by Clay Smith | Apr 18, 2012 | News Slider
Lipscomb’s “now that you ask…” series ended with dialogue from a member of the same family that the series started with earlier this semester – the Haslam family. Gov. Bill Haslam opened up the series, and on Tuesday, April 17, the series ended for the semester with his wife and Tennessee’s First Lady, Crissy Haslam. The dialogue was moderated by Tom Ingram, leader-in-residence for the Andrews Institue for Civic Leadership at Lipcomb. First Lady Haslam recounted her experiences growing up in Tennessee, being the wife of a mayor and then governor and working to affect change in the communities that she has been a part of. Mrs.Haslam, who is one of the state’s leading advocates for better education, attended an all girls school growing up. She said benefitted from the school’s format. “Yes, I enjoyed my time there because you had the opportunity to pursue whatever offices you wanted,” Haslam said. “You didn’t have that distraction of having guys there.” After high school, Haslam attended Emory University where she majored in finance and marketing. Ingram asked Haslam how her ambitions in college shifted to bring her to her current position as First Lady of Tennessee. “I had hoped to get a job in busines,s and I pictured myself working my way up in the corporate ladder,” she said. “But none of that really happened; I married Bill at 22 and couldn’t find the job I wanted after college.” After graduating from Emory and marrying Bill Haslam, the couple moved to Knoxville in 1981. The state’s First Lady says life with a politician caused her to change her ambitions. “At...
by Hunter Patterson | Apr 16, 2012 | News Slider
Earlier this semester, Tennessee’s governor, Bill Haslam, jump-started the “now that you ask…” series with Tom Ingram. The governor’s wife, Crissy Haslam, will join Ingram in the next edition of the series, Tuesday, April 17. Tennessee’s First Lady, Crissy Haslam, introduced a three-part initiative that focuses on the interplay between family engagement and literacy improvement in Tennessee. She has been traveling the state to stress the importance of parents as first teachers, parents as education partners, and also to raise awareness for the exponential value of reading at grade level by the third grade. Born in Houston, Texas, Haslam moved with her family to Memphis, Tennessee, when she was 8-years-old. She graduated from Emory University in 1980 with a double major in finance and marketing in the College of Business. Crissy married Bill Haslam and moved to Knoxville in 1981. While working as the assistant director of admissions for UT-Knoxville, she received a Master of Science degree in Education in the program of College Student Personnel. She has served on numerous civic and community boards, and currently serves as chair of the Tennessee Executive Residence Foundation and Commission. The “now that you ask…” conversation series is hosted by Tom Ingram, the man called the “most influential person in Tennessee politics who does not hold elected office.” The series brings Ingram’s bipartisan, common sense approach to government and politics straight to the table with discussions and debates featuring guests from across the business and political worlds. Ingram, founder of The FIRST Group in Washington, D.C. and The Ingram Group in Nashville, was appointed a leader-in-residence at the Andrews Institute for...
