Joy Padgett (born Joy Ann Conrad, February 4, 1947 in Coshocton, Ohio) is a former Republican member of the Ohio Senate, representing the 20th district until the end of 2008. In 2006, dogged by personal scandals, she ran unsuccessfully for Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and for Congress in . Her run for Congress was the result of the decision of Bob Ney to bow out of the race and plead guilty to corruption charges. Political career Padgett was first appointed to the Ohio Senate in January 2004 and elected that following November. Prior to her election, she was the director of the Office of Appalachia in Governor Bob Taft's administration. Before that, she served from 1993 to 1999 in the Ohio House of Representatives and, prior to that, had been a school teacher. In her 2004 bid for her first full term in the Ohio Senate, Padgett was challenged by Democrat Terry Anderson of Athens, Ohio, who in the 1980s had been held hostage by Islamic radicals in Lebanon when working on a story for the Associated Press. Much of her campaign centered on social issues, namely that of same sex marriage. They stated that if Anderson were elected he would allow gays to get married. These ads were typically played with the theme song from Twilight Zone saying "...men marrying men, women marrying women... What kind of world does Terry Anderson want?" Many of these commercials were considered homophobic, and drew attention and condemnation. Other ads attempted to smear Terry Anderson as a terrorist sympathizer, often ignoring the truth about his imprisonment. The match-up was the only seriously contested Ohio Senate race in 2004. Padgett won re-election with 54 percent of the vote. Loans, bankruptcies, and transfers Padgett and her then-husband Donald were owners of the Main Office Supply Co. Her husband ran the business for three decades; she was the company's treasurer. The Coshocton business began experiencing financial troubles in 1999; it went from 40 employees to about eight when it closed in 2006. In August 2004, the Small Business Administration gave the business a $737,000 loan guarantee on a loan from the JP Morgan Chase Bank. On the same day, the Padgetts renegotiated a three-year-old loan for $100,000 from the Home Loan Savings Bank in Coshocton. In October 2005, the Padgetts filed for bankruptcy for their business and defaulted on the two loans. The bankruptcy filing was