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 and United Methodist Churches for 35 years. Wood was elected as Speaker Pro Tem of the North Carolina House in 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. He was selected a member of the Oxford International Roundtable on Education convened at Oxford University in 1999. In 1992, Governor Jim Martin presented Wood the Order of the Longleaf Pine, the highest civilian award given by the state of North Carolina.