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.