Political Endorsement Record
First openly gay person to receive the Tennessean's endorsements for a political office
First openly gay person to receive the SEIU's endorsement for a political office in the State of Tennessee
Received a vocal and written endorsement from Representative Ben West Jr.
First candidate to receive the endorsement of Tennessee Equality Project
Second openly gay candidate to receive the endorsement of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund
First openly gay candidate to receive the endorsement of Democracy for Tennessee
First openly gay candidate to receive the endorsement of Nashville Neighborhood Defense Fund
Early Life
Shane E. Burkett was born August 5, 1974 in Charleston, SC to Roy and Patricia Sue Burkett. After his father's tour of duty with the US Navy, the family settled in Southport, FL, a suburb of Panama City, FL. Shane grew up Holiness Penticostal. Shane is a pianist and vocalist. By the time he was 16 years old he had recorded two albums, one Southern Gospel and one Country album.
College Life
Shane attended University of Georgia in Athens GA and holds a BA in Business Administration with an emphasis on Business Law.
Career
Currently, Shane is the Vice President of Strategic Marketing for SBResults, LLC. A marketing firm based in Hermitage, TN.
Community Involvement
Shane is involved in many civic, community and business related organizations
Executive Vice President of the Nashville GLBT Chamber of Commerce
Communications Director for the Old Hickory Area Chamber of Commerce
Membership
- Donelson Hermitage Neighborhood Association
- Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce
- Nashville Neighborhood Defense Fund
- Tennessee Equality Project
She is also the winner of the Best of Breed award at the Westminster Kennel Club, 2007 at Madison Square Garden. See:
http://www.westminsterkennelclub.org/2007/results/breed/whippet.html
Moxi has won the American Whippet Club's National Championship twice, first in 2004, over myriad champions from the "classes," and again in 2006. Source American Whippet Club:
http://www.americanwhippetclub.net/nationals/2006national/2006whippetnational.html
One of the fastest breeds in dogdom, whippets can run up to 35 miles per hour, the fastest breed if cutting not on a straight course (source Westminster KC 2007 broadcast Hound Group, USA Network, David Frei, commentator).
Moxi exhibited this talent when chasing down a thief who had run off with her owner's wallet at an L.A. dog park. Moxi was featured on Ellen DeGeneres' show on NBC-TV Feb 6, 2007 with Westminster commentator David Frei. See: http://nysahill.net/news.html
She was also featured winning in the Hound Group on the the AKC/Eukanuba National Championship on Discovery and Animal Planet on Dec 2, 2006. Moxi won Best of Breed as well as Hound Group Third on the televised broadcast. Source:
http://www.akc.org/nationalchampionship/index.cfm?text_event_number=2006277104§ion=group_winners
More info:
http://www.nysahill.net/home.html
Michael David Crawford is a musician and software developer. He has developed both open source and commercial software. Mr. Crawford also publishes his own music, which he makes available under a creative commons license. He has devoted his life to learning new things and helping other people out.
Biography
He graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a Bachelor of Arts in Physics. His first two years of college he studied Physics and Astronomy at Caltech. He has been a computer programmer for over 15 years, and currently works as a software consultant for Goingware in the Silicon Valley. He suffers from schizoaffective disorder and has written extensively about living with the disease. He married Bonita Crawford on July 22, 2000.
Work
Michael has worked for Apple Computer, helping to debug the Mac OS and Macintosh drivers. He has written articles on MacsBug, and debugging Mac OS and Classic Macintosh programs. After he left Apple, Michael worked on BeOS software, and wrote about working conditions in Silicon Valley.
Michael has given programming tips based on his experience on the Internet. Due to his mental illness, he was discriminated against but found ways to still make a living even if he had to move to Canada in order to get a new job. Based on Dotcom failures and unfair working conditions, Michael wrote an article about resigning with dignity. He learned how to submit web sites to search engines like Google, and wrote about it. He started writing open source programs and become popular for Ogg Frog and other software, calling himself a Dirty GNU Hippy. Over the years Michael has written self-published open source work in both writing, art, software, music, and other mediums. He has gained notoriety for his open source contributions which are well documented on various open source web sites.
Michael has contributed to many public and private works. He has faced a lot of obstacles in his life and has struggled for the common good. He has even made contributions to articles, and has inspired others to do better with their lives through his writing.