Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Bledsoe (November 12, 1921 Maysville, Oklahoma, U.S. – October 4, 1995 Austin, Texas, USA) was a mathematician, computer scientist, and prominent educator. He is one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, and automated theorem proving. Bledsoe died on 4 October 1995 of ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
Woody was one of the founders of AI, making early contributions in pattern recognition and automated reasoning. He continued to make significant contributions to AI throughout his long career.
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Bledsoe was born on 12 November 1921 on a little farm near Maysville, Oklahoma. His father, Thomas, had run a turpentine plantation in Alabama, but in 1917, a fire burned him out. He moved to Oklahoma to try his luck at farming. Woody was the fourth child born to Thomas’s second wife Eva, his first wife having died after raising six children. Early on, Bledsoe was enthralled by mathematics and recalls spending “hours just roaming around, sometimes working mathematics problems mentally” (Bledsoe 1976). He graduated from high school during that year (1939). He enrolled at the University of Oklahoma in the spring of 1940. In April, he left the university and joined the United States Army.
Bledsoe joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an adult, and served in the church as a Bishop, counselor to the Stake Presidency, and Stake Patriarch. He also served as a leader in the Boy Scouts of America.[1]