Almost all of the people who came into the hospice house Monday afternoon for an award ceremony had a sunburn. Work out in the sun your whole life, like Ed Woodward did and all these other surveyors do, your skin turns to leather.
This was an award ceremony unlike any other. There was no podium, no catered chicken dinner. The guest of honor couldn't even attend.
Because Rock Hill's Edward F. Woodward was in Room 2 at the hospice house. The 63-year-old, so good to so many in the surveying trade in York, Chester, and Lancaster counties for more than 40 years, has bone cancer. His wife, Joy, said he's been fighting it for a year and was moved not many days ago to Hospice & Community Care.
Back in May, surveyors from around the state decided that Woodward — “one of the deans of surveying,” in the words of fellow surveyor Tim Kaiser — should be honored with the South Carolina Society of Professional Land Surveyors Life Service Award.
It is the biggest deal in this trade that most people know by those people seen out in the weather, with those yellow tripods, mapping out the land. Woodward's work is seen on so many of the roads people drive on — Interstate 95, S.C. 5, S.C. 274, more.
Woodward, whose father was a surveyor before him, is one of just a few in the state's history who have been so honored — less than 10 around the state.
A regular ceremony was hoped for at a state meeting of all those surveyors later this year, said Rock Hill surveyor Joe Baird, but the clock was ticking.
“It was evident it might not happen, the ceremony, so we moved swiftly,” Baird said.
So the surveyors brought the ceremony right there to the hospice.
They parked their trucks in the parking lot and took time off from work, because Ed Woodward was a good guy and working man and he just plain deserved it.
One who came was Billy Hipp, a surveyor who has his own business because he was taught the trade as an employee of Woodward years ago.
“The best, Ed,” Hipp said. “Great guy, terrific at his business. Knew all the best places to stop and eat, too. Even knew the names of the waitresses or the owners.”
Another surveyor, Bill White, said Woodward took him under his wing when White was starting out, even though White would turn into a competitor.
“He was like a mentor to the younger guys coming up,” White said.
Woodward is one of the founders of the tri-county chapter of the surveying group. He cares about high standards, his peers said, he cares about getting the mapping right.
His wife, Joy, said of Woodward surveying out there in that hot sun, the wet ground or the dust or the red clay: “He had the heart for it. He loved it.”
One lady from the beach, state surveying society secretary Frankie Manhardt, even read a proclamation honoring Woodward. She read how he served in Vietnam.
She read how he was a past member and chair of the York County Planning Commission. She read how he was unselfish to other surveyors, and all these men who knew that and learned from him stood there in a circle in their jeans and boots, or khakis and boots and collared shirts with their company names on them, and listened.
These are blue-collar people who wanted to let someone know how much they cared for one of their own.
Burnett Jenkins, current president of the surveying society of York, Chester and Lancaster counties, presented Joy Woodward with a plaque.
“Thank you all very much,” she said.
“He loved what he did.”
Then, she took that plaque into the room where her husband of 39 years lay in the bed, so she could read aloud to him how proud his peers are of his life's work.
Andrew Dys 803-329-4065
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