Live from Music Row Friday 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 Michelle Foreman in-studio to discuss her background in nursing and recent graduation from Nashville Law School.
Leahy: We welcome to our microphones in studio, our good friend Michelle Forman, who is a candidate for the GOP nomination in the 59th district seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives. Good morning, Michelle.
Foreman: Good morning, Michael.
Leahy: This is not the first time you’ve been in here. You’ve been a friend of ours for some time, haven’t you?
Foreman: I have been, yes. And it’s an honor. It really is. Thanks for having me back.
Leahy: So tell us about what are the dimensions of this new 59th House district?
Foreman: This is a great new district. Basically, it encompasses the bottom portion of Davidson County, and it starts over where highway 96 and highway 100 begin. And then you follow it along the southern portion of Bellevue, the highway 100 area.
It goes into West Meade, Belle Meade, Forest Hills, and Oak Hill, and then it goes all the way across I 65. And this is the northern portion of Brentwood, which goes over into Cain Ridge. So it’s expansive.
Leahy: It’s a great distance. It is. It’s an interesting district. And you have a significant experience in Tennessee Republican politics. You are a member of the State Executive Committee.
Foreman: I am. And that’s been a great four years. I was elected in 2018. Great experience, a lot of responsibility. Throughout that time, worked a lot with election integrity issues and was honored by my State Executive Committee members to chair the first permanent elections subcommittee. So that was a real honor as well working again, like I said, really closely with the legislature to try and get election integrity laws passed.
Leahy: And we’ll talk about some of the details of that and some of the proposals that you’ve been working on. Tell us a little bit about who you are, where you grew up, where you went to school, and what your professional background is.
Foreman: Sure. So I grew up here. As a matter of fact, I started going to church right down the street. (Chuckles)Â
Leahy: Really?
Foreman: I did.
Leahy: Which street?
Foreman: It was Belmont Church of Christ.
Leahy: Oh, I know Belmont Church of Christ. Don Finto.
Foreman: Papa Don.
Leahy: Don Finto was the preacher there. He’s an Advent Christian guy.
Foreman:Â Yes, absolutely.
Leahy: I’ll tell you something you probably didn’t know about me.
Foreman: What’s that?
Leahy: My wife went to Abilene Christian.
Foreman: No, I didn’t know that.
Leahy: We’ve been attending Church of Christ. Well, she’s been her entire life. But I was baptized just before we got married back in 1984.
Foreman: Wow.
Leahy: We’ve attended all sorts of Church of Christ here in Tennessee.
Foreman: Okay. That was my mom’s side of the family growing up, Church of Christ. But she married a Catholic. And so I grew up actually non-denominational after we moved on from Belmont. But I grew up here. I went to high school at Brentwood Academy.
Leahy: Brentwood Academy. The Eagles.
Foreman: The Eagles. Absolutely. And then I went back to the Church of Christ. I went to David Lipscomb University. Now, Lipscomb University. Graduated from Lipscomb. I’m a registered nurse.
Leahy: So as a registered nurse what was your specialty?
Foreman: I worked in the psychiatric field for quite some time. That’s my love. That’s my favorite. I worked in the operating room. I worked in ICUs. I also worked at the corporate level managing the clinical risk of about 250 surgery centers across the country.
Leahy: So you had a lot of nursing experience. But what else have you done?
Foreman: I decided I needed to go back to school. I went to law school I graduated from Nashville School of Law.
Leahy: Just recently. Congratulations.
Foreman: Thank you very much.
Leahy: Now let me just get this straight. You were a nurse you were working on the State Executive Committee and you went to the night law school here for four years.
Foreman: I did.
Leahy: That’s a grind.
Foreman: Well, I was also homeschooling my daughter who’s sitting right here in studio.
Leahy: Hello, Ella. She’s here. Yes.
Foreman: We pulled her out of school and home-schooled her for the last year.
Leahy: So you’ve been pretty busy.
Foreman: I’ve been busy.
Leahy: The Nashville School of Law has an excellent reputation here in Tennessee. A lot of people who I know who actually are in the Tennessee General Assembly attended the Nashville School of Law.
Foreman: It is excellent. I would highly recommend it it is a phenomenal school. You’ve got acting judges, and district attorneys with hands-on experience in what’s going on in the legal profession in Tennessee.
Listen to the interview:
– – –
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.
