Lloyd, Marilyn, 1929-2018

Rachel Marilyn Lloyd (née Laird; January 3, 1929 – September 19, 2018) was an American politician and businesswoman. A member of the Democratic Party, she served in the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee's 3rd district from 1975 until 1995.

Born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, she graduated from Western Kentucky College High School, a high school that associated with what is now Western Kentucky University, in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in 1945. She attended Shorter College in Rome, Georgia. She owned radio station WTTI in Dalton, Georgia, and Executive Aviation in Winchester, Tennessee with her first husband, Mort Lloyd.

After her husband's death following his securing the Democratic nomination to represent Tennessee's 3rd dustrict, Democratic leaders convinced Marilyn Lloyd to run in her husband’s place. When her principal competitor, Chattanooga millionaire Franklin Haney, dropped out of contention rather than split the party, Lloyd’s nomination was sealed. Though she had no prior political experience and was running in a district that regularly voted Republican in presidential elections, Lloyd benefited from public backlash against the Watergate Scandal. She unseated two-term incumbent Republican LaMar Baker with 51 percent of the vote

Lloyd became the first woman ever elected to Congress from Tennessee for a full term. Willa Eslick, Louise Reece, and Irene Baker were all elected in special elections to succeed their husbands as caretakers and did not run for a full term in the next election. Lloyd was considered a conservative Democrat by national standards, but a moderate by Tennessee standards. She often broke with the Democratic Party's national leadership, her views reflecting those of her conservative-minded district. After narrowly winning a tenth term in 1992, she opted not to stand for an eleventh in 1994.

In 1978 Lloyd married engineer Joseph P. Bouquard, and she served for several Congresses under the name Bouquard. In 1983 the couple divorced, and she went back to using the name Marilyn Lloyd. In 1991 she married Robert Fowler, a physician.

Subsequent to her retirement from Congress, Lloyd maintained a fairly low profile other than her advocacy for victims of domestic violence. The Marilyn Lloyd Environmental and Life Sciences Research Complex at Oak Ridge National Laboratory was named in her honor in 1999. Her Congressional papers are archived in the library of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She died at her home in Chattanooga.