Nashville Scene senior writer Jeff Woods is “retiring from full-time duty for a six-month hike on the Appalachian Trail,” writes editor Jim Ridley:

An ink-stained wretch with a seismographic bullshit detector — and a brilliant political reporter who’s won national honors — Woods was put on earth to make scoundrels quake and scalawags tremble, and he assures us he’ll be back in the fall. We’ll hold the fort until the cavalry returns.

Woods has received AAN Awards for Political Column (2010) and Public Service (2008).