Tommy Burks - Definition and Overview

Tommy Burks (May 22, 1940-October 19, 1998) was a farmer and Democratic party politician in Tennessee, USA. He served in the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1970 until 1978, and in the Tennessee State Senate from 1978 until 1998.

Burks opposed evolution science (twice introducing legislation to restrict its teaching), legal abortion, gambling, and a state lottery. However, his arch-conservative views seemed to have been very popular and in line with a large number of voters within his rural district.

Burks was an energetic legislator who almost never missed a floor or committee session. It is reported that he would on some occassions arrive at a session having already gotten up on his farm, delivered a load of hogs to Knoxville (approximately 90 miles east of his home) and then drove to the State Captiol in Nashville (100 miles west of his home and 190 miles west of Knoxville). Despite the 100 mile distance, 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 during legislative sesions.

He was murdered by his Republican party opponent Byron Looper less than a month before his likely re-election, in which his wife Charlotte Burks became the first Tennessee State Senator to win as a write-in candidate.

Interstate 40 through Putnam and Cumberland counties is named the "Tommy Burks Memorial Highway".