As 2021 draws to a close, we take a look back at some of the year’s notable deaths. They include former U.S. Sen. Bill Brock, state Supreme Court Justice Connie Clark, and radio talk show host Phil Valentine. Several former state lawmakers also passed away this year, including Mike Carter, Jim Coley, Roscoe Dixon, Thelma Harper, Jim Holcomb, Cotton Ivy, Carl Moore, and David Shepard.

Here is a roundup of the year’s obituaries, as culled from the print edition of the The Tennessee Journal:

Retired Memphis Criminal Court Judge James Beasley Jr. died at age 64. Appointed to the bench in 1995, Beasley presided over several high-profile cases. They included the trial of Jessie Dotson, who was convicted and sentenced to death for killing six people in 2008. Beasley previously worked as an assistant district attorney in Memphis, where he was part of the team prosecuting Charles McVean, a commodities broker who allegedly supplied the money to offer a $10,000 bribe to Sen. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) to vote in favor of a gambling bill. McNally was wearing a wire for investigators as part of the FBI’s Rocky Top corruption probe. The case ended in a hung jury. 

Republican Bill Brock, who ended Albert Gore Sr.’s 32-year political career by defeating the Carthage Democrat in the 1970 U.S. Senate race, died at age 90. Brock lost his re-election bid in 1976, but would go on to serve as chair of the Republican National Committee in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and was later named U.S. trade representative and labor secretary in President Ronald Reagan’s administration. In the 1970 race, Brock painted Gore as a liberal who was out of touch with Tennesseans on matters like school busing, gun control, school prayer, and the Vietnam war. His campaign slogan, “Bill Brock Believes in the Things We Believe In,” was criticized as playing into the racial fears of disaffected whites. When asked about the campaign in later years, Brock insisted it wasn’t focused on anything but bona fide issues. Six years later, Brock was put on the defensive for his vocal support of President Richard Nixon during Watergate, a poor economy, and the disclosure that the heir to a candy company fortune had paid just $2,000 in federal income taxes. Buttons declaring “I paid more taxes than Brock” became popular, and Democrat Jim Sasser went on to win the race by 5 percentage points.

Eddie Bryan, a longtime leader of the Tennessee AFLCIO, died at age 88. The Nashville native was first elected secretary-treasurer in 1981 and held the position until his retirement in 2011.

Frank Cagle, conservative columnist who relished poison pen, died at 72.  Cagle stepped down as managing editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel in 2001 to become deputy to then-Knoxville Mayor Victor Ashe. He was later named communications director for Republican Van Hilleary’s 2002 gubernatorial campaign against Democrat Phil Bredesen. But Cagle was always best at calling out officials’ shortcomings rather than propping them up. After Bredesen won the governor’s race, Cagle launched a talk radio show and later returned as an opinion writer for Metro Pulse, the News Sentinel, and Knox TN Today (he estimated in 2018 he had written more than a million words worth of columns over 30 years). Cagle had hoped to highlight what he saw as all-powerful House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh’s bullying ways when he referred to him in print in 1998 as “the Antichrist.” Much to Cagle’s chagrin, the Covington Democrat turned the tables by skillfully presenting himself as the victim of vicious attacks in the press. On a visit to the Capitol Hill press room more than 20 years later, Cagle shook his head at the memory, saying he had inadvertently managed to stir public sympathy for the iron-fisted Naifeh, who would remain in charge of the chamber for another decade. Cagle joked he expected the “Antichrist” line to appear on his gravestone.

Todd Campbell, a longtime legal adviser to Al Gore who was later named to the federal court bench in Nashville, died at age 64. The cause was a neurodegenerative disease Campbell had battled for years. Campbell, who as an attorney specialized in election law and constitutional matters, had worked on Gore’s presidential and Senate campaigns. He later served as counsel for the 1992 presidential transition followed by two years in the vice president’s office. Campbell had recently returned to private practice in Nashville when Gore recommended him to fill a federal court vacancy in the Middle District of Tennessee in 1995. Campbell presided over several high-profile legal disputes, including the Brian A. v. Sundquist class action case over foster care, which led to a 2001 consent decree requiring court supervision of the Department of Children’s Service for the next 15 years. Campbell in 2008 sentenced former state Sen. John Ford (D-Memphis) to 14 years in prison for wire fraud and concealment involving more than $850,000 in “consulting fees” he received from TennCare contractors while serving as a state lawmaker. His conviction was later thrown out by the 6th Circuit on the basis that Ford’s failure to report the consulting income to the Senate and state Registry wasn’t a crime under the federal statute prosecutors charged him with.