Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed potential candidate for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District seat, Omar Hamada, in-studio to talk about his upbringing background, and impressive education record.
Leahy: We are joined in studio by the earlybird Omar Hamada. (Chuckles) Well, you’re what? Emergency room physician?
Hamada: Emergency room physician. But it’s tough still getting up early. I mean, it reminds me of the military, but it’s still tough.
Leahy: We are the military here? (Laughs)Â Â
Hamada: I guess.
Leahy: Not really.
Hamada: I’m a night owl.
Leahy: But you have a military background. Tell everybody about your background first. You’re from Williamson County.
Hamada: I am.
Leahy: And you also have pulled papers to run in the 5th Congressional District primary. But you haven’t announced yet. We’ll get to that after the break.
Hamada: Correct.
Leahy: But tell us about your background.
Hamada: It’s really interesting. I am the son of two Lebanese immigrants. Dad immigrated through Ellis Island in 1954, went back, married Mom. She came over in 1964. I was born in Tallahassee in 1966 when he was down at Florida State.
Leahy: Well, you’re just a young kid.
Hamada: (Laughter) I guess I am.
Leahy: Born in Tallahassee in ’66, right?
Hamada: Yes. Go Seminoles. He started the fencing club there back in the ’60s, I think. ’64.
Leahy: Fencing club. What’s that?
Hamada: One of his favorite actors was [swordfighting character actor] Errol Flynn and he learned to fence and loved it. And they didn’t have a fencing club at Florida State and he started it.
Leahy: Was that a sort of side gig? What was his main field?
Hamada: Yeah, his main gig was music. So he was a professional musician in the Middle East, in Lebanon. Came over here.
Leahy: And went to Florida State.
Hamada: Went to Florida State. Huge music school.
Leahy: I didn’t know that.
Hamada: Yep. One of the best in the country.
Leahy: So you’re actually a native Southerner?
Hamada: I actually am.
Leahy: You are.
Hamada: Even though I’ve lived in New York and California. Been in Tennessee since ’72.
Leahy: Seventy-two! I think you are not a carpetbagger.
Hamada: Probably not.
Leahy: You got me beat. You’ve lived in Tennessee since ’72. I’ve lived in Tennessee since ’91.
Hamada: Wow.
Leahy: Only 31 years.
Hamada: From where?
Leahy: From upstate New York, via California. I was one of the first California people to come here.
Hamada: Luckily one of the conservatives.
Leahy: My daughter was born in California and my wife, who is from Texas, looked at me and said, “We’re not raising her in godless California.”
Hamada: (laughs) Good for her.
Leahy: And we looked around the whole United States. I’m from upstate New York. She’s from Texas. We looked at Lexington. Too small for me. Charlottesville, Virginia, too Yankee for my wife. Thank goodness we didn’t go there. It came down to Charlotte, North Carolina.
Hamada: Great town.
Leahy: Or Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville had a big advantage: no state income tax. I walked into a church here, Woodland Hills Church of Christ. Rubel Shelly gave a sermon. I walked out and I said “we’re moving to Nashville.”
Hamada: Wow.
Leahy: He’s a great guy. He’s still a friend of mine. Lives in Middle Tennessee. Now your story, where did you go to college? Where did you go to high school?
Hamada: We were actually on Long Island, north shore, so not too far from you upstate, but then moved to California, then moved to Tennessee in ’72. Raised in Jackson, Tennessee. West Tennessee.
Leahy: Jackson! Casey Jones.
Hamada: That’s right. Youngest graduate in the history of Northside High School. Still hold that record.
Leahy: You were 16 and a half?
Hamada: 15.
Leahy: People hate people like that.
Hamada: I know! I was a dweeb.
Leahy: You think, “oh, it’s great to be a dweeb,” but no, because people say you’re too smart. Okay, so then after graduating from high school where did you go?
Hamada: We were supposed to move back to California but then that job fell through for Dad so we stayed in Jackson, went to Union University and then also Long Island, New York, went to LIU, studied at the MET in terms of operatic performance in Austria – Vienna. And then came to med school in Memphis and seminary in Columbia, South Carolina, and then business school at Vanderbilt.
Leahy: You got an MBA from Vandy?
Hamada: Yes.
Leahy: This is called like a pretty strong academic background.
Hamada: Yeah.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
