Ruby Garrard Woodson (June 22, 1931 – February 8, 2008) was an educator and chemistry teacher who founded Cromwell Academy in Washington, D. C. and in Sarasota, Florida. She was born in Houston County, Alabama, but raised in Sarasota. Her mother, Ella Mae Garrard (later, Singleton) worked as a maid and later owned a small country store. Her father, David Garrard, was a farmer, and later a circus roustabout. She had one child, William G. Woodson. At the age of fifteen, she was the valedictorian of her class of 1947 when she was graduated from Booker High School in Sarasota.