From left: 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 an overview of his life, particularly talking about his own struggles in school, boxing and the good feeling of accomplishment.

After 12 years of work, a contract to provide 15 acres for a retention pond and water treatment plant in the Fall Creek Falls Utility District in Bledsoe County is expected to close this fall and then begin the financing and construction phase, he said.

Senator Gardenhire said that because of the summer drought, water for the local prison and surrounding farms had to be trucked at great expense.

“That’s what drives me,” he said. “It’s a joy to achieve something.”

This week, Senator Gardenhire said he would meet with state officials to clarify loopholes in a recent Tennessee murder case that allowed a bail agent to ignore a court order.

“I’m interested in the mechanics,” he said. He wants to identify the problems and see if they can be solved by new laws.

Senator Gardenhire was elected to the State Senate in 2012.

“Unlike the House of Representatives, we get along well in the Senate,” he said.

As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Gardenhire said he would continue to appeal rulings preventing the release of the Covenant School shooter’s diaries detailing her plans. He argues they should be released under the Freedom of Information Act to “find out what was going on in this person’s mind.”

“You have to find out why someone did something,” he said.

In July, a judge in Nashville ruled that the diaries belong to the victims’ families. They do not want the diaries published because they fear they could become teaching aids. The shooter’s parents had transferred the copyright to them.

Senator Gardenhire criticized the conspicuous “bonuses” for mental health professionals, an outcome of the 2023 special session, which he said did not increase salaries in the industry, meaningfully expand the profession, or solve problems.

“What a waste of money,” he said.

As is well known, in the weeks following the Covenant School shooting in March 2023, Senator Gardenhire postponed all pending gun control bills for a year or more.

“I told the governor to his face that we are not going to pass a bill … when emotions are running so high,” Senator Gardenhire said. He said the administration disagreed because it wanted to make gun laws a “campaign issue.” But Senator Gardenhire prevailed with the support of the lieutenant governor, he said.

“I have to tell you, I have upset a lot of people,” he said.

Senator Gardenhire was born and raised in the Glenwood neighborhood and, after being bullied at East Side Junior High, repeated seventh grade at Central.

“He hit me several times,” he said. “I was a nervous wreck.”

Senator Gardenhire went to a boxing gym on Cherry Street to learn to fight. He said Central High School was a sports-oriented school where coaches encouraged students to settle differences publicly by dragging their opponents into the gym by the collar, rolling out the mats and rallying the whole school.

The speaker said he had been in the ring himself in the tenth grade. The trainer had handed out 12-ounce boxing gloves, while he himself had trained with 16-ounce gloves.

“There’s a big difference,” he said. His opponent’s arms started to droop and “I started to really embarrass him,” he said to cheers from the entire hall.

But he was expelled from school and transferred to City High School, “with a reputation for being a troublemaker,” he said.

He turned to track, and his record in the hurdles and 440-meter relay has only been broken by four others, he said. But his ACT score was 14.

“I couldn’t get into college anywhere,” he said. He eventually found a place at an engineering school in Longview, Texas, but dropped out after a year, just in time to be drafted into Vietnam. His number was 36, and it was very likely he would be sent to war.

Although his grandmother took him to Tennessee Tech, he failed again. His parents refused to pick him up in Cookeville, so he sold his rifle and bought a Seneca station wagon that only took him as far as the base of Signal Mountain. His mother sneaked out to take him home.

As the draft approached, he repeated the courses he had failed at Chattanooga State and Cleveland State community colleges.

“You start to get serious,” he said. But when he was finally called, he failed the physical exam because he had difficulty hearing.

“That was my best excuse all these years,” he said.