Tommy Burks was a farmer

Farmer

A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...

 and Democratic Party

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 politician in Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. He served in the Tennessee House of Representatives

Tennessee House of Representatives

The Tennessee House of Representatives is the lower house of the Tennessee General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee.-Constitutional requirements:...

 from 1970 until 1978, and in the Tennessee State Senate from 1978 until his murder in 1998.

Biography

Born in Cookeville, Tennessee

Cookeville, Tennessee

Cookeville is a city in Putnam County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 23,923 at the 2000 census. of Cookeville's population was 30,435, and the combined total of those living in Cookeville's in 2010 was 65,014. It is the county seat of Putnam County and home to Tennessee...

, Burks was one of the most conservative

Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

 Democrats in the state legislature. He opposed the teaching of evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

 in school science classes (twice introducing legislation to restrict its teaching), legal abortion

Abortion

Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

, gambling

Gambling

Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...

, and a state lottery

Tennessee Lottery

The Tennessee Lottery is run by the Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation , which was created on June 11, 2003 by the Tennessee General Assembly through the Tennessee Education Lottery Implementation Law....

. His views seemed to have been very popular and in line with a large number of voters within his rural

Rural

Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...

 district.

Burks was an energetic legislator who almost never missed a floor or committee session. It is reported that he would on some occasions arrive at a session having already gotten up on his farm, delivered a load of hogs to Knoxville

Knoxville, Tennessee

Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...

 (approximately 90 miles east of his home) and then driven to the State Capitol in Nashville

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

 (100 miles west of his home and 190 miles west of Knoxville). Despite the 100-mile distance, and unlike most legislators from parts of the state a considerable distance from Nashville, Burks made it a practice to go home to his district and his farm almost every night, even during legislative sessions.

Death

Burks was assassinated by his Republican Party

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 opponent Byron Looper

Byron Looper

Byron Looper , is a former Republican politician in Tennessee. In order to advance his political career, he legally changed his middle name from "Anthony" to ""...

 less than a month before his likely re-election. His widow, Charlotte

Charlotte Burks

Charlotte Gentry Burks is a farmer and Democratic party politician in Tennessee who has represented the 15th District as State Senator since 1998....

, ran for his seat and won, becoming the first Tennessee State Senator to win as a write-in candidate

Write-in candidate

A write-in candidate is a candidate in an election whose name does not appear on the ballot, but for whom voters may vote nonetheless by writing in the person's name. Some states and local jurisdictions allow a voter to affix a sticker with a write-in candidate's name on it to the ballot in lieu...

 and one of very few American politicians to win as a write-in candidate ever. She won subsequent elections in 2002, 2006, and 2010.

Interstate 40

Interstate 40

Interstate 40 is the third-longest major east–west Interstate Highway in the United States, after I-90 and I-80. Its western end is at Interstate 15 in Barstow, California; its eastern end is at a concurrency of U.S. Route 117 and North Carolina Highway 132 in Wilmington, North Carolina...

 through Wilson, Smith, Putnam

Putnam County, Tennessee

Putnam County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of 2000, the population was 62,315, a 21 percent increase from 1990. The was 72,321, an increase of 16.1% since 2000...

, and Cumberland counties is named the "Tommy Burks Memorial Highway".