Personal Information

• Born October 27, Dickson, TN
• Member, First Presbyterian Church, Dickson
• Married
• University of Tennessee, B.A., political science, 1969
• University of Iowa, M.A., English literature, 1972
• Vanderbilt University, M.A., American history, 1983
• Adjunct instructor, Department of Languages and Literature, Austin Peay State University
• Author: Educating Black Doctors; A History of Meharry Medical College (Alabama, 1983); The Carmack-Cooper Shooting; Tennessee Politics Turns Violent (McFarland, 1994); Southern Epic; Nashville Through 200 Years (Hallmark, 1996); With Kennedy and Other Stories (Xlibris, 1998) Nashville Medicine; A History (Association Publishing, 1999)
• Contributor to American National Biography (Oxford, 1999), Encyclopedia of Local History (Altamira, 2000), and Historical Dictionary of the Gilded Age (M.E. Sharpe, 2003)

Community Involvement

• Lead volunteer for the restoration of the Battle of Nashville, Monument
• Founder: the Theodore Association Police Award for Nashville and Middle Tennessee
• Member: National Association of Scholars, Tennessee Eagle Forum

Current Session

• Bills Sponsored and Co-sponsored

Staff Contacts

• Jodie Hardin

Service in Public Office

• Senate member of the 107th through the 108th General Assemblies
• Member, Senate Energy, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee
• Member, Senate Government Operations Committee
• Member, Joint Government Operations Commerce, Labor, Transportation and Agriculture Subcommittee
• Member, Joint Government Operations Judiciar and Government Subcommittee