Bill Purcell Special
Curriculum vitae Bill Purcell
Bill Purcell is the 5th Mayor in the government of Nashville and Davidson County and in 2003 he received the honorary membership at the German-American Dialog Center Magdeburg.
But what happened before this?
William Paxon Purcell III was born on 25th October 1953 in Wallingford, Pennsylvania a suburb of Philadelphia. He attended the Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, at which he was Vice president of the student senate and he also worked as a journalist at the student newspaper. After his graduation at Hamilton he attended the Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He made his Law degree in 1979 and started working at the West Tennessee Legal Agency in Jackson.
In 1986 Purcell was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives where he served for 5 terms. As House Majority Leader and Chair of the Select Committee on Children and Youth, Purcell's work in the legislature positioned him in the forefront of education, health care, workers compensation, and criminal sentencing reforms. Purcell resigned from the General Assembly in 1996 and was director of the Child and Family Policy Center at the Vandrbilt Institute of Public Policy Studies, a nationally recognized Center builiding a bridge between academical research, politics and best practices to benefit children and their families.
Although many suspected he would run for governor in 1998 Purcell announced that he would run for Mayor of Metro Nashville after the Mayor Phil Bredesen had decided not to run for a 3rd term. Purcell won the election against the former Mayor Richard Fulton and then Vice Mayor Jay West. In September 1999 Purcell took office as the 5th Mayor of Nashville. Purcell was re-elected for a 2nd term with a majority of 84.8 %. Purcell is the 2nd native Northerner to be Mayor, the other one being Bredesen.
Purcell and his wife Debbie Miller live together with their daughter Jesse at the historical Lockeland Springs.
