Blount County Republican Women’s President Stands By Her Principles, Resigns After Ultimatum Issued By TN RINOs

Image Credit: Heather Fair / Instagram

The Tennessee Conservative [By Jason Vaughn] –

Apparently in response to an email sent to the “friends and members” of the Blount County Republican Women’s Club where a Tennessee RINO aggressively urged the group to rescind “divisive” Conservative Gary Humble’s invitation from local speaking engagements, the Tennessee Federation of Republican Women has issued an ultimatum to BCRW’s President.

The Tennessee Federation of Republican Women (TNFRW) determined that by inviting “controversial figure” Gary Humble (Founder and Executive Director of Tennessee Stands) to be a guest speaker, the president of BCRW, Heather Fair, was in violation of TNFRW’s bylaws. 

Fair, nor us at the Tennessee Conservative can determine which portion of the bylaws TNFRW cites as just cause for the ultimatum.

The Tennessee Conservative reached out to the TNFRW’s President, Linda Kollman, for clarity on the situation but have not heard back upon publication of this article.

TNFRW offered Fair three choices to “rectify the situation”:

1) Resign immediately.

2) Rescind Humble’s invitation to speak, and Fair would be allowed to remain as President of BCRW.

3) Neither resign nor rescind the invitation, but then BCRW is subject to censure, possible fines and/or closure by the TNFRW.

Fair said, “I absolutely do not want any repercussions for the club or BCRW members, so option #3 was never even a consideration.”

“Rescinding the invite or censoring Gary (‘just give him some boundaries’ was advice heard earlier this week) goes against my principles and I refuse to do either,” Fair explained.

Standing by her principles left Fair with only one option, to resign immediately.

Yesterday, September 22nd, 2022, she did just that, sending notice to the members of the BCRW with an explanation of the situation along with the following statement:

“Effective immediately, I am resigning as president of Blount County Republican Women. However, it is not my desire to do so,” Fair wrote.

Fair continued, “A third-party, bully outsider has been allowed to weaponize TNFRW bylaws and infringe on the 1st Amendment Rights of an invited guest. With that reality, I see no value in retaining my current post nor any affiliation with TNFRW or NFRW.”

Fair offered her sincere thanks to those members who contacted her over the last few days to offer her encouragement.  “Your support has been deeply appreciated,” she wrote.

Gary Humble said, “We are not going to let the GOP establishment cancel conservatives.  We are going to have our own event on Monday night 9/26 at 6pm.”

The new location for the event is The Station at 4206 Miser Station Road, Louisville, TN  37777.

The Backstory:

Gary Humble founded Tennessee Stands in 2020 in response to the government’s response to the pandemic and began challenging emergency orders and mandates that were happening throughout the state.

Tennessee Stands works to awaken and equip all citizens to boldly assert the unalienable rights given to them, not by man, but naturally by God. The organization now counts its members as well over 20,000.

Humble and Tennessee Stands, over the last two + years, have been highly engaged in pushing back against government overreach, requirements for masks from departments of health, county mayors, and schools, and vaccination requirements for employment.  They have also pushed for election reform and to keep programs like critical race theory out of our public schools.

Humble has found that Tennessee Republican leadership has not done a very good job of standing up for Tennesseans’ individual liberties, along with Constitutional and God-given rights.

He also found that Republican incumbents are rarely significantly challenged during reelection campaigns. In particular, Republican Majority Leader of the Tennessee State Senate, Jack Johnson, a 16-year incumbent, was running for his fifth term in office earlier this year.

Since taking office, Johnson had never been challenged in a Republican primary election.

Humble decided to throw his hat in the ring stating, “We need real leadership at the Capitol. Showing up to vote on half measures and quasi-conservative legislation is not leadership. I am running to represent the people of Williamson County, not the next special interest lobbyist that walks through my door.” 

Humble and his campaign were attacked by three different Political Action Committees, backed by big money, in a character assassination campaign fueled by half-truths and lies. 

Some, if not all of the attack campaigns, were likely funded by the Speaker of the Senate, Randy McNally and the majority leader of the Senate, Jack Johnson.

Humble lost in the Republican Primary to Johnson by a slim margin of 786 votes, according to the Secretary of State’s official results.

Following, with no tangible evidence presented or complaints filed, Tennessee Registry of Election Finance board member Tom Lawless called for an investigation of Humble’s campaign stating, “There’s some smoke there, which usually means there’s something underneath that causes it to rise. And I just want you all to dig into it.” 

Humble pointed out that it is odd that they chose to audit the campaign of the losing candidate, who spent five times less than the incumbent.  He stated that they seem to have no interest in determining whether Jack Johnson’s campaign illegally coordinated with the three PACs that ran attacks against him, or possible coordination with the Speaker of the Senate, Randy McNally, and his use of his personal PAC to run attacks against Humble and his campaign.

To paraphrase, Humble stated that he has nothing to hide so they can “dig away!”

And that brings us back to this week, where Tennessee RINO Ted Boyatt, sent an email to the Blount County Republican Women’s Club that aggressively expressed his displeasure with Blount County Republican Women’s Club upcoming keynote guest speaker for their meeting on September 26th, Gary Humble.

The email, laced with half-truths and lies, was cc’d to the Tennessee GOP chairman Scott Golden and the Tennessee Federation for Republican Women’s president, Linda Kollman.

But BCRW’s president, Heather Fair did not give in.  Instead, she said, “So many aspects of this are upsetting: The bullying. The call for censorship. The leak, or possible theft, of the Membership list. Character assassination. Take your pick – it’s all a disgrace. What is motivating Ted Boyatt to act out in such a way, I can only imagine. I’ve never had the opportunity to meet Mr. Boyett as he doesn’t attend BCRW meetings. Nor has he made any effort to call or email me privately to discuss his concerns, which appear to be many. And yet not pressing enough to address without an audience.  Ted Boyatt’s harassment of our group certainly doesn’t speak to Republican values”.

Fair stated that the motivation for asking Humble to be a guest speaker is that he is a “strong Conservative voice” and is a man who “puts his ideals into action, pushing back against government overreach and advocating for the preservation of our Constitutionally protected God-given rights” and that he would be speaking at their event, despite the pushback from RINOs.

But the Republican establishment has pushed back, and rather than giving in, Fair has decided to remain true to her principles.

About the Author: Jason Vaughn, Media Coordinator for The Tennessee Conservative  ~ Jason previously worked for a legacy publishing company based in Crossville, TN in a variety of roles through his career.  Most recently, he served as Deputy Director for their flagship publication. Prior, he was a freelance journalist writing articles that appeared in the Herald Citizen, the Crossville Chronicle and The Oracle among others.  He graduated from Tennessee Technological University with a Bachelor’s in English-Journalism, with minors in Broadcast Journalism and History.  Contact Jason at news@TennesseeConservativeNews.com