elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 2002. House District 130 consists of parts of Talbot,

Harris, and the eastern part of Muscogee County and Fort Benning.

Rep. Buckner is currently serving as a member of the Ethics, Natural Resources & Environment,

Retirement, and State Institutions & Property committees. As a freshman legislator, she served

as secretary of the State Institutions & Properties Committee, a member of the Health & Human

Services Committee, a member of the Natural Resources Committee and was the only freshman

to serve on the Water Subcommittee. She has served as an assistant to the Majority Whip.

Rep. Buckner is the Former Director of Community Benefit at Columbus Regional Healthcare

System, having previously worked for Doctors Hospital as the Director of Community Relations

and the Columbus Health Department as Senior Public Health Educator.

She earned a BS Degree in Health Science from Columbus State University and attended

Georgia Southwestern College to do postgraduate work and earn a teaching certificate.

Rep. Buckner is a Board Member of Twin Cedars, which provides programs and services to

children and their families in Columbus, LaGrange and Macon, Board Member of Three Rivers

AHEC, Board Member and Past Chairman of the West Central Georgia Cancer Coalition and a

member of the Network for Professionals and Executives.

Her community service has included volunteering for the American Lung Association of Georgia,

Columbus-Ft. Benning chapter of the American Cancer Society, Girl Scouts, Safe Kids of

Columbus, Columbus Hospice,the Jekyll Island Foundation, The Valley Collaborative for Suicide

Prevention and Historic Talbotton Foundation.

In 2004, she was inducted into the Gracious Ladies of Georgia, was named Legislator of the Year

by the Georgia Rural Health Association, was presented the American Heart Association’s

Outstanding Advocate Award, and received the American Cancer Society’s Outstanding

Legislative Leadership Award for 2003 and 2004. In 2005 and 2006, she was recognized by the

Georgia Alliance for Tobacco Prevention. In 2006, the Georgia Environmental Council honored

her as the Legislator of the Year. In 2008, The Initiative to Protect Jekyll Island State Park named

her Georgia State Representative of the Year, and the Georgia Conservation Voters honored her

with an Environmental Leadership Award in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010.

In 2012, Rep. Buckner received the “-Ernestine Aurelia Mack Service to Mankind” award from the

Gamma Tau Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

Representative Buckner and her husband, Mike, and their children live at Fielder’s Mill, in Talbot

County, which is one of the few operational grist mills in the state of Georgia.