Sam Hatcher Announces Candidacy for 17th District State Senate Seat



Sam Hatcher Announces Candidacy for 17th District State Senate Seat
Citing a need for jobs and the necessary improvements to help develop new employment opportunities in Cannon County, Sam Hatcher announced today his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the 17th District State Senate seat.

Hatcher, from Wilson County, said Cannon and the remaining seven counties in the senatorial district must focus on ways and means to attract industrial and commercial development including improvements in infrastructure, innovations in education, and overall quality of life enhancements.

Retired from the Tennessee Army National Guard, Hatcher said the common strengths found in each of the counties inside the senatorial district are residents with a strong work ethic, solid values with respect to church, family and community and an unwavering spirit of pride.

“We need to put political differences aside, work together and find common sense solutions to make each of our counties vibrant with new employment opportunities, sustained economic growth, and pathways to a brighter future for those who will be following behind us,” Hatcher said.

Hatcher is a graduate of Cumberland University and Tennessee Tech. He enlisted in the National Guard in 1969 as a private, was commissioned a second lieutenant six years later and retired from the Guard in 2005 at the rank of full colonel. His last assignment in the Guard for a period of almost eight years was serving as an advisor on communication issues to the Director of the Army National Guard at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

He has been involved in the newspaper business for more than 38 years first as a sports writer, then as an editor and most recently as a publisher and senior administrator. His father, the late John R. Hatcher, owned and operated a retail men’s clothing store just off the Public Square in Lebanon for almost 50 years, John Hatcher’s Clothing. He and his brother, the late Jimmy Hatcher, were partners with their father in the business.

He and his family and his family before him have been lifelong members of the College Street/College Hills Church of Christ in Lebanon.

Hatcher said he is running for the State Senate because he is “tired of the bickering” among politicians and particularly tired of the threat often used now by many in office that “if I can’t have it my way, it isn’t going to be done.”

“We need to work together. We need, regardless of political party affiliation, to be able to sit at a table as reasonable people and find answers to issues that concern us all,” Hatcher said.

A member of the Board of Trust of Cumberland University in Lebanon, Hatcher is a former teacher at the university. He is a member of Rotary, a past president of the Tennessee Press Association, and has been active in a number of civic and community organizations to include Leadership Wilson, the United Way, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Chamber of Commerce and others.

He is chairman of the University Medical Center Hospital board of directors in Lebanon and he is a director on the board of the Nashville and Eastern Railroad Authority. He is also a member of the board and executive committee of Cumberland Region Tomorrow, an organization comprised of representatives from 10 Middle Tennessee counties that deals with such issues as helping communities plan for growth and development.

For more than 25 years he owned and raised Tennessee Walking Horses.

He and his wife Teresa Dudley Hatcher live in Lebanon and have two adult daughters.

The district is comprised of eight counties including Clay, Cannon, DeKalb, Macon, Smith, Trousdale, Wilson and a portion of Sumner.

The Hatcher campaign can be contacted at www.samhatcher.com.