PULASKI, Tenn. ? One of Tennessee politics most outspoken and colorful personalities of the last half-century will give the second annual Ross Bass Distinguished Lecture at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 27.

John Jay Hooker Jr., a Nashville attorney, entrepreneur, political activist, and former gubernatorial candidate, will give the Bass lecture, named in honor of the late U.S. senator and congressman from Giles County who was also a Martin College alumnus.

The convocation address is free and open to the public.

Hooker ? the son of prominent Nashville trial attorney John Jay Hooker Sr. and grandson of Henry Williamson, who signed the Constitution of Tennessee in 1870 ? attended the University of the South in Sewanee and then graduated Vanderbilt University Law School in 1957. The next year, Gov. Frank Clement asked that Hooker and another Nashville lawyer, Jack Norman Sr., become involved in the state?s investigation of Raulston Schoolfield, an allegedly corrupt Chattanooga state judge. Once Schoolfield was impeached by the Tennessee State House of Representatives, Hooker and Norman were then retained to prosecute Schoolfield before the Tennessee State Senate, which convicted him on several counts.

Among those testifying at the Schoolfield impeachment trial was Robert F. Kennedy, forging a close friendship between Hooker and Kennedy that continued until Kennedy?s death in 1968. When Kennedy became U.S. attorney general in the administration of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, in 1961, Hooker was appointed a special assistant to RFK.

Hooker, who had started his own law firm in 1958, entered the Democratic primary for the governor of Tennessee in 1966 at the age of 36, eventually losing to former Gov. Buford Ellington, who was successfully returned to office. For the next four years, Hooker tended to his personal financial investments and business ventures as he made plans to run for governor again in 1970. This time he captured the Democratic nomination, but he was defeated in the general election by Republican candidate Winfield Dunn, a Memphis dentist.

His next attempt for the state?s gubernatorial election came in 1998, when he again captured the Democratic nomination only to fall to incumbent Republican Gov. Don Sundquist. In 2006, he filed to run in the Democratic primaries for both governor and the U.S. Senate, finishing second and third in each, respectively.

In 1994, Hooker began efforts to affect campaign reform, becoming involved in lawsuits against candidates James R. Sasser and Bill Frist and, two years later, Sen. Fred Thompson, now a Republican candidate for president. He also brought a lawsuit challenging the judicial election process and another lawsuit against Sundquist challenging the constitutionality of campaign contributions from non-voters.

Hooker will be on the Martin Methodist College campus all day on Thursday, talking to students in classes throughout the afternoon and then speaking at a dinner in Grissom Colonial Hall later that evening. This marks the second year he has been a part of the Ross Bass event, having attended and spoken on behalf of 2006 lecturer John Siegenthaler Sr., one of his close friends over the past 40 years.