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By Nancy Spitler<\/b> Tracy and Ty Woodard have taken just 1 percent of their family\u2019s cotton crop and turned it into a growing brand of blankets and throws<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Covered in cotton. Those three words\u00a0came to Tracy Woodard in a dream one Sunday morning in December of 2017. A BAIT AND SWITCH<\/strong> A DREAM COMES CALLING<\/strong> FROM BOLL TO BLANKET<\/strong> A PARENT\u2019S NIGHTMARE<\/strong> GOOD DIRT<\/strong> BEST IN THE SOUTH<\/strong>
\nPhotography by Tracy Woodard \u201907,\u00a0Craig Mahaffey \u201998
\n<\/b>& Ashley Jones<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nThose three words would become the culmination of lots of plans and dreams.
\nTracy Free \u201908 and Ty \u201907 Woodard are part of a family that raises cotton, as well as soybeans, corn, peanuts and Black Angus beef cattle on the 4,500-acre Woodard family farm in Darlington, South Carolina. That farm is the source of Covered in Cotton, the name tagged to every buttery-soft blanket or thick towel from the brand whose mission is to \u201ccultivate the natural comfort and quality of cotton products grown and crafted in the USA, cultivate relationships that invite people into the wonder and truth of agriculture, and cultivate a cause that tells a story and shares hope.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nThe story of Covered in Cotton<\/a> actually begins long before that December dream and starts with bright, multicolored tissue paper. In 2004, her freshman year and his sophomore year at Clemson, Tracy and Ty met sticking pomps through wire mesh during the annual build of homecoming floats on Bowman Field. She was a first-generation college student from Lexington, South Carolina; he was from a Clemson farm family in Darlington. A few months later, they ran into each other again. Conversations led to friendship, and pretty soon, they were inseparable.
\n\u201cI joke that he bait-and-switched me,\u201d says Tracy. \u201cHe grew up working on the farm, but he was never the one who wanted to do this the rest of his life.\u201d Ty had a plan to head to medical school and pursue sports medicine. Tracy envisioned city life and a job in graphic design.
\nThe summer after his sophomore year, he went home and, as usual, worked on the farm with his dad, Frankie Woodard \u201979, and his brother, Wes Woodard \u201903. Something changed for Ty that summer. He talks about it in terms of feeling a pull \u2014 a calling, even \u2014 back to the farm.
\nIt was a decision that surprised Tracy, as well as Ty\u2019s own family. Wes had begun to sense a shift in Ty\u2019s interest and was encouraging him to consider returning to the farm. Their dad, Frankie, was skeptical.
\nFrankie says he always knew his older son was coming back to farm after Clemson. When the boys were growing up, he says, \u201cWes was everywhere that I was. He was just like a magnet around me at the farm.\u201d Ty, on the other hand, \u201creally didn\u2019t want anything to do with it.\u201d When Ty and Wes\u2019 grandmother would go get parts or supplies, \u201cshe\u2019d have [Ty] in the car. She\u2019d pull up to the field or wherever we were, and he\u2019d stay right there in the air conditioning.\u201d
\nBut the summer after Ty\u2019s sophomore year, Frankie also saw Ty\u2019s growing interest in the farm and engagement in the work. It surprised him initially, but now he says he wouldn\u2019t have it any other way. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t do without him,\u201d he says.
\nAfter a hard summer of work on the farm, Ty returned to Clemson that fall knowing that what his future held was farming the land outside a small town in the South Carolina PeeDee region.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nAfter the two married in 2008, they moved to Darlington, and Ty went to work plowing, planting and harvesting with Wes and Frankie. Tracy couldn\u2019t find a job as a graphic designer but took a position as an insurance agent. \u201cIt really helped me get familiar with a new town and new people and find my way in Darlington,\u201d she says.
\nAfter several years in insurance, she went to work for NewSpring church in Florence, where she worked for almost eight years. Then the dream of Covered in Cotton came calling.
\nOn long road trips in the early years of their marriage, Tracy and Ty would imagine the farm\u2019s possibilities, how they could share their love of the land with others. \u201cWe had always talked about how cool it would be to take something we grow on the farm and market it directly to the consumer,\u201d Tracy says. \u201cWe sold all our crops to brokers.\u201d
\nBut add three kids to the mix and life gets a bit hectic. Imagination took a back seat to reality \u2014 until Tracy\u2019s dream in December 2017.
\n\u201cI woke Ty up and told him,\u201d Tracy says. The excitement she was feeling rubbed off on him as well. They started putting pen to paper, figuring out how to turn that dream into a reality. Going from cotton in the field to a finished product is a complicated process. \u201cWe knew how to grow cotton,\u201d says Tracy, \u201cbut there were a lot of things we didn\u2019t know.\u201d
\nThey wanted to use the cotton grown on their farm, but they had already sold their yield for the year. They contacted the broker and ended up buying the cotton back for more than they had sold it for. They found a yarn spinner in nearby Thomasville, North Carolina, that does small runs who taught them about spinning and helped them through the process.
\nThey reached out to Harold Pennington \u201989, a fellow Clemson alumnus who runs Weavetec in Blacksburg, South Carolina, a company founded in 1987 by his father, Harold Pennington Sr. \u201965. \u201cWe met Ty and Tracy in 2018,\u201d says Harold Jr. \u201cTracy reached out to us, looking for a supplier to weave decorative throws.\u201d
\n\u201cWe told him what we wanted to do \u2014 we knew that piece of the puzzle was the most important,\u201d says Tracy. She and Ty drove up to Blacksburg to meet Harold and his wife, Laurinda. \u201cWe talked a long time, got set on designs, and they took us to lunch,\u201d says Tracy. \u201cWe were friends instantly. The Clemson connection \u2014 that makes a difference. We left there knowing they were the right people and the right company to work with.\u201d
\nHarold was also able to connect Tracy with other suppliers integral to the process. The Woodards also left that initial meeting with three designs for throws, named after Tracy and Ty\u2019s children: Tate, Tyson and Tobin.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nIt\u00a0<\/span>takes a lot to go from a boll of cotton in the field to a finished throw or blanket. Ty holds a boll and runs his fingers through it as he talks: \u201cWe knew how to grow cotton, but we didn\u2019t really know a whole lot beyond that.\u201d
\nHe explains their process: \u201cTypically, late April throughout the month of May is normal planting season. And then we\u2019re harvesting \u2014 in a normal year \u2014 late September through November, just depending on the weather. There\u2019s a time, late August, early September, when the cotton opens, just like this boll I\u2019ve got in my hand, and you see the lint. It fluffs out real nice and pretty like we always like to see, but within the boll, you can feel the seed down within the lint.\u201d
\nThe cotton goes from Woodard Farms to the S.P. Coker Cotton Gin in nearby Hartsville, where they separate the seed from the lint. From there, the ginned cotton goes to the yarn spinner, Hill Spinning Mill in Thomasville, North Carolina.
\nFrom there, the yarn cones go to Shuford Mills in Hickory, North Carolina, and they ply the yarn together. From Shuford, it comes south to Weavetec and Harold Pennington, where the throws are woven.
\nWeavetec also \u201cweaves the rolls of fabric that we use for our baby blankets and hand towels,\u201d says Ty. From Weavetec, the throws and rolls of fabric are sent to Craig Industries in Lamar, South Carolina, where they will cut and sew baby blankets and hand towels and add the finishing touch: the \u201cCovered in Cotton\u201d labels.
\nTy and Tracy bring everything back to the farm and package and ship all over the world. Regarding the whole process, Ty says, \u201cWe\u2019re pretty proud to say that the cotton makes about a 500-mile round trip.\u201d
\nTracy adds, \u201cOne of the things we appreciate most is that we\u2019re partnering with these local family businesses, and the majority of them are in smaller towns where you feel like you\u2019re impacting those communities and helping make those places better. We\u2019re fortunate that there\u2019s enough remnant of the textile industry left in North and South Carolina that we were able to find these people and do what we wanted to do.\u201d
\n\u201cEvery piece is completed within 150 miles of our farm,\u201d Tracy continues, \u201cand we know the families and the people who put their hands to our cotton and our product.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nIn 2015, two years before Tracy\u2019s dream, the family experienced every parent\u2019s nightmare. Their youngest son, Tobin (the twin of Tyson), was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis at 3 months old. \u201cFor 35 days, we sat in the children\u2019s hospital in Columbia,\u201d says Tracy. \u201cThose were some of the worst days of our lives.\u201d
\nTobin had emergency brain surgery on his first Christmas Eve \u2014 a double craniotomy \u2014 to allow doctors to put antibiotics directly into the brain. \u201cWe were told he would probably lose all or most of his hearing and vision,\u201d says Tracy. \u201cThe worst-case scenario was that he would never mentally develop past 3 months old.\u201d
\nNone of those worst-case scenarios happened. \u201cHe was a fighter,\u201d says Tracy.
\nDays turned into weeks at the hospital. Tobin was moved to a new floor. The first nurse who cared for Tobin came and found them, a blanket in tow. A simple, practical gift \u2014 but one much appreciated by two young parents who were living on cots in a cold hospital room.
\nTracy and Ty kept that blanket when they went home. For them, Tracy says, it was \u201ca reminder of the Lord covering our family and taking care of us.\u201d
\nIt was also a reminder of a new outlook on life. \u201cThe things that mattered, mattered. The things that didn\u2019t, didn\u2019t,\u201d says Tracy. \u201cIt changed our perspective on a lot of things. We saw people a lot worse off than us.\u201d
\nTobin came home from the hospital in January and continued to make improvements. Five years old now, he\u2019s completely recovered with no side effects. \u201cThe doctors have told us it\u2019s a miracle,\u201d says Tracy.
\nBecause of that experience, Tracy and Ty wanted to use Covered in Cotton as a way to tell that story and to help other people. For every 10 blankets they sell, they donate one to a children\u2019s hospital. One of the first donations they made was to Prisma Health-Upstate, where they met with child life specialist Taylor Stathes \u201913, who immediately recognized Tracy\u2019s Clemson ring.
\nTwo years after getting started, they\u2019ve donated 415 blankets to keep other families warm.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nFrankie\u2019s father, Frank Woodard, came from a family who lost their farm in North Carolina when he was a small child during the Great Depression. They moved near Latta, South Carolina, Frankie says, \u201cwhere my granddaddy worked as a sharecropper more or less, and they just barely got by.\u201d When Frank graduated from high school, he went to work in Latta as a meat salesman, but he nursed an itch to get back into farming. He and his brother, a pharmacist, bought some land and farmed on weekends.
\nOne day in 1962, during his travels for work, Frank stopped for lunch in Darlington County and saw an ad for a farm and decided to take a look at it. \u201cMy father said that they were used to having tobacco stalks about the size of your finger \u2014 or two fingers,\u201d says Frankie, \u201cand he said he saw some that were just this big around,\u201d making about a 3-inch circle with his hand. \u201cHe said, \u2018We got to have that dirt.\u2019\u201d
\nFrankie grew up in Darlington, with his dad working full time as a meat salesman during the week and farming on the weekends. \u201cHe took two weeks of vacation every year,\u201d says Frankie, \u201cone to plant, the other to harvest.\u201d In 1975, Frankie headed to Clemson, where he earned a degree in agronomy and then returned to Darlington, where he gradually took over the reins of the farm. He sent both of his sons to Clemson and now is gradually handing leadership over to them. \u201cIt\u2019s a good life,\u201d he says.
\nFor almost 40 years, the Woodard family has been growing cotton, corn, soybeans and tobacco. About 10 years ago, the tobacco shifted to peanuts. A herd of Angus beef cattle rounds out the farm operations. And now Covered in Cotton is added to the mix.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nA year ago, Tracy jumped into Covered in Cotton full time. She says her parents are happy that the skills she gained at Clemson are getting used as she handles design packaging, the website and a lot of the day-to-day operations. She and Ty are still dreaming \u2014 new products, new opportunities. In 2019, they were named the overall winner of Garden & Gun<\/i> magazine\u2019s 2019 Made in the South Awards<\/a>.
\n\u201cAfter that was announced,\u201d says Tracy, \u201cwe sold all our throws in 10 days. Things got really crazy, but we restocked and are now able to think ahead.\u201d Thanks to popular demand and a multitude of requests, bed-sized blankets are in the works.
\n\u201cPeople should know where the food they\u2019re putting in their bodies and the fibers they have in their homes come from,\u201d Tracy was quoted as saying in the Garden & Gun<\/i> article announcing the award. Tracy and Ty not only know intimately where those cotton fibers come from, but they also know the people and companies who take them step by step from soft cotton bolls to warm cotton blankets.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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