DeBerry says she's cancer-free

State Representative Lois DeBerry (D-Memphis) has said that after over three years of fighting cancer of the pancreas that she is free of the disease. Doubtless she is thankful, as The Tennessean put it today, just to be alive this Christmas. The veteran Shelby County Democratic legislator has been a fixture in the Tennessee House of Representatives for four decades, and she served as the first woman Speaker pro Tempore of the House. She has battled cancer since 2009, and now she says she feels as though she has a new lease on life.

 

Anyone who knows this writer knows that he doesn't exactly agree with Lois DeBerry's politics. However, there isn't anyone nicer off of the House floor than Lois DeBerry. If you've seen this writer when he's been up at the Capitol for a few days, you know that he zips in and out of committee rooms like a bee moves from hole to hole in a honeycomb. The number of times that Lois DeBerry has seen me coming and stayed in her place to hold the door (often for a meeting she wasn't even attending) can't be counted. If you've ever attended a House session at which Lois DeBerry presided as Speaker, you also know that despite DeBerry's personal affinity for former House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh (D-Covington), DeBerry was far better at keeping order in the House Chamber than was Naifeh, who often let things on the floor move into the realm of quasi-organized chaos by political design.