Public service isn’t just a cliché’ to Tim Burchett it’s a way of life learned from his earliest years. He’s finishing his third term as a state senator after having served two terms in the state House and has become one of the most respected lawmakers in the state. At the end of the 2010 session, he will have spent 16 years serving us in the General Assembly. Tim has chosen not to seek re-election to the State Senate and will instead take on the challenge of running for Knox County Mayor.

During his years of public service, Tim has earned a reputation for honesty, integrity and a straightforward style of leadership. His colleagues in Nashville will miss him.

“Tim is somebody who, if he tells you something, you can take it to the bank. People know they can trust him because he’s honest and upfront. He’s someone we really rely on in the Senate,” said Senator Randy McNally, who chairs the powerful Finance Committee.

“When ethics legislation came up, Tim was instrumental in helping put that together between all the different sides and factions because all sides respect him… It’s going to be extremely tough to replace him. As chairman of the Finance Committee, I am also going to miss his leadership as chairman of the Budget Subcommittee. This is a difficult position and Tim has been instrumental in meeting our state’s financial challenges head on and in a way that shows true fiscal responsibility.”

Growing up, Tim’s parents Joyce and Charlie Burchett were career educators who never made a lot of money, but believed in sharing what they had. They passed this belief on to their children.

“As a little boy, when I’d come home close to suppertime and smell bacon and eggs cooking, I’d know that my Dad had brought home a family that had broken down on the side of the road or were on hard times and we’d be eating bacon and eggs for supper because that’s what we could afford to feed everybody.”

The youngest of three children, Tim was born in Baptist Hospital and grew up tagging along after his brother, Charles Jr. and his sister, Joyce. His first school experience was at the Little Red Schoolhouse where he made friends he has kept all his life. Later he attended West Hills Elementary School, Bearden Junior and High Schools, and was a member of the BHS Class of ’82. He was active in a variety of sports and was a member of the Bearden High football team, where he played wide receiver and captained the team his senior year, despite weighing in at 127 pounds.

“He may not have been the biggest kid on the team, but Tim had the heart,” Joyce Burchett says. “He just never ever gave up.”

As an 8th grader, Tim started his own vegetable garden, and while he worked, he noticed KUB trucks shredding brush and had an idea:

“I needed to improve the soil but didn’t want to use chemicals. I asked the driver what they did with their chips and he told me they took them to the landfill. I asked what the landfill paid for them and he said ‘We pay them.’ That was 1978, and the stuff was just considered a nuisance. But it gave me the idea of using discarded brush long before it was mandated by the federal government.”

After graduation from Bearden, Tim went to the University of Tennessee under the watchful eye of his dad, who was dean of student conduct. He was an education major and was elected president of his fraternity, Sigma Chi, his senior year.

After Tim graduated, he started working on making his childhood idea - his own organic mulch compost business– a reality. He got partners, financing and a contract to process the city’s yard waste. At first, his plan worked to perfection. But unfortunately, the infamous winter of ’93 brought a blizzard and an ice storm that wiped out trees all over town. He had contracted to take 10,000 tons of brush and yard waste a year from the city, but received that amount by March. He found himself working 14-hour days trying to keep up with the volume. But equipment failures and political pressure doomed the venture, and he was forced to shut down his business by fall.

This perceived failure though was an invaluable lesson for Tim. It taught him that small business owners often find government to be their most challenging hurdle rather than something that encourages them to succeed. This experience also brought home the words of his life-long hero President Ronald Reagan, “To sit back hoping that someday, someway, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last--but eat you he will.”

The following year, after a lot of time talking with family and friends and praying, Tim decided he should step forward and do all he could to protect the interests of working people and small business owners.

He declared himself a Republican candidate for the state House of Representatives, taking on the familiar role of underdog against a well funded, established incumbent. Tim started walking the district, meeting new people and listening to their concerns. He knocked on thousands of doors and heard hundreds of stories. By the time the primary rolled around, Tim had proven that his approach to campaigning – focusing on the voters and what was on their minds – pays off and Tim was elected to serve in the Tennessee General Assembly.

The following January, as he stood with his young nephew at his side in the State Capitol and took the oath of office, Tim could not help but think of his mother growing up in rural Cheatham County, Tennessee and how the lessons of hard work and optimism that she and his father had taught him had proven invaluable.

Tim’s first big issue was fighting the pornography industry, which had flown in a well-funded attorney to lobby against tightening anti-pornography regulations.

“This issue simply came down to doing what was right. Looking back, I am sure it seemed naïve to many, but to me it was why I had come to Nashville. The lobbyists put on a full court press against the bill, but when I demanded a recorded roll-call vote on the House floor their goal of killing the bill in the shadows fell apart. We won and it became a little harder for adult bookstores to do business in Tennessee.

He spent four years in the House and made a successful run for the Senate in 1998. In both the House and Senate, Tim proved his conservative values and belief in fighting for the underdog were a very formidable combination in a wide range of areas.

He was an early and vocal opponent of the state income tax, earning him the coveted “Ax the Tax” award from the Tennessee Conservative Union. Tim also quickly established a reputation as a champion for the mentally ill and his work has been recognized by both the Tennessee Association for the Mentally Ill and the National Association for the Mentally Ill. His efforts on behalf of public education won him a PTA Lifetime Achievement Award and his support small business owners got him an award from the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

Tim has a special place in his heart for children, and when he heard about a young boy in Halls who had been assaulted by a man whose out-of-state child molestation convictions couldn’t be mentioned in court proceedings, he fought the judiciary and trial lawyers to get that law changed.

Standing up against the establishment to protect the interests of Tennesseans – alone, if need be – has been a mark of Tim’s career. He was an early critic of corruption and waste at the University of Tennessee and of the TVA practices that led to the toxic ash disaster in Roane County.

Throughout his career in Nashville, Tim has fought for the values he learned growing up in Knox County and few in Nashville would question the fact that these values have served him, his constituents and the people of Tennessee well for over 15 years.

2008 was a watershed year for Tim. He and his wife, Allison, were married in June, and soon thereafter, he made the decision to run for county mayor. A few weeks later, Charlie Burchett suffered a stroke and died the following November. He faced his last battle with the same courage he’d shown when he fought in the South Pacific during World War II as a United States Marine. His father’s example stands as Tim’s greatest influence.

“When I decided to run for office, it was because I knew from experience what it felt like when government works against you and not for you,” Tim said. “Four years later, I ran for the Senate because a lot of folks outside my district were always calling me needing my help, and the Senate offered an opportunity to help more people.

“Today, I am running for Knox County Mayor because, like in 1993, I am extremely frustrated with the fact that government seems to have forgotten its job is to work for the people not against them. I want the focus to be off the politicians and back on the people where it belongs. My vision is to pick up the paper and see local success story making news rather than a new Knox County government scandal. We are a great community and I want us to move forward being proud of who we are and excited about what we can accomplish.”

Tim and Allison live in the Karns community and attend Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church.