Unsurprisingly, Woody shared the love that his dogs emanated with kids in need, training them as therapy dogs to comfort those bedridden in the hospital.
Woody had many friends on Longboat he would golf with, watch football with and eat with. Each Sunday after church he would host a barbecue. His friends describe him as outgoing, funny, memorable.
“You ever meet somebody that after you met him you feel like you knew him your whole life? He was just an iconic individual,” said his friend Joe McElmeel.
“He was just a nice guy. Nice to everybody. He loved bragging on his friends,” said Roger Lutz, another of Woody’s longtime friends on the key. “He would tell people his doctor is the best doctor in the world. I was the best lawyer in the world.”
Another thing on Woody’s long list of accomplishments was being a founding board member of the Sarasota Military Academy.
It’s hard to describe Woody Wolverton in a news article. But when asked what he was like, multiple people repeated one description:
“Woody is Woody.”
A memorial service for Woody will be held at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 27 at St. Mary, Star of the Sea in Longboat Key.
