A proud native of Princeton and Caldwell County, former Circuit Judge Charles Allen Woodall, III, and his family lived on South Jefferson Street — three houses down from the late prolific judge and lawyer, Edward H. Johnstone.
It’s the first person, Woodall remembers, ever working in such a craft — one he wound up choosing for himself in life.
How fitting it was, then, that late Tuesday night in Paducah’s Walker Hall — not far from where his own jaunt down jurisprudence lane began — the man better known as “Woody” received the Ninth Annual Award in Johnstone’s name from the Kentucky Bar Foundation, celebrating a career dedicated to service, sacrifice and a steady watch on “The Mighty 56th Judicial Circuit” of Caldwell, Livingston, Lyon and Trigg counties.
Rather than opine about his own accolades and chapters, he took time to thank every single person along his journey — and then offered advice about America’s future.
One solution, he said, exists for all to see: “The Golden Rule.”
Nearly becoming a man of the cloth before echoing this “Golden Rule” in his fair, balanced courtrooms for Princeton, Smithland, Eddyville, Cadiz and beyond, Woodall earned degrees from the University of Kentucky before practicing law for nearly three decades as a critical mediator and arbitrator.
From 2007 until his 2022 retirement, he heard some of the toughest cases in south western Kentucky — and today the four counties still serve as one of the busiest caseloads per capita in the Commonwealth.
Of all the people in the room, including scads of immediate family, it was his former office partner and long-time litigator H.B. Quinn — also a Princeton native — who has known Woodall the longest.
The duo palled around as first graders on the playground of former West Side Elementary, and Quinn said Woodall later pull him “out of the wilderness” and into a lifestyle of civic engagement, a religious curiosity and generous rapport.
This, however, didn’t mean there wasn’t comedy and error.
Now one of the two scales for the 56th alongside Natalie White, Judge Jamus Redd said Johnstone — the forefather of the circuit, which celebrates 50 years in 2026 — and Woodall were more than similar.
Even now, Redd says he still runs things by Woodall — seeking guidance and faith against circumstance.
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