Who is Jim Bryson, besides the Republican gubernatorial candidate

The son of an army officer and a public school teacher, Jim grew up in Russellville, Arkansas. His sister, Leslie Wheeler, also became a teacher and now teaches third grade in Franklin, Tennessee. His mother, Mary Lou Bryson, now retired, lives in Franklin as well. Jim lettered in track and football while attending Russellville High school where he graduated with honors. After graduating from Baylor University in 1983 he moved to Nashville and attended Vanderbilt University Owen school of Management. He graduated with a Masters in Business administration from that school in 1985. During his study years, he paid for his education with various work-study programs. Bryson worked throughout his graduate school as Assistant director of the Baptist student Union. Jim met Carol Ratcliff of Greeneville at his church in Nashville and in 1991 they were married. Three years later, they adopted three siblings from Pechora, Russia. Maria was seven, Nadia was three and Nicholas was two years old at the time of their adoption. Two and a half years later the family was blessed with the birth of Alex to make the family complete. They also consider the dog April and cat Spunky to be family members. A very active businessman, Bryson is a member of several Middle Tennessee chambers of commerce and has chaired several committees for the Nashville Chamber of Commerce. He has also been active in the Nashville chapter of the American Marketing association. Bryson is very much pro life and doesn’t think we should be doing any kind of research using embryonic stem cells. The Bryson family attends the First Baptist Church in Nashville where Jim serves on the church’s Strategic Planning Council and serves as co-director of his Sunday School Department with his wife Carol. Bryson wants to be governor of Tennessee because he believes that he can provide the kind of leadership Tennessee needs and deserves. He feels that we are not getting that kind of leadership now especially when it comes to illegal immigrants and education. He says we need to assure that our children graduate with an education that will allow them to compete on the national and international economies. He believes we need a leader who will clean up the scandals that we are experiencing in state government particularly those issues in the highway patrol that have been allowed to go on. He feels that many programs now being put into place will eventually lead to a state fiscal crisis in the state and we need to change situations so we can avoid that. He doesn’t feel that the current administration is up to the task.