[1] He was educated at Montgomery Bell Academy and graduated from Vanderbilt University,[2] where he was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity.

[2] In 1970, Beard was appointed Tennessee personnel commissioner by newly elected Republican Governor Winfield Dunn.

[2] The district had been significantly redrawn by the state legislature, which shifted several Republican-trending portions near Memphis into the Sixth and removed several solidly Democratic areas.

[citation needed] Beard later ran a Washington, D.C.–based import-export business and was at one time a resident of Alexandria, Virginia.

)[citation needed] Beard died from a brain tumor in Isle of Palms, South Carolina.