district state_senate succeeded religion birth_place party preceded birth_date term_start spouse article_title term_end name occupation
15th tennessee paul bailey church of christ gainesboro , tennessee democratic tommy burks 2 october 1942 1998 widowed - tommy burks charlotte burks
 2015 charlotte burks farmer
charlotte burks

charlotte gentry burks -lrb- born october 3 , 1942 -rrb- is a farmer and democratic party politician in tennessee who represented the 15th district as state senator from 1998 until 2015 .
burks was born in 1942 in gainesboro , tennessee , and lives in monterey , tennessee .
she was married to tommy burks , a tennessee state senator.they had three children together one of which is former putnam county executive kim blaylock .
she also has 11 grandchildren in 1998 , after her husband was assassinated during an election campaign by his republican challenger byron `` low-tax '' looper , she became a write-in candidate for his seat .
although she did not campaign , she defeated looper by a landslide margin , receiving 95 % of the vote and becoming the first write-in candidate to win a seat in the tennessee state senate .
she began her senate service with the 101st general assembly .
she was reelected in 2002 and 2006 with no substantive opposition .
in 2010 , when republicans picked up many seats in the general assembly , burks won re-election to a fourth four-year term by a margin of just 183 votes over her republican opponent , gary steakley .
burks carried five of the six counties in the largely rural district , losing only in cumberland county .
an independent candidate placed third in the vote .
steakley challenged the results , claiming irregularities on election day , but a state senate committee found that there was insufficient evidence to question the outcome .
in the senate , burks served as the secretary of the education committee ; as a member of the joint study economic development ; government operations ; select on children and youth ; and the environment , conservation , and tourism committees .
on september 8 , 2013 she announced her retirement and that she would not run for reelection to the state senate in 2014 .
