WOOD WAS ‘PERFECT EXAMPLE’ OF A CITIZEN LEGISLATOR

It sounds almost quaint today — that somebody would pitch their character as an attribute for public office. But that’s what Bobby Wood did.

Wood, a 28-year Republican member of the Tennessee House who died Thursday, thanked voters after his first election in 1976 by saying his goals as a legislator were “to give fully the only three things I have to offer and to make them descriptive of my term of office — honesty, ability and hard work.”

His first endorsement by this page described him as “conservative in philosophy, honest in approach, attentive to the views of his constituents, intelligent in study of the issues and courteous in manner.” Even the Chattanooga Times, which opposed him, said he “is an active, articulate civic worker about whom we have not heard the slightest ill report.”

Wood, the then-traffic engineer at Chattanooga Glass Co., won his first primary against three opponents by 179 votes when then-state Rep. Claude Ramsey did not seek re-election, and, in a district where there were more Democratic voters than Republican, won the general election by 1,348 votes.

The co-coordinator for his first campaign was Bill Bennett, who would join him in public office several years later as a Hamilton County commissioner and assessor of property, and with whom he would open Carriage Hill Insurance Agency in 1986.

When Wood retired nearly three decades later, he was referred to as the “Conscience of the House” and was given the GOP’s “Statesman of the Year Award” that same year.

During his tenure, he became known for his understanding of complex government issues and debate skills. His legislative committee appointments included the House Finance, Ways and Means Committee and the Joint Fiscal Review Committee, and he chaired a joint committee that examined the discipline code in the state’s public schools.

Wood took a particular interest in home schooling, authoring legislation formulating state policy in 1984 that became a model in other states. In 2000, he sponsored legislation to bring TennCare benefits in line with the state health care plan.

The year after he left office, he became the Hamilton County Republican Party chairman and later served several terms on the Tennessee Republican Party’s Executive Committee, stepping down only last year.

But Wood also was an active and devout churchman, founder of a weekly legislative devotional group, a poet and a playwright, his “Christmas Comes to Detroit Louie” still often staged by churches and theaters.

When he left office, this page said he had “established a standard of public service,” serving as a “perfect example” of a citizen legislator with “excellence of character, unquestioned integrity, sound principles and devotion to duty.”

Would that those words could be said today about all of our office-holders, locally, statewide and nationally.