Gubernatorial Hopeful Lauren Pinkston Meets with McKenzie Residents

McKENZIE (February 10) — Independent gubernatorial candidate Lauren Pinkston made a campaign stop at The Railyard in McKenzie Tuesday afternoon as part of her pledge to visit all 95 Tennessee counties before the November 3 election.

Since announcing her campaign in November 2025, Pinkston has visited more than 50 counties. The meet-and-greet quickly evolved into a roundtable discussion, with attendees raising questions about education, rural healthcare, prison reform and party politics. One question surfaced repeatedly: Why run as an Independent?

"I am a person of faith," Pinkston said, "and my faith has compelled me to be somewhere in the middle on issues, to have some things that I lean right on, some things that I lean left on. I'm dogmatic about my belief in human rights. I'm dogmatic about my belief in using our resources well. And that's just kind of left me without a party."

Pinkston has never registered as a Republican or Democrat. Her campaign slogan — “Not Red, Not Blue, Just You.” — reflects her focus on reducing division and prioritizing what she calls the human experience in policymaking.

"I believe in people," Pinkston said. "I believe in the Tennessee spirit that says, 'I'm a good neighbor. I want to take care of people when I see a need. I don't lash out at my neighbor.' We've allowed the federal language of division to make us feel like that's not where everyone is…We won't move forward as a state until we start humanizing each other."

Born and raised in McNairy County, Pinkston represents rural West Tennessee on the ballot. She earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Freed-Hardeman University and later completed her Ph.D. in International Family and Community Studies at Clemson University. She taught fourth grade in Memphis and Greenwood, S.C., before spending several years in Southeast Asia and East Africa working in community development and anti-human trafficking efforts while obtaining her graduate degree.

Professionally, Pinkston developed businesses aimed at helping survivors of human trafficking rebuild economically, and she served as board chair of Freedom Business Alliance. She said that experience shaped her belief that effective leadership begins with listening.

"I think about the things that we do and the money that we waste," she said, "when we're asking people who are elderly [or people without internet access]…to create a username and a password and use their email addresses that they may not have in order to be able to access SNAP resources. That, to me, just doesn't compute with the human experience. And the people who are on the ground in each community know that."

If elected, Pinkston said she would establish an accountability system allowing constituents to contact her office if they feel unheard by their legislators. Those concerns would be published as public-source data and compiled into weekly reports sent to Tennessee’s 33 state senators and 99 representatives.

Pinkston organizes her platform into three categories: livability, accountability and civility. A strong emphasis is placed on rural investment.

"If I have a bias, it's towards rural Tennessee," she said. "I'm concerned that rural Tennessee has just been so greatly overlooked, and some of the policies that have been passed down have been focused on the economic centers of our metro areas and the money that is brought in there. And we're not injecting money back into rural communities."

She argued that population shifts from rural communities to cities such as Memphis, Johnson City, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga have driven up housing costs and strained infrastructure.

"This urbanization of our population … has just really exploded the cost of housing in those areas and put such pressure on the electric grid and on the water systems," Pinkston said.

Housing affordability is central to her livability platform.

"We definitely need to be looking very carefully at how affordable it is to live in Tennessee, because we have students who are graduating from college or graduating with a graduate degree and can't afford a home. And that's a problem," she said.

A former educator and daughter of a retired teacher, Pinkston said maintaining strong public school options in rural communities is essential. She also highlighted the importance of rural healthcare access, noting her husband is a family practice physician and emphasizing the challenges facing maternal healthcare in smaller communities.

Pinkston said her decision to enter the race stems from concerns about division and federal overreach.

"I have always been someone who's been driven by injustice and wanting to step in there. And this was the right time," Pinkston said. "I wouldn't have stepped into this race this year if I wasn't extremely concerned that our freedoms as a state and our necessity to push back against that federal overreach wasn't going to be a real problem."

Pinkston was invited to speak at The Railyard by fellow Freed-Hardeman alum Brad Camp. If elected in November, she would become the first female governor in Tennessee history.