From left are Bob Edwards, Lauren Felton, Wanda Hayton, Jennifer Fulton, Brady Fulton, speaker Todd Gardenhire, Mary Ayers, Diane Kerr and Neal Thompson.
photo by Jim Robbins
State Senator Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) gave the Civitan Club of Chattanooga a bird’s-eye view of his life, landing on his own troubles at school, boxing and that good feeling of accomplishment.
After 12 years of work, a deal designating 15 acres for a retaining pond and water treatment plant at the Fall Creek Falls Utility District in Bledsoe County is set to be finalized this fall and move on to the funding and building phase, he said.
Senator Gardenhire said summer drought means water is trucked in for the area prison and surrounding farms, at great expense.
“That’s where I get my kicks,” he said. “It gives you joy to get something accomplished.”
This week Senator Gardenhire said he will meet with state officials to pursue holes in a recent Tennessee murder case that enabled a bail bondsman to ignore a court order.
“I’m interested in the mechanics,” he said. He plans to identify the problems and see if they can be solved with new legislation.
Senator Gardenhire was elected to the state Senate in 2012.
“As opposed to the House, we get along fine in the Senate,” he said.
As chair of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Gardenhire said he will continue to appeal rulings blocking release to the public of the Covenant School shooter’s journals, which detailed her plans. He argues they should be released under the Freedom of Information Act to “find out what went on in that person’s mind.”
“You have to find out why somebody did something,” he said.
In July a Nashville judge ruled that the journals belong to the victims’ families, who do not want the journals released, fearing they would become teaching tools. The shooter’s parents had transferred the copyright to them.
Senator Gardenhire criticized showy “bonuses” for mental health professionals, an outcome of the 2023 special session which he said did not increase industry salaries, meaningfully expand the profession or solve problems.
“What a waste of money,” he said.
Senator Gardenhire famously postponed all pending gun-related bills for a year or more in the weeks after the March 2023 Covenant School shooting.
“I told the governor to his face, we will not pass a bill... when the emotions are running so high,” Senator Gardenhire said. He said the administration disagreed with him because they wanted gun laws to be a “campaign issue.” But Senator Gardenhire got his way with the support of the deputy governor, he said.
“Let me tell you, did I piss off a bunch of people,” he said.
Senator Gardenhire was born and raised in the Glenwood neighborhood and repeated seventh grade at Central after being bullied at East Side Junior High.
“He whipped me real good several times,” he said. “I was a nervous wreck.”
Senator Gardenhire joined a boxing gym on Cherry Street to learn to fight. He said Central High School was an athlete-centric school, where coaches encouraged students to settle disagreements publicly by dragging adversaries to the gym by the collar, rolling out the mats and assembling the whole school.
The speaker said he found himself in the ring in tenth grade. Coach handed out 12-ounce boxing gloves, and he had trained with 16-ounce gloves.
“There is a big difference,” he said. His opponent’s arms began to droop, and “I commenced to embarrass him real good,” he said, to the cheers of the whole gym.
But he got kicked out of school and moved to City High School, “with the reputation of being a trouble-maker,” he said.
He turned to running track, and his record in hurdles and the 440 relay has been beaten by only four other people, ever, he said. But his ACT score was 14.
“I couldn’t get in college anywhere,” he said. He finally found a spot at an engineering school in Longview, Texas, but flunked out after one year, just in time for the Vietnam draft. He had number 36 and a high probability of being sent to war.
Though his grandmother got him into Tennessee Tech, he flunked out again. His parents refused to pick him up in Cookeville, so he sold his rifle and bought a Seneca station wagon that took him only so far as the foot of Signal Mountain. His mother snuck out to bring him home.
With the draft bearing down on him, he retook failed classes at Chattanooga State and Cleveland State community colleges.
“You start getting serious,” he said. But when his number was finally called, he failed the physical for bad hearing.
“That’s been my great excuse for all these years,” he said.