By Calvin Carter
Brownsville States-Graphic

Congressman Zach Wamp stopped by for a visit with some of the County’s political and business leaders.

Wamp, who is a Republican running for Governor currently represents the third congressional district of Tennessee, which includes Chattanooga.

At the center of his discussion with leaders included the planned Megasite and Solar Farm.

“This is the biggest thing that’s happened in West Tennessee,” Wamp said. “There’s no question that the next governor needs to work in West Tennessee. The governor has to be hands on.”

Some shared their confidence that Wamp would be that type of “hands-on” governor, based on his experience with the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga.

“I know how focused you were on being with Volkswagen, so I know you’ll be focused with West Tennessee,” Haywood County Mayor Franklin Smith said.

Wamp emphasized that really, the landing businesses, while the economy is fixing itself.

He also mentioned a need for improvement in education to have a stronger, local work force.

Wamp, along with Smith, City Mayor Webb Banks, and Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Joe Ing left for a driving tour of the purchased land of where the Megasite and Solar Farm will sit.

Read the full article here.

By Steve Burwick
Elizabethton Star

U.S. Congressman Zach Wamp, Republican candidate for Governor of Tennessee, stressed the importance of wellness and prevention as a long-term cure for the state’s — and the nation’s — health care woes, while on a campaign stop in Elizabethton Tuesday. 

Wamp dropped in at Blackberry Antiques for a lunch of beans and cornbread at the invitation of the owner, Carter County Commissioner Steve Lowrance. The candidate also paid a visit to the Elizabethton Star office where he spoke with Publisher Nathan Goodwin about some of his proposals. 

Wamp said wellness will be a top issue for him if he is elected governor. 

“Tennesseans are not getting healthier,” he said. “The young people of our state and our nation are the first generation in the history of our nation with a shorter life expectancy than their parents. We’ve got to do a whole lot more with a preventive health agenda.” 

Decrying the worsening condition of personal health in the state, Wamp said our children are not active enough. 

“We take more prescription drugs per capita than any state except West Virginia, we’ve got 13-year-olds on high blood pressure medication, we’ve got chronic obesity, type two diabetes, infant mortality,” he said. “We’re not a healthy enough state. It starts with the next generation. When I was growing up, we’d go outside to sweat … play, run, work … Your brain works better and you sleep better and you do better in school.” 

Wamp also emphasized the need to make improvements in education to instill confidence in students and to strengthen the work force. 

“If you want to improve education — and we should — it starts with early childhood reading,” said Wamp. “You don’t wait until the end of the third grade to see if the child is reading; you benchmark them in kindergarten in every school system in the state, and if they’re not reading you give them an extra hour a day of direct instruction, teach them phonics and catch them up.” 

Wamp said if students are reading well in third grade, more of them will graduate high school and go on to college or vocational school, and the work force will be better prepared for the challenges ahead. Wamp emphasized the need to strengthen secondary and higher education, along with distance-learning and dual-enrollment programs to give students a head start on career goals. He said students need to be inspired, and to know they have more choices after high school.

Stressing the need for infrastructure, Wamp said rural communities have the biggest challenges, adding that Upper East Tennessee has good roads but Carter County and other rural counties need extended broadband coverage to connect with the world and offer more business and communication options. He said agriculture, manufacturing and construction are needed, adding that “if you make it, build it or grow it, you’re going to have a strong economy and a deep economy. I want Tennessee to lead, to be the example for the whole country to see, with limited government, low taxes, strong leadership and a dynamic agenda.”

Wamp said the federal government should not control what happens in Tennessee.

“Tennessee should carve its own future, we should make our own laws and raise our own families,” he said, adding that the government should be more responsive toward small businesses. He also said state government should be reduced in size and scope, and become more efficient and accountable.

Wamp said he was glad to be in Carter County, “the home of my Republican Speaker of the House, Kent Williams.” Asked if Williams should be reinstated in the state Republican party, he said it should have already happened, adding that the Republican party should be united in order to move ahead on the important issues.

He also hailed Congressman Phil Roe as “the right man in the right place at the right time.”

“There’s not a more effective, more diligent, more knowledgeable member of Congress today than Phil Roe, and I can tell you that when the party in power retreats in the coming days from their national health care takeover, in large part it’ll be because Phil Roe so well articulated why this is the wrong approach,” said Wamp. “We ought to hit the restart button and start over on incremental reform, and do what’s right but not turn it over to the government. This same government that couldn’t get water to the Superdome after Katrina shouldn’t be running our health care system, and shouldn’t get between you and your doctor or have a health care czar making all the decisions about who gets health care and who doesn’t,” he added.

Read the full article here.

By Chronicle Staff Reporter
The Decatur County Chronicle

Congressman Zach Wamp visited Decatur County on Saturday with stops at the local radio station and a local restaurant.
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Wamp, who is originally from Chattanooga, has spent the last 15 years as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He is known for establishing the Tennessee Valley Technology Corridor in East Tennessee and is now on the campaign trail seeking the Republican nomination for Governor.

After breakfast in Perry County, Wamp continued his tour of Tennessee in Parsons where he gave a brief interview at WKJQ, followed by a stop at Granny’s Kitchen, where he met with local residents to share his vision for Tennessee.

“Our values as a state and its people come from our rural counties,” Wamp replied when asked why he is visiting rural counties like Decatur. “If you really want to understand the challenges of Tennesseans, you better go out in the rural counties, because they’re the ones that have the toughest ‘go’ of it.”

Wamp said he would like to see transportation reestablished as a priority for Tennessee. “People like to live in small communities where people take care of each other, but it’s hard to get there.” He said he is in favor of seeing through the vision of former Governor Ned McWherter, who wanted to establish a four lane highway leading from every county seat to the interstate. Adding such infrastructure will allow goods and services to move more rapidly, Wamp said. In addition, adding broadband internet access to rural communities will allow small businesses to communicate and sell products to the world by engaging in e-commerce.

Wamp says creating jobs is one of his highest priorities. “We need a production agenda in Tennessee that focuses on building, making and growing things.”

“If somebody doesn’t build it, make it, or grow it, you can’t market it or sell it,” he added. Agriculture is important to Wamp. “Our growers were our first manufacturers,” he said, “and agriculture needs to have an even higher priority in our state.”

He said the production agenda he plans is based on Tennessee’s strengths, which include right to work, low cost of living, low taxes, no state income tax and the hard-working people of the state. “But we’ve got to improve our education, and preparation of our young people to fill the jobs.”

Wamp said he is impressed with the graduation rate in Decatur County, which is near the state average despite funding being far below it.

“Somebody’s doing a good job of doing more with less,” he remarked.

Wellness is also a high priority to Wamp. He said young people are being diagnosed with hypertension and diabetes at an alarming rate, and he would like to focus on preventive healthcare and encouraging exercise and more physical education classes in schools.

Rep. Vance Dennis, who also attended the luncheon at Granny’s Kitchen, questioned Wamp on his plans for the state budget, which faces a billion dollar shortfall after federal stimulus funding is exhausted this year.

“Government is not as efficient as it should be,” Wamp replied.
“We have to do more with less, and reduce the scope of state government.”

Decaturville resident Walter Carlson asked Wamp what his intentions would be regarding the state’s veterans programs.

“[Veterans] need our support,” Wamp said. “That’s not an area where I would allow any budget cuts.”

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First opens this Saturday in Chattanooga.  Nashville, Memphis opening soon.

Nashville, Tenn. – Zach Wamp, Republican candidate for Governor, said today that his campaign is picking up so much grassroots momentum and so many volunteers across the state that his campaign is ready to open three new campaign offices in each of the state’s grand divisions to better support volunteer efforts.

“The numbers of folks we have volunteering now and the response we are getting to our 20/20 Vision to help create an even better Tennessee, have been very strong and extremely gratifying, so we have accelerated our plans and we will be opening three new campaign offices to help support and organize our volunteers and to rally even more support,” Wamp said.  “Our first regional campaign office opens in Chattanooga this Saturday, and our new headquarters in Nashville and Memphis will follow soon — with all open by the middle of February.” 

The grand opening of the Zach Wamp for Governor headquarters in Chattanooga begins at 11:30 a.m. ET, this Saturday, January 23rd, at 518 Georgia Avenue in downtown Chattanooga, which was the same location of Senator Bob Corker’s campaign office during his successful 2006 Senate race.

 The new office in Wamp’s hometown of Chattanooga is located near the Hamilton County Courthouse, where Wamp will be joined on Saturday at the grand opening by regional volunteers and several special guests.  Interested voters and the media are welcome and encouraged to attend the event.  Free parking is located on sides of the building and at a nearby lot.

Wamp said specific details about the Nashville and Memphis grand openings will be announced soon, but they are tentatively scheduled in Nashville for February 6th and in Memphis on February 14th.

“Our campaign is really on the move and taking off in every corner of the state.  Our financial support is strong and growing. Our grassroots support is strong and growing. And folks are really rallying to our efforts to create a new 20/20 Vision for our state with specific initiatives to create more high-paying jobs, better schools and healthier and safer Tennessee,” Wamp said.

“As Governor, I intend to work with our business community to create a new “production agenda” to help create the manufacturing, construction, agriculture and high tech jobs to get folks back to work and to grow the economy all across Tennessee. It is going to take all of us working together to get the job done.  So I could not be more pleased by the progress of our campaign to date.  But we’ve only just begun,” Wamp said.

From better schools and universities to healthier children and families – from more high-wage jobs to a modern infrastructure with better roads, bridges and broadband – from strong and conservative state fiscal management to just saying “no” to a state income tax – Zach Wamp has a clear 20/20 Vision of what we need to do to create an even better and brighter Tennessee and to move our state up in the national rankings.

The founder of the nationally-recognized “Tennessee Valley Technology Corridor” economic development organization, Zach Wamp has become well-known as a dynamic and visionary leader during the past 15 years of serving Tennessee’s 3rd Congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Wamp and his wife, Kim, live in Chattanooga, and they have a son, Weston, a recent graduate of the University of Tennessee, and a daughter, Coty, who is a student at UT Knoxville.

Effort is part of Wamp’s bold, new 20/20 Vision for Tennessee

Nashville, Tenn – Zach Wamp, Republican candidate for Governor, unveiled tonight during the SCORE Tennessee Gubernatorial Forum on Education, his plans to launch a bold, new state initiative to improve our schools, boost student achievement, and to prepare young Tennesseans for the jobs of the future.

During the hour-long candidate forum, which was televised live statewide, Wamp was the most specific of all of the gubernatorial hopefuls in outlining his 20/20 Vision of how to improve our schools and lower the state’s high school drop-out rate with an intensive new focus on early childhood reading skills.

“Reading is key to school performance and to preventing kids from dropping-out at adolescence and beyond,” Wamp said. “If children are not reading well enough by the time they get to third grade, then we have to take immediate and corrective action. Under my plan, we will begin to benchmark their reading skills in Kindergarten.  If they are not reading at grade level and are already falling behind, then we will pull them out of class for part of the day, give them direct instruction with phonics, and catch them up to their peers.”

During the forum, Wamp pointed to research citing third grade reading scores as a good predictor of later school and economic success stating “those who don’t read well by the end of third grade often struggle to understand content in other classes.”

Wamp said that education is a “cradle to grave” issue, and one of the most important issues for Tennesseans because it impacts virtually all others.  He said it is going to take everyone working together to help move Tennessee from 42nd in the nation to a position of national leadership in education.  

“We aren’t talking about more big government,” Wamp said.  “We are talking about a bold new public/private partnership across Tennessee calling on every family, every business, every school and pre-school, every library, church, civic organization and every community working together to help get our kids ready to read and succeed.”

Wamp said that young children who read well perform well for life, and that all Tennesseans share a responsibility for preparing the next generation of our workforce.

“Whatever schooling option a family chooses, public, private, religious, magnet, charter or home school, as a child advances to kindergarten and later high school, basic reading skills and hard work are fundamental to academic success. Having books in the home and reading aloud to children can help them learn to read, imagine, create and write,” Wamp said. “Reading skills are fundamental to scholastic success, career success and to lifetime learning.  My 20/20 Vision’s Early Childhood Reading Initiative will be one of many steps I will take as Governor to help prepare our children to read, so they can succeed.”

From better schools and universities to healthier children and families – from more high-wage jobs to a modern infrastructure with better roads, bridges and broadband – from strong and conservative state fiscal management to just saying “no” to a state income tax – Zach Wamp has a clear 20/20 Vision of what we need to do to create an even better and brighter Tennessee and to move our state up in the national rankings between now and the year 2020.

The founder of the nationally-recognized “Tennessee Valley Technology Corridor” economic development organization, Zach Wamp has become well-known as a dynamic and visionary leader during the past 15 years of serving Tennessee’s 3rd Congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Wamp and his wife, Kim, live in Chattanooga, and they have a son, Weston, a recent graduate of the University of Tennessee, and a daughter, Coty, who is a student at UT Knoxville.