From milking cows to running the state Senate
An interview with Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey

Ron Ramsey represents Sullivan and Johnson counties in the Tennessee State Senate. As the elected leader, or speaker, of that body, he is the Tennessee Lieutenant Governor. He recently sat down with "History" Bill Carey in his office, who asked him questions about life and about his job. Many of Carey's questions were provided by students from Teresa Calhoun's fourth grade class at Indian Springs Elementary School in Kingsport.
Lieutenant Governor Ramsey
History Bill: Is it true that you grew up milking cows?

Lieutenant Governor Ramsey: Absolutely. I grew up in a house that was located on my grandfather's farm. Starting when I was in the fifth grade and my brother was in the third grade, we got to milk about 10 or 12 cows every day.

History Bill: So did you do it by hand?

Sort of. We had these milking machines that weren't exactly modern, but they did allow us to milk two cows at the same time. My brother and I had a system. He would put the feed into a trough. The cows would come get the feed, then he would put the belt over their backs. Then it was my job to come in and put the milkers on.
Lt. Gov. Ramsey reads to some elementary school students
PHOTO: Office of Lt Gov Ron Ramsey
So what happened to the farm?

It's still there, all 115 acres of it. My dad still owns it, my brother still farms it, and my aunt still lives in the old farmhouse. Its within about two miles of Bristol Motor Speedway, near Blountville. But we don't have dairy cattle there anymore. When I got to be 16 or 17 years old, it became very obvious that we needed to get bigger as a dairy farm or change our business, so we changed our business. We went from dairy cattle, which you have to milk twice a day, to beef cattle, which you simply turn loose on the pasture and sell at the end of the year. Milking cows took too much time; too "labor intensive," as they say. If you want to run a dairy farm, have to be home every day of your life at 6 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Shaking hands is a big part of being elected to public office. Here, Ramsey shakes hands at an auction in his home district.
PHOTO: Sindy Ramsey
I understand you were active in 4-H. What did you do?

I showed cattle. When we got out of the dairy business, we bought shorthorned cattle, and I showed some of these cattle at the local fairs. I also went to 4-H camp in the summer. And we would take samples of things that we grew on the farm, such as hay, corn, and tobacco, to the Appalachian District Fair.

That fair, now that was some of the best times of my life! There are people I met then who are still very good friends of mine. What a great program the 4-H is!

What other jobs did you do growing up?

Well, my grandfather Carder -- that's Carder with a "D" -- had a hardware store in Johnson City. When I turned 16 and got my drivers license, I started working at the hardware store, and for a while I worked both there and on the farm. When I went to college at East Tennessee State, I scheduled my classes around working at the hardware store. I'd get out of class about noon and then go down to the hardware store and work until 5 o'clock. Talk about a great education! You learn a lot working at a hardware store -- about tools, equipment, people, guns, everything. My uncle took over that store after granddaddy died, but I'm afraid the superstores eventually put that little hardware store out of business.
Ron Ramsey conducts an auction from the back of a pickup truck
PHOTO: Sindy Ramsey
So you are an auctioneer. What does an auctioneer do? Almost all my business is auctioning real estate. When people decide to sell their house or land by auction, I go out and sign them up, and my my wife and my daughter take over there. They do the advertising, make sure it gets in the paper, that sort of thing. If someone wants to see it before the sale, they will go out and show it. It's a real family business; I have a brother, a cousin and a nephew who also work with me part-time. I show up the day of the sale, which is usually Saturday mornings, and help run the auction. I get to do the whole thing where I stand up and ask for bids and talk fast and then say "SOLD!" If any kids out there have never seen an auction, they need to go to one to understand what I'm talking about here.

The auction business sort of led me into politics. Through all these advertised auctions all over that part of Tennessee, it got to the point where everyone knew who I was. In 1991, I came down here as the president of the Bristol Association of Realtors. I met my state representative and state senator for the first time that day, and thought I might be interested in this.
Lieutenant Governor Ramsey and his family attend a University of Tennessee football game
PHOTO: Sindy Ramsey
Now I'm shifting to questions that came from Mrs. Calhoun's class at Indian Springs.

Oh, yeah. I know all about that class. Those are the kids who can recite all the presidents in order from Washington until today. Talk about some smart kids!

The first one came from Emily Spencer, who asks: What does the Lieutenant Governor have to wear?

Emily, when I'm in Nashville or doing official things at home, I usually wear a suit and tie. But if I'm going to a barbeque event or that sort of thing, I get by with blue jeans and a shirt. And in my real estate business, I wear blue jeans a lot.

Student Daniella Steele asks: Is being Lieutenant Governor a difficult job?

Yes, it is. After all, it is hard to please all your constituents all the time, and you have to do the best you can. But the most difficult part of it is that we are a citizen legislature. I have a real estate and auction business back home in addition to being Lieutenant Governor. While we are in session, I leave here [Nashville] Thursday at noon. Four and a half hours in the car later, I'm back home. Then I walk into another world, where I have a business to run and an auction just about every Saturday. Monday morning, I come back up here and jump back into this. So you can't really concentrate on one of the other thing. To me, that's the hardest part.

Are there any shortcuts to doing both jobs? Well, for one thing, I don't know how a person could do this job without a cell phone, I really don't. I do a lot of business on my cell phone, and on the long drives back and forth from East Tennessee (a state trooper drives me) I use that phone constantly. There are only one of two places along the road where cell phones don't work and I know where they are. One of them is coming off the mountain into Rockwood, for instance.

Student Madison Dye asks: Who is your favorite president? Well, I remember being in the third grade, coming in from recess, and being told that President Kennedy was shot. That really affected me. But I think my favorite president was Ronald Reagan. He was the man who led me to get involved in politics, because he made me realize that I was Republican. When I was first coming into the workforce, I admired Reagan for what he stood for and believed in and the backbone that he had. In fact, most of my family had always been Democrats. I know when I decided to run in 1992, it kind of surprised my mom that I was running as a Republican, even though now she may be a stronger Republican than I am.
Ramsey with his mother, his wife and three daughters
PHOTO: Office of Lt Gov Ron Ramsey
Kaitlyn McClain asks: Working in Nashville do you miss being at home? Oh, very much. It is tough to leave home every Monday to come all the way across the state. My wife Sindy and I have been married for almost 29 years, and I have three girls, and my family is more important than anything else. As a matter of fact, my daughter is going to work in the business to give my wife more time to come down here and spend time with me. You see, she and I have worked together with her running the business ever since we got married.

Student Josh Welty, noting that this is the Volunteer state, asks: What do you do in terms of volunteer work? Oh, boy. I guess I do a lot, come to think of it. First of all, I do a lot related to church; I teach Sunday school teacher and at many other things. For instance, we have a huge fundraising bazaar every year and I'm kind of the coordinator for it.

Many organizations use auctions to raise money, and because of that, probably the main thing that I do as a volunteer is run auctions. Just last Saturday night, I did an auction for the Johnson City Children's Hospital. Next Friday night, I'm doing one in Memphis. I do many, many charity auctions. I'm afraid it's gotten to the point where I can't do all the ones I'm requested to do because there are so many.
Finally, Patrick Huffman asks: Why is it that what happened on Wall Street six months ago is affecting us now? It affects us in a rough way. In fact, we have a $900 million shortfall, which means the money that we had planned to spend this year exceeds the amount that we originally believe our tax system will raise this year by $900 million. Now our total budget is 30 billion dollars, so this is not the end of the world, but it still hurts. The bottom line is that the national economy affects us one way or the other. When we are in a slowdown like we are now, our sales tax collections go down and that is the largest source of income for state government to pay for things like schools and roads.