Bill Gibbons

Bill Gibbons is the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security. He was appointed to the post by the Governor of Tennessee, Bill Haslam. He is a former District Attorney General of the 30th Judicial District of Tennessee, which includes Shelby County and the city of Memphis, Tennessee. He was a Republican candidate in the 2010 Tennessee gubernatorial election, but dropped out on March 26, 2010 due to "lack of sufficient campaign funds to go forward."

Early life

Gibbons was born and raised on a small farm in southern Arkansas, the youngest of six children. When Gibbons was 4, his father, an alcoholic, abandoned him and his family leaving it impoverished. As a result, he grew up without a telephone or TV despite them being common American household conveniences during his childhood in the 1950s and 1960s. Also, his mother had to sell their chairs, tables, silverware, dishes, and other staple household necessities to pay for food and electricity. Eventually, his mother lost the small farm to foreclosure. As a child, Gibbons was a habitual truant that skipped school; but it was his fourth grade school teacher that convinced him that education was the path out of poverty.