On May 24, 2022, the voters of Pulaski, Saline, and Perry Counties elected Wendy Scholtens Wood to the Arkansas Court of Appeals, and she took office on January 1, 2023.
Wendy grew up in Fort Smith, Arkansas. She earned a basketball scholarship to Vanderbilt University where she was a First Team All-American and the school’s first woman to have her jersey retired. After college, Wendy played professionally in Japan. She has been inducted into four Sports Halls of Fame: Tennessee (1999); Arkansas (2004); Vanderbilt University (2009); and Fort Smith Southside High School (2013).
Upon returning from Japan, Wendy attended law school at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. She graduated with honors in 1996 and worked as a trial lawyer at the Barber Law Firm for a decade. In 2004, Wendy was appointed by the Arkansas Supreme Court to serve a six-year term on the Arkansas Continuing Legal Education Board for which she served as Board chairperson in 2010. Following private practice, Wendy served for sixteen years as a law clerk to Judge Larry Vaught on the Arkansas Court of Appeals. In 2022, Governor Asa Hutchinson appointed Wendy to serve as a Special Associate Justice on a case before the Arkansas Supreme Court. She is a member of the Pulaski County and Arkansas Bar Associations.
Wendy married Paul Wood in 1996, and they have two daughters, Madeline and Anna. Wendy and her family are long-time members of St. James United Methodist Church. Wendy serves on the board of directors of Alzheimer’s Arkansas and is a member of the Downtown Little Rock Rotary Club 99.