Bryan Terry (born October 27, 1968) is an American doctor and politician from the state of

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

. A Republican, he has represented the 48th district of the

Tennessee House of Representatives The Tennessee House of Representatives is the lower house of the Tennessee General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee. Constitutional requirements According to the state constitution of 1870, this body is to consis ...

, based in eastern

Murfreesboro Murfreesboro is a city in Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Its population was 165,430 according to the 2023 census estimate, up from 108,755 residents certified in 2010 United States census, 2010. Murfreesboro i ...

, since 2015. He is the only Native American serving in the chamber.

Early life

Terry was born in

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

, where he went into his family's auto salvage business. After attending the

University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma, United States. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two territories became the ...

and the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, Terry worked as a doctor in both Oklahoma and Tennessee, including caring for victims of the

Oklahoma City bombing The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, United States, on April 19, 1995. The bombing remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. Perpetr ...

in 1995.

Career

In 2014,

Joe Carr Joseph Benedict Carr (22 February 1922 – 3 June 2004) was an Irish amateur golfer. Early life Carr was born in Inchicore, a suburb of Dublin, Ireland, to George and Margaret Mary "Missie" Waters (the fifth of seven children). At 10 days ol ...

, representative for the 48th district of the

, announced he would challenge Senator

Lamar Alexander Andrew Lamar Alexander Jr. (born July 3, 1940) is an American politician and attorney who served as a United States senator from Tennessee from 2003 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he also was the 45th governor of Tennessee from 1 ...

in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. Despite being outspent, Terry won a highly contested primary to succeed Carr, earning 34% of the vote to his two opponents' 33%. Terry went on to win the general election easily. Terry has not faced significant opposition since in his heavily Republican seat, winning handily in 2016 and 2018. In 2023, Terry supported a resolution to expel three Democratic lawmakers from the legislature for violating decorum rules. The expulsion was widely characterized as unprecedented. In 2025, Terry sponsored HB1044, which was substituted b
SB955: Medical Ethics Defense Act
and went into effect on April 24, 2025. The bill established that "a healthcare provider, including a healthcare professional, healthcare institution, or healthcare payer, has the right to not participate in or pay for a healthcare procedure, treatment, or service that violates the conscience of the healthcare provider." On July 20, 2025, th
Nashville Banner reported
that a 35-year old woman was denied prenatal care by her physician "because they objected to the fact that she wasn't married, nor did she plan to be" as a direct result of this bill.

Personal life

Terry lives in

with his wife, Cheryl, and their 2 children. He is an enrolled member of the

Choctaw Nation The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (Choctaw: ''Chahta Okla'') is a Native American reservation occupying portions of southeastern Oklahoma in the United States. At roughly , it is the second-largest reservation in area after the Navajo, exceeding t ...

References

Living people Republican Party members of the Tennessee House of Representatives 1968 births University of Oklahoma alumni Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma people Native American state legislators People from Murfreesboro, Tennessee 20th-century Native American people 21st-century Native American politicians 21st-century members of the Tennessee General Assembly {{Tennessee-politician-stub