NASHVILLE – Republican Gov. Bill Lee has named his former special assistant and 2018 campaign manager Chris Devaney of Lookout Mountain to a spot on the Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission.
The governor also appointed Columbia businessman Stan R. Butt Sr., another supporter who has known Lee and his family for decades, to the panel.
Butt, the husband of former state Rep. Sheila Butt, a Republican, once had a run-in with game wardens with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, the state’s hunting, fishing and wildlife enforcement entity overseen by the Fish and Wildlife Commission, and paid $245 in court costs and fines, TWRA records show.
Appointments to the commission have long been viewed as a major political plum that governors can and have awarded to supporters. Both Devaney and Butt’s appointments must be confirmed by the General Assembly before they can serve.
TWRA licensure records show that Devaney, a Texas native, longtime political consultant and former Tennessee Republican Party chair who also worked for two then-U.S. senators, one of them being Fred Thompson, R-Tennessee, obtained his first Tennessee hunting and fishing permits in 2017.