Bryan Sharratt

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Bryan Edwards Sharratt (October 13, 1947 - August 16, 2007) was a U.S. Navy and Air Force officer, a lawyer, a Certified Public Accountant, a real estate broker, and a Democratic politician from Wyoming. In 1988, he was his party's nominee in the race for Wyoming's at-large seat in the United States House of Representatives against then incumbent and current U.S. Vice President Richard B. "Dick" Cheney. Sharratt polled 56,527 votes (31.8 percent) to Cheney's 118,350 (66.6 percent).

In 1992, Sharratt headed his state's campaign to elect Bill Clinton as the 42nd U.S. President. However, then President George Herbert Walker Bush won Wyoming's three electoral votes. In 2004, Sharratt headed the defense policy team for the Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Senator John Forbes Kerry of Massachusetts. He also worked that year in the unsuccessful campaign to reelect Senator Thomas Daschle in neighboring South Dakota.

1 Early years, education, military
2 Wyoming politics
3 Later years
4 References

[edit] Early years, education, military

Sharratt, the youngest of three children of the late George Stanley Harper Sharratt, Jr., (1914-1983) and his wife, Shirley Marie Sharratt (1914-1992), was born at Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. His parents were originally from Missouri. He grew up in a Navy family and lived all around the world. In 1968, Sharratt received a bachelor of arts degree in economics from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. In 1971, he obtained a juris doctor from Duke.

After graduation, Sharratt served in the Navy as a judge advocate counsel in San Diego and thereafter as the head of the trial team at the North Island Naval Air Station in nearby Coronado, California. He volunteered for sea duty and was assigned as legal officer aboard the attack aircraft carrier USS Forrestal attached to the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea. In addition to his judge advocate duties, he served regularly as officer of the deck.

On release from active duty, he moved his family to Wyoming, where in 1977, he earned a M.B.A. at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. He transferred his commission to the Air Force Reserve and served an additional nineteen years, having achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was a graduate of the Air Command and Staff College and the Air War College. He received the Meritorious Service Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters and the National Defense Service Medal (Sharpshooter Pistol).

[edit] Wyoming politics

Sharratt moved to Wheatland, north of Cheyenne, where he opened a branch office for Urbigkit & Whitehead, P.C. In 1978, he was elected to a four-year term as the Platte County prosecuting attorney. In 1982, he established his own firm, Sharratt & Sharratt, P.C., having practiced with his father for the last year of his father's life. Sharratt served as president of both the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association and the Wyoming County and Prosecuting Attorneys Association. He also became a CPA and a real estate broker. He was a member of the Masonic lodge and the Shriners.

In 1980, Sharratt was a Wyoming delegate to the Democratic National Convention, which met in New York City to renominate the Carter-Mondale ticket. From 1980-1982, Sharratt was treasurer and finance chairman for Wyoming Democrats. In 1986, he was the campaign chairman for Michael John "Mike" Suyllivan's successful gubernatorial race.

Having worked to elect Clinton as President, Sharratt was appointed to serve as the deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force, Reserve Affairs. In that capacity, he oversaw the Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, and counter drug activities of the Air Force. He also served on the Reserve Forces Policy Board.

[edit] Later years

Sharratt was divorced from the former Amy Jo Mank. He and his second wife, Ann Marie, were married in Washington, D.C., on June 28, 1997, and relocated to Arlington, Virginia.

Since 2003, Sharratt had been a consultant with the Democratic Spectrum Group in Alexandria. On September 11, 2006, he was named as one of nine nationally recognized experts on veterans' issues to the Commission on the Future for America's Veterans.

Sharratt died suddenly of a heart attack at his home in Arlington. He had recently been diagnosed with cancer and was receiving treatment. In addition to his wife, he was survived by a son, Carroll Craig Sharratt of Cheyenne; daughter, Jo Marie McGuire, and her husband, Mark of Fort Collins, Colorado; grandson, Reuben Harper McGuire, and brother, James Andrew Sharratt, and his wife, Jing, of San Diego. Memorial services were held at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Cheyenne on September 15, 2007. Interment was in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, where both of his parents are buried.

A scholarship fund has been established in Sharratt's name at the University of Wyoming College of Business.

Preceded by Rick Gilmore, 1986	Democratic nominee for Wyoming's at-large seat in the United States House of Representatives Bryan Edwards Sharratt 1988	Succeeded by Pete Maxfield, 1990