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Speaker 1: WTLC AM, W236 CR, Indianapolis. Broadcasting from the Praise Indy, IndyGo Studios. IndyGo, boldly moving Indy forward. Discussing the issues that matter to you and keeping you informed with what's happening in and around Indy. It's Community Connection with Tina Cosby on Praise.
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Speaker 2: AM 1310, 95.1 FM.
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Speaker 3: And good afternoon and welcome to Community Connection. I'm Tina Cosby.
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Speaker 4: Today is Friday, August the 28th. 317-480-1310 is the number to the show. 317-480-1310 is the number to the show. Busy show today, including a local man who has developed a homework app that he says parents and kids alike will love.
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Speaker 3: Can't wait to hear about that one. Also, educator, author, and.
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Speaker 4: Community activist brother Thomas X is back with something he says will help young people in school this year.
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Speaker 3: So kind of an.
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Speaker 4: Educational-themed segment that we have coming up.
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Speaker 3: Both of those, of course, in our second hour.
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Speaker 4: A little later this hour, David Gerton is back with us with the latest from the Indiana Project. He founded that and is the C.E.O., of the indiana project the indiana project you may recall uh helps minority high school and college students build careers in the financial services industry so that plus guess what another opportunity for someone to win a pair of free tickets to.
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Speaker 3: The universal free tickets Of course the tickets are free. We're going to give them to you free to the universal circus, the universal circus.
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Speaker 5: Yeah.
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Speaker 4: Free tickets coming to the Lafayette square mall, coming to Indianapolis, going to be setting up shop at the Lafayette square mall on the city's Northwest side, September 17th through the 27th. So stay tuned for your chance to win all that. And more is just ahead on community connection on this Friday on August 28th.
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Speaker 3: Our good friend James is still out. So, Eric, you have the honors once again of doing the weather.
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Speaker 6: All right.
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Speaker 3: Until James gets back.
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Speaker 6: Until he comes back.
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Speaker 3: He'll let us know when he's ready to come back.
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Speaker 6: He will. I'll borrow his weather jingle.
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Speaker 5: Okay. Well, we'll take that with you.
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Speaker 6: Which has been his for a long time.
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Speaker 7: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: Beautiful day today, Tina. I don't see a cloud in the sky right now. 80 degrees.
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Speaker 3: Oh, it is severe clear. Is that what they call it? Severe clear.
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Speaker 6: Severe clear.
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Speaker 7: I love that.
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Speaker 6: Severe clear. I'm loving it.
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Speaker 8: 80 currently down to where we are just north of downtown at the airport as well. Nothing but sunshine all day today.
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Speaker 6: Looking great.
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Tomorrow, mostly sunny. About 85. Making plans for the weekend. Then on Sunday, 89.
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Speaker 3: Mostly sunny.
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Speaker 5: Okay.
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Speaker 6: Feeling good right now.
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Speaker 3: Feeling real good.
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Speaker 4: It's just, you know, it is an absolute delight to go outside these past several days. And even, you know, if you do the old fashioned thing, I remember the old days and you just, after the.
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Speaker 3: End of the day, you just sit outside for a little while.
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Speaker 6: Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely.
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Speaker 4: And it hasn't been oppressive with flies and mosquitoes and bugs. I mean, they're out there, but it just hasn't been overwhelming.
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Speaker 6: No, it has not.
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Speaker 3: Overwhelmingly uncomfortable.
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Speaker 7: It's been wonderful.
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Speaker 3: And not to mention the heat.
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Speaker 6: That's true.
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Speaker 3: Not to mention the heat.
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Speaker 6: It's coming back, though.
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Speaker 9: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, coming back.
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Speaker 4: So, again, we've got quite a bit coming up on the show. A lot of education, a lot of concern and interest in what's going on with our young people from the Indiana Project to the Homework app to Brother Thomas X and his educational input.
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Speaker 3: So, We're going to have quite a bit, and it fits well with our back-to-school phase that we're in right now.
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Speaker 6: It's true.
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Speaker 3: You think everybody's back by now?
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Speaker 6: I think by now they probably are. Here in Indiana. Now, some states wait a little later, but Indiana, everybody should be back.
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Speaker 3: Isn't that terrible? I didn't say terrible.
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Speaker 6: For us, it was after Labor Day.
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Speaker 8: We always knew back-to-school shopping in August and the commercials would start running on TV and radio, and it's like back to school.
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Speaker 4: There may be some schools, you know, that we are not aware. Somebody in the area is just going back or, you know, maybe going back later, later, later. And we know colleges and universities, they go late and get out early.
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Speaker 7: They do.
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Speaker 6: I bet schools would like that, too, if they could go back to that schedule.
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Speaker 8: Regular schools, you know, go late and get out early.
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Speaker 3: They'd love that. Probably would.
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Speaker 4: I think the legislature changed the number of instructional days that students have to have.
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Speaker 3: So therein lies that.
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Speaker 4: So anyway, some of the things we wanted to remind everyone of today, sadly, is the 71st anniversary of the death of Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi, August 28th, 1955. Emmett Till, who was 14 at the time, and a native of Chicago, had come from Chicago, gone to Mississippi to visit some family, and was brutally, I mean brutally, murdered for allegedly, allegedly, whistling at a white woman four days before his death.
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Speaker 3: His assailants were brought up.
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Speaker 4: They were arrested, but were not convicted. And after they were not convicted because of the What is it? You can't be tried twice for that.
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Speaker 6: Is it double jeopardy?
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Speaker 3: Double jeopardy, yeah. Well, they later admitted they did it.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, how many years later?
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Speaker 5: I don't know how many years later.
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Speaker 6: Many, many years later, I think.
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Speaker 4: But they were the white woman who apparently was whistled at. They were her husband and his brother. But if there was any good to come out of that, His brutal, and I do mean brutal, murder is widely viewed as the catalyst that helped put in motion the modern civil rights movement.
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Speaker 3: Yes. The modern civil rights movement.
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Speaker 4: And, you know, a lot of positive strides were made there with the civil rights movement.
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Speaker 3: I mean, we can now go to grocery stores and.
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Speaker 4: Restaurants and things of that nature, although folks are trying to roll it back.
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Speaker 3: Feels like it.
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Speaker 6: It does.
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Speaker 3: Feels like a lot of that.
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Speaker 10: It really does.
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Speaker 4: Speaking of which, today is also the 63rd anniversary of the now annual March on Washington at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. This year's gathering focused on the theme Defend the Vote. It is aimed at protecting voting rights and responding to recent rollbacks that we just talked about.
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Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
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Speaker 4: Of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was, you know, some landmark legislation. Yeah, landmark legislation. Certainly was. And those rollbacks are being conducted by the current U.S. Supreme Court.
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Speaker 6: Tina, you know, something to think about.
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Speaker 8: That hasn't been 100 years ago that that happened.
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Speaker 11: No.
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Speaker 6: Hasn't been 100 years.
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Speaker 3: No.
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Speaker 6: Just barely over 60.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 12: Yeah.
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Speaker 7: So.
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Speaker 4: They're up there today, and we have a contingent here from Indianapolis going. National Action Network, of course, in partnership with the NAACP, the Urban League, you name it.
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Speaker 3: Everyone is partnering and raising awareness.
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Speaker 4: We thank them. I think there were three. Lisa told us three buses that left last night, traveled all night, got there, and they're going to do their thing.
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Speaker 3: They'll be back. Before tomorrow morning sometime. And we thank them.
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Speaker 6: Absolutely so.
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Speaker 4: We thank them for going and representing Indianapolis well.
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Speaker 3: Here at home, have you heard, at first it was told it was a hoax. And I guess now it's
real, except they can't find it.
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Speaker 6: Oh, yeah.
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Speaker 4: And Mountain Lioness and her cub in Madison County.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, I heard about that. Yeah, I heard about that. Yeah, it was Southern Madison County originally.
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Speaker 3: Okay.
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Speaker 11: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 8: And supposedly, I heard the story where they had moved into northern Hancock County.
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Speaker 13: Oh.
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Speaker 6: And there was a drone operator.
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Speaker 14: Hancock.
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Speaker 3: So they're going.
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Speaker 6: They were moving south. Southwest, he said, from Madison County into Hancock County.
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Speaker 3: Okay.
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Speaker 8: Supposedly, a drone operator was searching. They were checking cornfields, places like that.
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Speaker 6: Found nothing.
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Speaker 7: Yeah.
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Speaker 4: But that's why it was initially initially, you know, dismissed as a hoax. But I guess they they walk that back.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's true.
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Speaker 8: And I the guy that reported it, I don't know if he had pictures. He said he had binoculars. He wanted to make sure he was seeing what he was seeing. But I don't think there were any pictures to my knowledge.
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Speaker 3: What what could he have? Yeah, no pictures. What do you think he could have? I guess it it really was a lioness.
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Speaker 6: Supposedly, they said about 300 pound lioness. With a cub. And it had a harness on.
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Speaker 3: What would that indicate or what would that mean?
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Speaker 6: Someone had an animal, what do they call them? Exotic animal.
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Speaker 3: Exotic animal refuge.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, refuge, yeah. But they did some checking, I heard yesterday.
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Speaker 8: They couldn't find any licensing or anything in Madison County where that was the case.
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Speaker 3: Doesn't mean that it has to be licensed.
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Speaker 6: Well, you got that right.
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Speaker 7: That's true.
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Speaker 6: And being loose, you know, that's just.
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Speaker 2: Not.
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Speaker 4: The harness indicates something, some kind of human, doesn't it?
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Speaker 6: I would think so. Because normally it wouldn't have a harness.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, if it was just roaming and looking for somewhere to go. So that animal has been in human captivity at some point in time.
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Speaker 15: Yes.
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Speaker 4: And probably the person that had it may be not coming forth because they, I don't know.
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Speaker 6: Well, I heard it was illegal to have that.
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Speaker 7: Well, yeah.
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Speaker 6: It's illegal to have that.
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Speaker 15: Yes.
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Speaker 8: A lion, mountain lion. And, you know, you wonder where it is. If you live in southern Madison, northern Hancock, where is it now?
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Speaker 6: They have no idea.
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Speaker 3: No, they don't.
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Speaker 6: But, of course, if you don't approach it, you definitely wouldn't want to do that.
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Speaker 2: No.
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Speaker 6: But it hasn't been found, supposedly, as of yet.
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Speaker 3: Well, somebody's going to have to come forward.
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Speaker 6: Well, somebody's got to.
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Speaker 4: And let investigators know. But if you say it was heading toward Hancock County?
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Speaker 8: Yeah, because Madison County is north of Hancock. And the gentleman said it was originally sited in southern Madison.
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Speaker 6: Where he lived.
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Speaker 8: And supposedly, the reports said it was moving southwest.
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Speaker 6: So into northern.
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Speaker 6: Hancock towards, I don't know, in that area.
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Speaker 9: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: I'm going to grab this.
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Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
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Speaker 4: But, yeah, and if any of you know anything about it, you know, certainly, I don't know anything about wildlife, how they move, how you're to approach. I don't know anything about any of that except that it's kind of frightening. I also read and saw how extremely dangerous I mean, when I say extremely, extremely rare it would be for such a sighting, well, for one to be roaming free throughout Indiana, it just wouldn't be. So that kind of leads you back to the thought that perhaps someone was harboring exotic animals, maybe not registered exotic animals, and one of them got away, or maybe two of them got away, I don't know. But this, this really needs to be watched very closely. So there we have that. Also want to remind everyone about our Help in the Heartland campaign. We here in the Indianapolis Stations of Radio 1 are in partnership with Kroger, CBS 4, Fox 59, and the American Red Cross to help people who have been impacted by the devastation left behind. flooding and storms from a little bit more than two weeks ago now. You can go to our praiseindy.com website to find out more, make a donation, and find out all kinds of information pertaining to this particular what is now disaster. The disaster relief has been approved for 21 Indiana counties, I do believe. Federal disaster relief has now been approved, and that includes Marion County and a place we talk about often, Lake County, because Gary, my goodness, was without power for more than two weeks.
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Speaker 3: Yesterday, I think there were still 19.
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Speaker 4: I didn't check today.
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Speaker 3: I probably should have, but I didn't check today.
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Speaker 4: But something pretty interesting, the Indiana Black Legislative Council, the governor, Governor Mike Braun, has called for an investigation into NIPSCO, the utility that services that area, and so too have members of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus. They've called for legislative investigation. But they're also calling, and I love this because it makes perfect sense. NIPSCO, the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus
members are urging NIPSCO, maybe demanding, but definitely calling on them to give a two-week bill credit a two-week bill credit to everybody in the city of Gary and in that area that has been without power for two weeks or two weeks in a day or two weeks for however.
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Speaker 3: Long, you know, a week.
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Speaker 4: Anybody that was without power for a ridiculously long amount of time, the lawmakers here are saying, give them a bill credit for their inconvenience.
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Speaker 3: That is the least.
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Speaker 4: Now, there are In addition to investigations, there's lawsuits that are certainly going to be filed and will be underway. But I think that that would be a superb head start on behalf of NIPSCO. And maybe show a little bit of transparency, if you will, if they were to offer.
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Speaker 3: Bill credits.
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Speaker 4: Bill credits for the amount of time that whoever in that region was without power.
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Speaker 3: Cable companies do it. Other, you know, utilities do it.
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Speaker 4: You know, like you have a subscription to something, and for whatever reason they're out or you're without that service, they gladly give you the credit. They don't stay out that long, so it's not a problem for them to give you a one-day credit or to offer that. But it'll be interesting to see how NIPSCO responds to that request to give credit, bill credit, for.
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Speaker 3: power not.
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Speaker 4: Used that they may be billed for because of this outage.
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Speaker 3: Eric, it's interesting. I love that. I loved that.
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Speaker 6: Yeah.
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Speaker 8: Well, I think it's good that when you have no power, you're operating with no power. Hey, I shouldn't be charged. Shouldn't be charged or refunded, especially when you've been out for weeks on end, you shouldn't be.
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Speaker 3: They got a whole lot of folks to refund some bill money.
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Speaker 6: A lot of refunds. So go ahead and credit it.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: Do it. I'm like, yes, they should.
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Speaker 3: I love that.
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Speaker 6: I love that too. Go ahead. Because they've not been able to use power.
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Speaker 7: No.
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Speaker 6: So why would you be charging?
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Speaker 4: Why are you going to charge them for something they weren't able to use? Because it's your fault.
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Speaker 7: Exactly. Exactly.
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Speaker 4: But if you have been impacted or know of some family issues, friends or neighbors who have been impacted, you can apply for relief at disasterassistance.gov, disasterassistance.gov. You can go to the FEMA app or you can call 800-621-3362, 800-621-3362. Now, for our particular area, there will be mobile FEMA units that are going to drive to you and can meet you at Broad Ripple Park today and tomorrow. Those units are going to be there from 8 a.m.
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Speaker 3: Until 6 p.m. again today and tomorrow.
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Speaker 4: So if you are so
inclined and able to get over there and can do so, head over to Broad Ripple today or tomorrow, Broad Ripple Park, and there will be some on-the-spot help for you. But yes, I do believe that for those power outages, those extended power outages, Those folks. Actually, you should give them the whole month. Just give them a month free. Just one free month of power. But I don't know that NIPSCO will do that.
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Speaker 13: 317-480-1310.
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Speaker 3: 317-480-1310.
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Speaker 4: As I was saying, we've got quite a bit for you today.
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Speaker 3: And we're going to get to that shortly. But for now, let's go to the phone lines. Let's go to the phone lines. Estella on line two.
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Speaker 1: Go ahead.
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Speaker 3: How are you?
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Speaker 9: Good.
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Speaker 11: I'm fine, Tina. How are you?
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Speaker 3: I am well, thank you.
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Speaker 11: And thank you for the continued wonderful information that you share.
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Speaker 3: Well, thank you. We try.
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Speaker 11: But you were talking about Emmett Till, and that made me think of a situation that has just happened at LSU where a student was dragging a black doll through the Student Union building. Had you heard that?
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Speaker 3: Okay, no. What? When was this? Let me look.
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Speaker 2: I think it.
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Speaker 11: Was August, maybe 13th. It hasn't been that long.
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Speaker 3: Okay.
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Speaker 11: You can pull it up on the internet and there's all kinds of stories about it. It was featured on the local news in the Baton Rouge area.
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Speaker 4: Okay.
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Speaker 3: Let me see. So a student was dragging....
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Speaker 11: A black doll.
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Speaker 3: Uh-huh. Okay.
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Speaker 11: In a student union building.
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Speaker 3: And what was, okay, so what was going on with that? I mean, what was the narrative around that?
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Speaker 11: Well, one of the people who witnessed it called the university to task to reprimand the student. And as of this morning, when I checked, nothing has happened and they go behind the privacy laws and all of that. So I don't know. I just wanted to see if you had heard about it.
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Speaker 3: It's a viral video.
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Speaker 4: It looks like a viral video from August 19th. Showed an LSU student dragging a black baby doll through the campus student union, sparking widespread outrage and calls for accountability. Showed a young white student dragging a black baby doll on a leash or rope across the Louisiana State University campus inside the LSU student union. August 19th, footage circulated widely on social media. Incoming Louisiana State University stated that it was aware of the video and that the Office of Student Affairs opened an investigation, confidentiality. The involved individuals had been identified and that the situation was being managed internally. However, the university declined to publicly disclose the identities of the
students or specific disciplinary actions, citing student privacy laws and confidentiality guidelines. So we'll keep an eye on that one as well.
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Speaker 7: Yeah.
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Speaker 11: Yeah. I just wanted to call that to your attention.
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Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. All right. Thank you.
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Speaker 11: Continue to do a good job.
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Speaker 3: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Hadn't heard about that one, Eric.
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Speaker 6: I kind of missed a little bit of it.
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Speaker 3: I was on the phone.
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Speaker 13: Yeah.
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Speaker 4: An LSU, a white LSU student was seen dragging a black baby doll in a viral video, a video that went viral.
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Speaker 7: Really?
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Speaker 3: That has to be investigated.
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Speaker 6: Oh, definitely. It should be.
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Speaker 3: LSU isn't. We need to keep an eye on that.
00:21:01
Speaker 6: We really do.
00:21:03
Speaker 3: 317-480-1310. Marvin, go ahead.
00:21:05
Speaker 4: How are you?
00:21:06
Speaker 6: Just a second. Let me go. There we go. Okay.
00:21:08
Speaker 3: Marvin, go ahead.
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Speaker 12: Okay, I'm here now.
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Speaker 2: Thank you.
00:21:11
Speaker 12: Good afternoon.
00:21:13
Speaker 16: Tina, I just wanted to ask you a question. And I'm not in the township, so I won't be able to vote for or against the referendum, the IPEC referendum.
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Speaker 3: You can call it IPEC.
00:21:25
Speaker 16: But, you know, when we were, and some friends and I were debating, and I said, you know, some of them still have children in IPS. My kids went through IPS, even though I didn't live in there, because I went to IPS, and.
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Speaker 12: I love IPS.
00:21:38
Speaker 16: But I'm not opposed to charter schools, and I don't think even vouchers.
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Speaker 12: But my issue is, I was saying to them that the power of our vote, in my mind, Tina, is to show our politicians....
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Speaker 16: Either our approval or dissatisfaction with what's happening in our community, in our country, in our state. And I said, to my mind, if I were in the district still and I voted yes, I would be saying that even though I would want.
00:22:08
Speaker 12: IPS to receive the monies.
00:22:10
Speaker 16: Even though they're saying they still would be $ 24 million short and have to make more budget cuts because IPEC didn't approve the referendum at the level that IPS felt that they needed in sharing the revenue with the charter schools. But I said, and they're saying, well, if you don't vote for it, then it's going to hurt them more. But I said, it's either death, the continued death by a thousand cuts, or a speedier process. But to my mind, if you vote yes, you're telling politicians that you support the direction that education is going on in the city.
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Speaker 3: Funding education via referendum is how.
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Speaker 12: Yeah, and then I like, like I said, I like Kariga.
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Speaker 16: I think Kariga, the new director of the IPEC board, is a great person. But he's going to be paid over $ 300, 000 a year.
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Speaker 3: I was going to say, why so much money? And his assistant is not too much further away from that salary.
00:23:06
Speaker 12: Right, of money that could be going into the classroom. And we're suffering. So, you know, I get it, Tina. I get that people don't want to see IPS. But in this current political climate, I.
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Speaker 16: Don't see things changing anytime soon because they even have the.
00:23:22
Speaker 12: Support of local Democrats. People overlook that. But my last thing, and I'll let you go because I know you have a busy show, is, you know, I... Well, I'm 47 now, Tina. I lost my train of thought. So I'm in there.
00:23:36
Speaker 3: You're too young to lose your train of thought.
00:23:39
Speaker 12: Way too young for that to happen.
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Speaker 16: I just feel that, you know, to me, a vote yes would be saying you approve.
00:23:46
Speaker 12: And, you know, my thing is no one, and I never voted.
00:23:50
Speaker 16: When I went to the vote, when I went and voted, and I like certain things that the Mind Trust does.
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Speaker 12: I like certain things that RISE does.
00:23:57
Speaker 16: But the one thing I never voted for was for reform. organizations to set education policy in my city.
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Speaker 12: And that's what's happening. So thanks for taking my call.
00:24:07
Speaker 3: Thank you, Marvin.
00:24:07
Speaker 4: Thanks for bringing it to our attention and a very good point.
00:24:10
Speaker 3: Extremely good point. Um, let's, let's go back to the phone lines. Jeff, go ahead.
00:24:14
Speaker 4: How are you?
00:24:14
Speaker 9: Hey, how are you guys doing?
00:24:18
Speaker 3: Doing great. How are you?
00:24:19
Speaker 9: Oh, thank God it's Friday.
00:24:22
Speaker 3: Yes, it is.
00:24:23
Speaker 11: Yes.
00:24:24
Speaker 9: You brought the whole, uh, Emmett Till situation. It brought to me a thing about what's going on, uh, with this current environment, but I know you and Eric are both pop culture kind of guys. There's a movie that's coming out next Friday. I brought this up some time ago and it's called by any means. And it's a true story that, uh, back in the 1960s during the civil rights movement, uh, there was a lot of, you know, the clan was running wild and murdering people, attacking civil rights workers. And, uh, you can Google it too, but, uh, The mafia, I mean, well, I jumped ahead of myself. The FBI was getting nowhere, getting information from the local law enforcement or local sheriff's department. So what they did, they did something really unconventional.
00:25:17
Speaker 12: This is the true story.
00:25:18
Speaker 9: They got members of the mafia out of the New York City mob family to go down south and basically torture and terrorize the Klan.
00:25:28
Speaker 12: Yes.
00:25:29
Speaker 9: To get information about missing bodies, you know, dead bodies
that was at the hands of the Klan. And I heard about this story like 20 years ago. I think it was on PBS or something. And I just thought that was really interesting that the FBI would recruit members of the Lucchese family, the Bonanno family, the Gambinos to go down there and basically beat the heck out of the Klansmen.
00:25:55
Speaker 15: Yes.
00:25:56
Speaker 4: Well, I seem to recall somewhat parts of that story, but my understanding is that it was a quid pro quo.
00:26:07
Speaker 5: It was, exactly.
00:26:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, quid pro quo. It wasn't just that, you know, because the mafia is not for.
00:26:12
Speaker 9: Oh, they need to have the kindness of their heart.
00:26:13
Speaker 4: No, no, they're not for hire. They're not hired killers and they're not hired enforcers.
00:26:18
Speaker 7: They.
00:26:19
Speaker 3: get something.
00:26:19
Speaker 9: Yeah.
00:26:22
Speaker 3: Yeah. So it was, so the, yeah, I, but I've heard of that connection. It'll be interesting to see, um, see that movie. Did you say it comes out next week?
00:26:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:26:30
Speaker 9: Next Friday, Mark Wahlberg. And, uh, we were trained as market hit man and his other actor. I can't think of his name right now, but he's pretty prominent. Uh, he played, if you follow Aquaman, he played black man in a, Okay. With Jason Amoa. But anyway, they solved a lot of cases. But yeah, you're right. You're exactly right. It was a pretty pro quo. And it was like, okay, we'll clean your records up. When you do things, we'll look the other way. But you got to do this for us.
00:27:01
Speaker 11: Yeah.
00:27:01
Speaker 9: And if you don't... Some of these guys were FBI informants. And they said, hey, I'm sure the Gambino family wouldn't like the fact that you're an FBI informant. So you're going to do this for us. Yeah.
00:27:13
Speaker 12: So.
00:27:14
Speaker 4: Backed, I think, by the RICO statutes, which I do believe had been put into place by then, if I'm not mistaken, which guaranteed prison sentences that you simply could not do.
00:27:26
Speaker 3: I mean, two, three hundred years. I mean, it was just unbelievable. So I think I'm going to look a little bit more of that up.
00:27:32
Speaker 9: But yeah, you're you're the name of the movie is called By Any Mean.
00:27:35
Speaker 3: OK, OK, I will check it out.
00:27:38
Speaker 9: There's been trailers of it all over the network, Facebook. But they did put the fear of God in the Klan. I mean, you know, man, we all know market guys are not the nicest people in the world.
00:27:53
Speaker 6: No, they're not.
00:27:54
Speaker 3: They would tell you they are business people.
00:27:56
Speaker 6: Yeah, they will.
00:27:56
Speaker 3: They are business people. It's a business. Not personal. Nothing personal.
00:28:00
Speaker 12: It's business.
00:28:01
Speaker 9: And they basically were kidnapping the Grand Dragon, the Imperial Wizard. These bums caught themselves, take them to some remote place, and just basically...
do whatever they had to do to get information out of them.
00:28:14
Speaker 3: But you're right. Thank you, Jeff. I, you know, I'm going to make it real quickly. Okay, go ahead.
00:28:21
Speaker 9: I was going to ask Danny this. What's your take on alternate robbery uniforms of the Indianapolis Colts? And I think I'll leave it there. Just get your opinion. You and there, but, but.
00:28:30
Speaker 3: Your uniform alternate, what uniforms?
00:28:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:28:35
Speaker 9: Robbery uniforms.
00:28:36
Speaker 3: Oh, rivalry. Um, I don't know anything about it.
00:28:41
Speaker 4: I did hear somebody say, though, in regard to another uniform discussion about another team, is that when you get down to having to talk about your uniforms and making, uh, you know, making that you don't have a whole lot going on.
00:28:55
Speaker 17: Yeah.
00:28:56
Speaker 6: It's like uniforms.
00:28:57
Speaker 3: Is, is the biggest thing you got to talk about.
00:28:59
Speaker 4: There's not too much going on with you and your organization, but I, I don't know.
00:29:04
Speaker 9: The entire NFL is doing it.
00:29:05
Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
00:29:06
Speaker 3: The NFL is okay.
00:29:07
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:29:08
Speaker 3: Well, I'll have to check it out. I'll have to check it out. All right.
00:29:12
Speaker 12: Okay.
00:29:12
Speaker 3: Today is a blue Friday. So thank you, Jeff.
00:29:14
Speaker 6: Thanks Jeff.
00:29:15
Speaker 3: Blue Friday. Uh, you've got, you've got blue on.
00:29:17
Speaker 6: I got on blue and I, uh, Kind of word intentionally. OK, well, good for you.
00:29:23
Speaker 3: I forgot.
00:29:24
Speaker 5: Well, that's all right.
00:29:24
Speaker 3: I always forget until I get here.
00:29:26
Speaker 14: Oh, yeah.
00:29:26
Speaker 6: Friday.
00:29:27
Speaker 15: Oh, yeah.
00:29:27
Speaker 6: I forgot.
00:29:29
Speaker 4: We got about another minute. Let's squeeze in Malcolm. Malcolm, go ahead. How are you?
00:29:33
Speaker 17: Great.
00:29:34
Speaker 2: How are you doing?
00:29:35
Speaker 6: Tina?
00:29:35
Speaker 3: I'm doing well. Thank you.
00:29:37
Speaker 2: I have a question. Well, something I heard on the news this morning, you know, FEMA, they're helping these flood victims and so forth, you know, and they said for them to sign up, you know, and they would have to bring like a Social Security card and insurance papers. And I was it got me to thinking. You know, all of these people lost just about everything. I don't know how they can sign up with information such as they were asking for. because it may or may not have been ruined in the flood.
00:30:12
Speaker 11: Yeah.
00:30:13
Speaker 4: And I'm sure that this is not their first time at the rodeo or at a rodeo like this, so there has to be, I would think, alternative ways and alternative measures because that's probably quite common.
00:30:26
Speaker 7: I would agree.
00:30:27
Speaker 4: And the other thing is most people know their Social Security number by heart anyway, so I don't
carry around a Social Security card.
00:30:36
Speaker 3: It's in a.
00:30:38
Speaker 4: I don't carry it around because it's just not recommended. So I would guess that they probably have something for that as well.
00:30:46
Speaker 2: I was also thinking, you know, as well, you know, since they're asking, you know, to have them to sign up for this, just in case it ever happens again, I'm assuming that if in the near future, I'm going to be a first-time homebuyer. So I said, well, you know, is this an issue that maybe you can sign up prior to?
00:31:17
Speaker 3: What are you talking about, flood insurance?
00:31:19
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:31:20
Speaker 4: Well, no, they will sell you flood insurance if you live in a flood zone. If you do not live in a flood zone, you're not going to get to buy flood insurance.
00:31:28
Speaker 3: So that's all in the purchase of the home.
00:31:30
Speaker 14: Exactly.
00:31:30
Speaker 6: Exactly.
00:31:31
Speaker 2: Got you, got you. Well, like I said, I'll be a first-time homebuyer.
00:31:35
Speaker 3: Right, right, yeah. I don't know a lot of people. Flight insurance is extremely expensive.
00:31:40
Speaker 9: Yeah, it is.
00:31:40
Speaker 6: It really is, Mike.
00:31:41
Speaker 3: I agree. Oh, go ahead.
00:31:43
Speaker 7: We looked.
00:31:43
Speaker 5: We didn't need it.
00:31:44
Speaker 6: We were just kind of curious. So it's pretty expensive.
00:31:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was curious, too, because I was like, oh, I want to put everything on there.
00:31:51
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah, just to be covered. Make sure you're safe.
00:31:53
Speaker 3: No, you are not in a designated flood zone, Ms.
00:31:55
Speaker 1: Cosby.
00:31:55
Speaker 6: They told us that, too. We want to make sure. It's like, are you sure?
00:31:58
Speaker 3: Are you sure?
00:31:59
Speaker 6: Man, so there are no streams or anything around. So we're good.
00:32:01
Speaker 4: No, we're not taking your money. And actually, the flood zone has to be designated by the federal government.
00:32:07
Speaker 6: It certainly does.
00:32:08
Speaker 5: It does?
00:32:08
Speaker 6: It does. And you can also, there are maps you can look for.
00:32:12
Speaker 5: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:32:13
Speaker 6: That show actually where they are in your area specifically. So I checked it out too.
00:32:18
Speaker 3: And if you are in one, dig deep.
00:32:20
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah.
00:32:21
Speaker 3: Dig deep, you got to be. We'll be right back with more Community Connection right after this.
00:32:31
Speaker 1: Let's get back to the conversation. It's Community Connection with Tina Cosby on Praise AM 1310, 95.1 FM. And we're back.
00:32:42
Speaker 3: With Community Connection. Eric, we still have those tickets to give away to the Universal Circus.
00:32:48
Speaker 6: Yeah, we do. We still have them.
00:32:50
Speaker 3: They're still here.
00:32:51
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:32:51
Speaker 6: We've got plenty of time to get it taken care of.
00:32:54
Speaker 3: I don't know. Time gets away from you pretty quickly.
00:32:56
Speaker 6: Oh, you know it does. We're good, though. We've got them. We still have them. We've got until 3.
00:33:00
Speaker 3: Until 3?
00:33:00
Speaker 6: Okay. We're good. Universal Circus.
00:33:03
Speaker 3: Universal Circus.
00:33:03
Speaker 6: Yeah, coming up.
00:33:04
Speaker 13: Yeah, indeed.
00:33:05
Speaker 3: Can you hear us? Okay.
00:33:07
Speaker 6: Okay.
00:33:08
Speaker 3: I was talking to our guest, Mr. David Gerton, the founder and the CEO of the Indiana Project.
00:33:15
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:33:16
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:33:16
Speaker 3: So what's going on? What's going on?
00:33:19
Speaker 7: Eric, did we go to high school together?
00:33:20
Speaker 6: We went to high school together.
00:33:21
Speaker 3: Okay, you had that look on your face.
00:33:23
Speaker 6: I know this guy. I know this man.
00:33:25
Speaker 7: Okay. I was wondering.
00:33:27
Speaker 3: I didn't know if we didn't have the audio hookup or what, but Mr. Gerton here is going like, uh-huh. What am I missing? Well, y'all go ahead and talk. Y'all went to high school together?
00:33:37
Speaker 7: Yes, Short Ridge.
00:33:38
Speaker 6: Oh, it's been a while.
00:33:39
Speaker 3: Oh, okay.
00:33:40
Speaker 6: Yeah, Short Ridge High School.
00:33:41
Speaker 7: Short Ridge High School, yeah.
00:33:42
Speaker 3: Wow. Wow. We don't need to know the year.
00:33:45
Speaker 6: Let's leave the year out.
00:33:48
Speaker 7: That's good. We don't need the year.
00:33:50
Speaker 5: You too.
00:33:51
Speaker 6: You too, sir.
00:33:52
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:33:52
Speaker 3: Y'all were pointing back and forth.
00:33:53
Speaker 4: Usually when I see that people doing the sign language, I'm like, okay, I'm.
00:33:57
Speaker 3: Not real good at it.
00:33:59
Speaker 6: Oh, that's something.
00:33:59
Speaker 3: All right.
00:34:00
Speaker 7: Great.
00:34:00
Speaker 16: Great.
00:34:00
Speaker 11: Great.
00:34:01
Speaker 3: Go short, Rich.
00:34:02
Speaker 7: There you go.
00:34:04
Speaker 3: Blue Devils. Okay.
00:34:05
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:34:05
Speaker 3: But Mr. Curtin, you've been with us before and we are so glad to have you back.
00:34:10
Speaker 4: And again, you are the CEO and the founder of the Indiana Project.
00:34:14
Speaker 3: And for those who may not be familiar with.
00:34:16
Speaker 4: It, re-familiarize ourselves. The Indiana Project, we're.
00:34:21
Speaker 14: Introducing underserved high school and college students, especially black and brown students to careers in finance by helping them pass the securities industry essential exam before they even graduate from high school or college. And over the past few years, we've helped dozens of students break into firms like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Schwab, Cummins, Elanco, just to mention a few. So I'm using my 35 years of Wall Street experience, Tina, to really help these students break into wonderful careers on Wall Street. Certain studies suggest that,
well, the EEOC suggests that, There's only 10% minority and.
00:35:07
Speaker 7: 2% black that do what I do.
00:35:09
Speaker 14: So I thought, what better way to create legacy than to teach what I've learned to students of color?
00:35:17
Speaker 4: So what propelled you to do that? The numbers are one thing, but what made you just get up and do it?
00:35:21
Speaker 7: Well, about five or.
00:35:23
Speaker 14: Six years ago, I closed a bond transaction for $ 500 million or $ 600 million, which is normal for me. And I was just tired of being the only black or brown person at the table. So what I did was I said, how can I help? So the Lord gave me a way. When I started this, I thought I may help two or three kids. And in five years, we have literally dozens of kids that have gone to schools such, our kids come from now, IU, Purdue, Butler, Marion, Wabash, Morehouse, Rice, Cal State, University, the other ACBC with North Carolina.
00:36:02
Speaker 5: A & T.
00:36:05
Speaker 7: So my kids are literally everywhere.
00:36:08
Speaker 14: This year, we were blessed enough to partner with the ECMA, which is the Ethiopian Capital Market Authority.
00:36:14
Speaker 7: We have about 18.
00:36:16
Speaker 14: Kids that will be testing from Ethiopia in about two weeks. So we're global. So this is really, Tina, a workforce development initiative. My kids come out. If they're a four-year student, they'll make $ 80, 000 to $ 90, 000 a year first year. If they take it in high school and go to a bank at 18 years old, you can go to J.P. Morgan and make $ 50, 000. So it's really become a workforce development initiative, and we've become a pipeline for minority talent.
00:36:49
Speaker 3: And you brought one of one of your students with you.
00:36:53
Speaker 4: And I want to hear from him in just a minute. But one more question I want to follow up on. How did you get to the table and why were so many of you, me and others like young Zachariah here not able to get to the table?
00:37:08
Speaker 14: I went to IU on a music scholarship. You know, my dad was a pastor and I grew up playing drums in the church. And Eric knows I played drums at Short Ridge.
00:37:15
Speaker 7: Okay.
00:37:17
Speaker 3: Eric's nodding.
00:37:18
Speaker 6: He did. It's true.
00:37:20
Speaker 14: So that was my thing. But I didn't make it in music, so I graduated from Indiana University with a degree in economics. And because of mom and dad, man, you know, they had tremendous name recognition here. Dad being a pastor, mom working at the Urban League. You know, I was able to connect. And I was able to get wonderful jobs at great firms. And that's how I made it, you know. In 1983, Tina, I don't think there was one black stockbroker in.
00:37:50
Speaker 7: The state of Indiana.
00:37:51
Speaker 14: I happened to be friends with, well, actually my older brother was friends with Lance Bundles, whose father was S. Henry Bundles, who founded CLD. So Lance became my mentor, right? Lance worked at Smith Barney, and that's how I was able to connect. And I think because of that connectivity, most of these kids don't have that. And Wall Street's a very finicky place. You know, it's not designed. It wasn't designed for us.
00:38:18
Speaker 7: Right.
00:38:19
Speaker 14: So I thought by me being so blessed with those relationships, the least I could do is help, you know, other people get in.
00:38:27
Speaker 3: So introduce us to Mr. Nicholson here.
00:38:29
Speaker 14: I have Zakiya with me. We spoke just last evening. You know, Zakiya is an incredible guy. Most of my students are incredible. Zakiya invited me to Indiana University, Indianapolis. where I spoke to about 30, 40 kids.
00:38:41
Speaker 7: 65. 65 kids.
00:38:42
Speaker 3: See, he's good with numbers. He's already.
00:38:46
Speaker 14: I spoke to 65 kids about the Indiana Project.
00:38:50
Speaker 11: Wow.
00:38:50
Speaker 14: We operate, Tina, really, from IU Indianapolis, gave us a classroom, and we teach from there every Saturday. But Z is an incredible rising star on the street. He passed the exam the first time as a freshman. He will get internships all the way through, And he will be one of those kids to come out making $ 9, 500, 000.
00:39:10
Speaker 7: Yeah. So is the kid, Zakiya Nicholson.
00:39:15
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:39:15
Speaker 7: Thank you. What about, I'll interview you.
00:39:21
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah.
00:39:21
Speaker 14: So why don't you tell us about your experience with the project.
00:39:24
Speaker 13: Before that, tell us about yourself. Myself?
00:39:30
Speaker 18: Okay so i was born in arizona and i moved to indiana when i was three my parents also divorced and they weren't in business but they made sure that there was you know food on the table they made sure i never had to worry about the things they had to worry about growing up and for that i was blessed but Upon entering college, I realized that if I wanted to make a career in business, that I'd have to do it myself because I don't have the connections that some of the kids did. And more about my past life, after my first math class, I figured out that I was not only good with numbers, but I was good with operations.
00:40:04
Speaker 6: I was good with equations.
00:40:05
Speaker 18: I was good at making things more efficient. I loved doing that. If it was my daily schedule, if it was how I organized my toys, anything. That was always a passion I had when I was a kid. What I wasn't good at was making relationships with people. I actually had a social disorder growing up. Summarize it, I couldn't pick up on social cues, and it was almost like I couldn't pick up when people were feeling a certain way with what I was acting. So it was really hard for me to make friends to the point where they even thought I was on the spectrum.
00:40:36
Speaker 13: It wasn't that. I grew out of it, but this left a chip.
00:40:39
Speaker 18: On my shoulder as I grew up through elementary school, middle school, and high school
where I– I had to work three times as.
00:40:46
Speaker 13: Hard just to make friends like everyone else.
00:40:48
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:40:48
Speaker 13: And there was two ways. I feel like I had two different directions.
00:40:52
Speaker 18: This could have taken me. I could have just resented people and never been good at making relationships or I could have worked three times harder and became good at it.
00:41:01
Speaker 13: Now this is something that I pride in doing. I love making relationships with people. This is now like a natural passion of mine.
00:41:09
Speaker 18: I get like a, euphoric feeling every time I make someone smile, every time I make someone laugh, every time I befriend someone. And ultimately this and my passion with like numbers and systems is ultimately why I chose business.
00:41:23
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah.
00:41:24
Speaker 18: Currently, I in Indianapolis, I serve as president of a student org. It's called Business Connect. And this is a program that's the only Kelly funded program through Kelly Indianapolis. And it's focused on removing barriers and for minorities, for underrepresented groups, for people, whether it's financial. All of our efforts are built on removing barriers that would have otherwise stopped people from breaking into the business world.
00:41:51
Speaker 3: Now, Mr.
00:41:52
Speaker 7: Gerton, go ahead. Z, why don't you tell Tina and the audience your experience with the Indiana Project?
00:42:03
Speaker 18: So I was talking to a kid from IU Indianapolis who I told him I was interested in stocks, bonds, investing.
00:42:08
Speaker 13: His name was Alejandro.
00:42:09
Speaker 7: Alejandro.
00:42:10
Speaker 1: Yep.
00:42:10
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:42:11
Speaker 18: And he told me about the Indiana Project. He said, I'll get you on the phone with the person who leads it. I get on the phone here with David. He says, come to our next class. I show up, immediately hands me a textbook. And I just got to work with him like I've been there the whole time.
00:42:27
Speaker 11: Wow.
00:42:28
Speaker 13: Mind you, I joined about a month late.
00:42:30
Speaker 12: Was that?
00:42:31
Speaker 18: So I joined a month late, but- immediately as i heard the way they taught the kids how they talked to the kids it was like that was the first time i was ever in a classroom where i was spoken to as an equal not as someone like wow less than you know what i'm saying that's good and they didn't sugarcoat anything for lack of better terms but ultimate so ultimate ultimately i fell in love with the atmosphere so every week i came i learned more not only about the material for the sie but This experience really opened my eyes to how the business world works. I knew Wall Street wasn't a place for minorities like myself, but hearing about David's experiences, hearing about Tommy's experiences, hearing about some of the kids' experiences, I realized for me to get what I want, I'm going to need to work three times as harder, just like I
did when I was a kid with relationships.
00:43:19
Speaker 13: Now it's a different challenge.
00:43:21
Speaker 4: So how crucial is passing the exam to your cardinal?
00:43:25
Speaker 14: Anyone that wants to work at a Wall Street firm or a bank It's the gatekeeper.
00:43:31
Speaker 7: You have to pass it.
00:43:32
Speaker 3: You have to have it.
00:43:33
Speaker 7: No matter who you are, you have to pass it.
00:43:36
Speaker 14: Finver created the SIE in 2018 to... So it's only been around nine years, seven, eight, nine years, right? But the whole job of the SIE was to introduce Wall Street jobs to a different demographic. You know, because there is diversity of skin color, but there's also diversity of thought.
00:43:59
Speaker 7: So they.
00:44:02
Speaker 14: Just basically the demographics of the street are white.
00:44:06
Speaker 7: So what they had been doing was not working.
00:44:09
Speaker 14: So what they did was, let's at least have a test, is what it is, that will demonstrate financial acuity. And if you pass this test, you get a certificate, it lasts five years.
00:44:27
Speaker 7: And you've got five years to get invited to the street.
00:44:29
Speaker 14: So no matter who you are now, yeah, no matter who you are now, and it's a certificate, so it's not. So the cool thing about it really is these kids, when they go interview, they already have a leg up against the kids that don't have the certificate.
00:44:45
Speaker 5: Yeah, I see, I see.
00:44:46
Speaker 7: So if you go to J.P. Morgan, they may hire you, but you still got to go back and take this test.
00:44:51
Speaker 3: There you go.
00:44:51
Speaker 7: My kids already have the test.
00:44:53
Speaker 5: There you go.
00:44:54
Speaker 14: They've been in boardrooms. They've seen me issue billions of dollars of debt. So that doesn't shake them, right? So these kids have seen me work, right? They've come to the office and seen me work.
00:45:08
Speaker 7: They've been on tours at Cummins. They see my clients, right?
00:45:12
Speaker 14: So they're not fearful of the stuff that these other kids have not seen.
00:45:17
Speaker 4: So Wall Street is not necessarily a final destination, but it is something that will get you in the door should that be a goal.
00:45:23
Speaker 7: Well, here's the deal. You know, we got kids.
00:45:27
Speaker 14: I got kids that have taken and passed the SIE that are in law school.
00:45:32
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:45:32
Speaker 7: That are MBA.
00:45:34
Speaker 3: I see.
00:45:34
Speaker 7: I got kids. Dr.
00:45:35
Speaker 14: Matiku Kayamo is a PhD student at IU.
00:45:39
Speaker 7: He connected us from Ethiopia.
00:45:41
Speaker 14: That's why we have the Ethiopian connection now.
00:45:44
Speaker 7: So it just broadens you.
00:45:46
Speaker 11: Yeah.
00:45:46
Speaker 7: Right? And you have many more options.
00:45:49
Speaker 3: I have a question based on your experience and based on what you shared.
00:45:53
Speaker 4: And it just spoke to me when you said
you have an incredible gift. And I think I'll summarize it by saying creating order out of chaos.
00:46:03
Speaker 3: Is that kind of what you said? Yeah.
00:46:05
Speaker 4: Organizing things and putting things, you know, just when things are whatever, order out. And I was just wondering how that bodes with what you're doing.
00:46:14
Speaker 3: Is that an important quality to have?
00:46:15
Speaker 7: Let me tell you.
00:46:16
Speaker 14: People, you know, what you're exposed to is kind of what you see, right? So when people think of financial services in the black community, right? We think of a bank. We may think of a stockbroker. Tina, but there are many other jobs, right?
00:46:33
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:46:33
Speaker 7: For example, there are jobs and research. You can be an analyst. You can be a bond trader. You can be an equity trader, right?
00:46:41
Speaker 14: So based upon your personality and temperament, Everybody may not do what I do.
00:46:46
Speaker 7: I'm an investment banker, right? But a guy that.
00:46:49
Speaker 14: Does not like to interface with people, he can go into research and talk to a computer all day.
00:46:54
Speaker 9: Yeah.
00:46:54
Speaker 14: Or he can become a stock and bond trader where he's buying and selling and not client interfacing.
00:46:58
Speaker 7: And that's another good thing about the project.
00:47:00
Speaker 14: We help these kids find where there's no sense in me sending a kid to J.P.
00:47:05
Speaker 7: Morgan when I know he's going to fail. That don't make no sense.
00:47:09
Speaker 19: No.
00:47:09
Speaker 11: Right?
00:47:10
Speaker 19: No.
00:47:10
Speaker 7: So we like... Yeah.
00:47:12
Speaker 11: Yeah.
00:47:13
Speaker 14: I was going to say it, but I don't know what I can say. So we match the job with the kid, right? If you're socially awkward, you may not want to be a salesperson, right? But there are still other jobs, high-paying jobs, that you can do based upon the certificate that you now have.
00:47:31
Speaker 4: So what do kids have to do to get into this program, and what is the commitment, what is the cost, what are the requirements.
00:47:39
Speaker 7: All of that? Okay, all that stuff is on the website. theindianaproject.org, right?
00:47:44
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:47:44
Speaker 14: But we apply, we're blessed enough and have sponsorships enough to pay for it. I pay, well, so we'll figure out a way to pay. So look at the website. The next class is going to start sometime in October. You can look on the website, theindianaproject.org. You look on my LinkedIn page, David Gurdon. There's applications. You can see our board. You can see testimonials from kids. there's a bunch of stuff you can get from that website.
00:48:17
Speaker 4: So is there still time to be able to go into the next class in terms of go through the process, apply now?
00:48:23
Speaker 3: Because October is right around the corner.
00:48:25
Speaker 14: We were just at IU last night, and Z told you we talked to 65 kids. But we are in the process of running multiple cohorts a year, right? Then we'll be doing cohorts for K-12 and charter schools and HBCUs.
00:48:39
Speaker 7: So there's a lot of cool stuff. you know, that we're doing right now.
00:48:43
Speaker 4: So what has this meant to you, Mr. Richardson, up to this point? And what is your ultimate goal? It sounds like you're well on your way.
00:48:52
Speaker 18: So, like, I would be lying to you if I said I knew exactly where I want to go. But like I said, those two passions I have, you know, operations, math, and then building relationships with people. What the S setting for the SIE showed me and what this program showed me, that not only what it takes to break into these fields, but now I have fundamental knowledge of a lot more than just one field. I have a broad.
00:49:14
Speaker 5: Knowledge on the whole market overall.
00:49:16
Speaker 2: Exposure.
00:49:17
Speaker 3: You're talking about exposure.
00:49:18
Speaker 7: Exactly.
00:49:18
Speaker 18: So it's like I am now well prepared to not only enter being a stockbroker or investment banker. I'm now well prepared if I want to be a commercial banker, if I want to go into asset management.
00:49:27
Speaker 13: I have a little bit of knowledge of everything. And most importantly, the confidence.
00:49:31
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:49:32
Speaker 18: Because being in a room with these people, these people show me that it's possible. People a lot older than me, people a little older than me, people younger than me. Shows me that it's possible.
00:49:40
Speaker 3: What's that website? You didn't give it.
00:49:42
Speaker 7: It's theindianaproject.org.
00:49:44
Speaker 3: Indianaproject.org, yeah.
00:49:46
Speaker 7: Indianaproject.org. I'd like to share one other thing, Tina.
00:49:49
Speaker 14: What Z is talking about, we teach 10.30 to 12.30 on Saturdays, and we teach to the test from 10.30 to 11.30.
00:49:58
Speaker 7: After that, we have guest speakers.
00:50:00
Speaker 14: If they're in Indianapolis, they may come to class, or they may chime in via Zoom.
00:50:04
Speaker 7: If they're out of state, they do Zoom. It could be the treasurer of Indiana. It could be the CFO of a public corporation. It could be an asset manager.
00:50:12
Speaker 14: These are my relationships that I've built over 35 years in business.
00:50:18
Speaker 7: So what he's talking about.
00:50:20
Speaker 14: And some of the speakers have.
00:50:23
Speaker 7: Actually hired the kids.
00:50:24
Speaker 3: Right there.
00:50:26
Speaker 11: Wow.
00:50:26
Speaker 7: Because these kids are so smart. So yeah, so that's what he's talking about.
00:50:29
Speaker 14: They get a broad exposure and view to many different careers in the investment business.
00:50:36
Speaker 13: I'd like to add on to that. So thanks to the people I met through there.
00:50:40
Speaker 18: I've had the privilege of having coffee chats with the CEO of Generations Bank. I've talked to the chief financial officer of
Citizens Energies Group.
00:50:49
Speaker 13: One of the C-suites of Eli Lilly. I mean, these are people I never would have met if it weren't for the project.
00:50:54
Speaker 19: Wow.
00:50:55
Speaker 12: Wow.
00:50:56
Speaker 13: And these are people I have had chats.
00:50:57
Speaker 6: With, I have created relationships with.
00:50:59
Speaker 13: That's just me.
00:50:59
Speaker 3: You are the type of young person we love to talk about and to share on this show. No, seriously, because you give inspiration to a lot of kids. You do. You know, whose parents are, you know.
00:51:12
Speaker 4: They're probably not listening now because they're maybe in school or class or whatever.
00:51:15
Speaker 3: But their families are listening. Maybe some are listening. And it's the possibility that you can.
00:51:22
Speaker 4: And you point up the incredible.
00:51:27
Speaker 3: Point of access and connections.
00:51:29
Speaker 5: That's right.
00:51:30
Speaker 4: Access and connections. And that's what we need more of. And giving back, how great is that? We just love it.
00:51:36
Speaker 7: We say our kids don't lack talent. They just lack exposure.
00:51:39
Speaker 3: There you go.
00:51:40
Speaker 7: They don't lack talent. They just lack exposure.
00:51:43
Speaker 14: So what we found is the more we expose them to wonderful companies, they get the jobs and internships.
00:51:51
Speaker 7: And that's what it's about.
00:51:52
Speaker 3: They do it. They do it.
00:51:53
Speaker 4: Thank you all both. Again, anything that we didn't cover? Anything you want to add? Because we want to make sure that the public knows about this, knows more about it.
00:52:02
Speaker 14: In closing, I'd just like to say, look at the website, theindianaproject.org. If you know of school leaders or superintendents or even children that have an interest in financial services, put them our way. Or look at my LinkedIn page, David Gurdon.
00:52:20
Speaker 6: So Tina, now David's been, David, were you ever a class president, David?
00:52:24
Speaker 8: No, I was, you know, I mean, he's always been ahead of, I mean, just a cut above.
00:52:30
Speaker 3: Okay. That's good. That's good.
00:52:34
Speaker 6: Yeah. It's the truth.
00:52:35
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:52:36
Speaker 8: I mean, it's like all those years, it's like, man, you, the success you have, I'm, I'm happy for you, proud.
00:52:41
Speaker 6: I mean, it's awesome.
00:52:42
Speaker 3: It's just awesome.
00:52:44
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
00:52:44
Speaker 3: Leadership and heart. Yeah, heart, definitely. But Z, you were closing us out. Go ahead.
00:52:51
Speaker 18: This program was the pivotal moment in my college journey when I realized that not only do I want to do financial services, but that it's possible, and I wish that on every kid who has a passion in breaking into that part of the business world.
00:53:03
Speaker 3: What would you say to someone thinking about it?
00:53:05
Speaker 7: Join.
00:53:06
Speaker 13: Best thing I've
done in college so far.
00:53:09
Speaker 3: What a numbers person.
00:53:10
Speaker 14: Simple.
00:53:11
Speaker 7: Join.
00:53:12
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Much, much, much continued success.
00:53:16
Speaker 5: Mr.
00:53:16
Speaker 3: Gerton, as always, thank you. Come back anytime. And again, you say a cohort. The next cohort is coming up.
00:53:22
Speaker 14: The next cohort will be launching October. And the application is on our website. Our email is on the website.
00:53:30
Speaker 3: Age group? Age range?
00:53:32
Speaker 7: Oh, beautiful, Tina. We're going to start at 17 years old.
00:53:37
Speaker 14: Because FINRA says you only have to be 18 to take the exam. And I want you guys, I mean, 17 years old. So we'll start working with you at 17 years old. By the time you're 18, you take the exam. You can get a certificate that says you passed it. So it's workforce development, I'm telling you. At that point, if you're not going to college, you can go work at a bank, right? But if you want to go to college, Go to college, get internships like Z is doing.
00:54:06
Speaker 7: That's exactly what he's doing.
00:54:07
Speaker 3: You can tell who he's got the internship with.
00:54:11
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
00:54:11
Speaker 3: You can drop a name. We'll get money from him later.
00:54:13
Speaker 6: There you go, Tina. That's it. We'll get money later.
00:54:16
Speaker 13: Bank of America. United Way of Central Indiana.
00:54:21
Speaker 3: All right. There you go. You heard it right there. B-O-A-N-E.
00:54:27
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed.
00:54:28
Speaker 14: Oh, my.
00:54:30
Speaker 3: What a pleasure it has been, this particular segment. I love it, love it, love it.
00:54:33
Speaker 7: Thank you guys so much.
00:54:33
Speaker 3: Thank you. The website again.
00:54:35
Speaker 14: TheIndianaProject.org or look at my LinkedIn page, David Gurdon.
00:54:40
Speaker 5: All right.
00:54:40
Speaker 3: For more information. Z, you got a page?
00:54:42
Speaker 6: I don't have a page.
00:54:44
Speaker 3: Uh, nah.
00:54:45
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:54:45
Speaker 13: I only got to worry about one page.
00:54:46
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:54:47
Speaker 15: Alrighty. Alrighty.
00:54:48
Speaker 4: We'll be back with more community connection right after this.
00:54:51
Speaker 3: Congratulations, young man.
00:54:52
Speaker 13: Congratulations.
00:54:57
Speaker 1: WTLC AM, W236 CR, Indianapolis. Broadcasting from the Praise Indy, IndyGo Studios. IndyGo, boldly moving Indy forward. Discussing the issues that matter to you and keeping you informed with what's happening in and around Indy. It's Community Connection with Tina Cosby on Praise AM 1310, 95.1 FM.
00:55:23
Speaker 3: Aha, now, now, now, I can hear you, I can hear you. You know what? That makes your day. It absolutely does.
00:55:30
Speaker 6: It really does.
00:55:31
Speaker 3: You know, when you see, you know, one of us, this is how it works.
00:55:35
Speaker 6: Oh, I wish it was around when we were in high school.
00:55:37
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
00:55:37
Speaker 3: But no, I'm just talking about the circle of life, so to speak.
00:55:40
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's true.
00:55:41
Speaker 5: That is true.
00:55:41
Speaker 3: You know, if we want more out of our young people, we got to pour, we got to have to do it ourselves. Got to pour more into it. Less criticism and more, you know, just doing.
00:55:49
Speaker 14: Mm-hmm.
00:55:49
Speaker 5: You're right.
00:55:50
Speaker 3: And they respond.
00:55:52
Speaker 6: That's true.
00:55:52
Speaker 7: So true.
00:55:54
Speaker 3: So true.
00:55:54
Speaker 6: That was good.
00:55:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, Z was cool. He's pretty cool.
00:55:56
Speaker 6: He is, isn't he? He'll have his own website soon.
00:55:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, he has some pay. But we were just talking about, but he'll get it.
00:56:05
Speaker 3: Oh, he will. Everybody's going to.
00:56:06
Speaker 7: Know who he is.
00:56:07
Speaker 6: They'll know.
00:56:07
Speaker 3: Bank of America, though?
00:56:09
Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly.
00:56:10
Speaker 3: Bank of America.
00:56:13
Speaker 4: I knew a friend of mine, her sister worked for Bank of America. You don't want to know how much stupid money her sister makes.
00:56:19
Speaker 6: Used to make.
00:56:20
Speaker 4: She went on to, I think now she's at Google or somewhere like that. I can't remember where she said her sister, but it was one of those.
00:56:26
Speaker 6: He's going to do well. He is already on the right path.
00:56:29
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah.
00:56:30
Speaker 3: And so you all were classmates. So that's what all the... I wish you guys could... Those who were watching online, I guess.
00:56:36
Speaker 8: I wish I could have given him just one. I couldn't get not enough time to go in and say, Hey, what's up?
00:56:41
Speaker 9: Yeah.
00:56:42
Speaker 6: He's doing great. I can reach him. I'll have to call him sometime.
00:56:44
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:56:45
Speaker 6: Because he's here in town.
00:56:46
Speaker 4: So that's the advantage of what we learned about Monday. We want to bring everybody in on that. Because on Monday, we found out that you can now watch us via.
00:57:00
Speaker 3: Facebook and YouTube.
00:57:03
Speaker 13: We are here.
00:57:04
Speaker 3: We are here. It was it was quick. I think once we were able to mobilize and they said, OK, everything's up. We're like, huh?
00:57:12
Speaker 6: Yeah, we were like, whoa, wait, are we ready?
00:57:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, are we ready?
00:57:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, we you know, so we had to catch up to what was taking place and we had. And, you know, so we certainly want to remind everyone that in addition to streaming, listening on the radio, we're also we also can be found now on Facebook and YouTube.
00:57:33
Speaker 6: Here we are.
00:57:34
Speaker 3: Yes, here we are indeed.
00:57:36
Speaker 4: And also, let's see. Oh, we just started our second hour. So we still have time to get it done.
00:57:40
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah, we do.
00:57:41
Speaker 4: You
know, those those universal circus tickets are just waiting.
00:57:44
Speaker 6: They're waiting to be given away.
00:57:46
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:57:46
Speaker 8: You can win them before you can buy them.
00:57:49
Speaker 6: They're not on sale yet.
00:57:49
Speaker 3: You know what?
00:57:51
Speaker 6: From my understanding from promotions.
00:57:53
Speaker 4: Yes, the tickets haven't gone on sale. You're still getting pre-sale tickets.
00:57:55
Speaker 6: Right, so you're getting pre-sale.
00:57:57
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay.
00:57:58
Speaker 3: Well, you know, the last segment we were able to welcome back Mr. David Gerton.
00:58:03
Speaker 4: In this segment, we are able to welcome back Brother Thomas X, educator, author, community activist.
00:58:11
Speaker 3: Brother Thomas X, welcome back. How are you today?
00:58:14
Speaker 5: I'm doing well.
00:58:15
Speaker 15: Yeah.
00:58:15
Speaker 5: Just getting over a little cold.
00:58:17
Speaker 3: Maybe you can hear it in my.
00:58:18
Speaker 5: Voice a little bit.
00:58:19
Speaker 3: I'm glad you're getting over it because mine just started.
00:58:21
Speaker 4: I was telling Eric this morning, it was like, you know.
00:58:27
Speaker 5: Getting your Barry White on.
00:58:30
Speaker 6: Barry White.
00:58:32
Speaker 7: Yes, indeed.
00:58:33
Speaker 4: So hopefully it's not. But maybe by, you know how it kind of intensifies. And so maybe it'll intensify over the weekend and it won't because I just have a little bit of nasal.
00:58:41
Speaker 5: Nasal.
00:58:42
Speaker 3: But it's coming. How have you been?
00:58:44
Speaker 6: I've been well.
00:58:45
Speaker 5: Thank you for asking.
00:58:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we're continuing this young people theme, and I love it.
00:58:52
Speaker 5: I brought you a book, too. I gave you a copy of my first book. That's the second one.
00:58:57
Speaker 3: The Time Is Now?
00:58:58
Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
00:58:59
Speaker 3: Okay, well, first of all, tell us.
00:59:01
Speaker 4: About what you're doing now, and you know, we're here visiting with you for a reason. So, you know, share that with us.
00:59:07
Speaker 5: So right now I've been doing a campaign, but also scheduling multiple visits, not just here in Indianapolis, but here within the next month or so. I'll be traveling as well, going to different schools, teaching. I don't want to say teaching. pretty much reminding their educators on how to teach with intention. So oftentimes we have these goals that we want to achieve or that we want our scholars to achieve, our students to achieve. However, the educator has to teach with such a high level of intention that the goals that we desire for our students to reach seem achievable based on what it is that we're delivering through our instruction.
00:59:54
Speaker 7: Mm-hmm.
00:59:55
Speaker 4: What does intention entail? And what do you mean when you say teach with intention? Because I guess I would venture to say I don't think there are too many educators out there that don't think that they're not already.
01:00:07
Speaker 3: Teaching with intention. So what do you mean by intention?
01:00:10
Speaker 5: Whenever we look at the product that we've been producing over not just the last decade, not just the last two decades, but we haven't been putting out the very best that can come out of the school system, right? And it's a multitude of reasons, right? Because there has to be a complete village. We say that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, part of that village is the home. A part of that village is the school. A part of that village is whatever religious institution that you attach to. A part of that village is the community. But yet, to answer your question, teaching with intention is being purposeful on getting the desired results out of every single student inside of our classroom. So the curriculum isn't a one size fit all curriculum. No curriculum is that because we aren't a human. We're not a human being that learns the exact same way as our fellow human beings. You may be an auditory learner. I may be a visual learner. So if, or educator is striving to deliver the curriculum in a one-size-fits-all manner, then it may get to the auditory learner, but it won't get to the visual learner. Or it may get to the visual learner and not the auditory learner. However, whenever we're intentional, that entails getting to know your students beyond just the classroom, getting to know your students beyond just the curriculum, and getting to know the unique differences in each and every student And teaching to those unique differences. Because one thing about it, Sister Tina, is that every single student, every single student has the ability to evolve into a better version of themselves than they were when they came inside of our classrooms.
01:02:10
Speaker 3: So I understand that in theory, but how do you address.
01:02:14
Speaker 4: The current state of our education, public schools, teachers that are given 30, 35 students a year to be able to teach. The requirements that just increase year after year after year. Now teachers have to do this. You have to do that now. This year, the legislature just put on them. Well, you have to police cell phones, you know, bell to bell, bell to bell, cell phone ban. And you all figure it out. And so it just seems like with each passing year, there's more and more and more put into the educational institutions that educators, administrators, faculty said that everybody has to. to balance in addition to the growing numbers of students in a classroom and the lessening number of educators to be able to address these. How do you apply this to that current reality?
01:03:11
Speaker 5: So, Sister Tina, this makes my 11th year in education by God's permission. You know that this is not the first year that students have not had the ability to have their cell phones in school. This is not the first year.
01:03:25
Speaker 3: It's the first year it's legislated. It's the first year of
state law.
01:03:27
Speaker 5: But many schools have been successful with implementing it. Uh-huh. So making that a barrier in between being effective as possible at the job we're paid to do sounds like an excuse to Satina.
01:03:42
Speaker 14: Uh-huh.
01:03:42
Speaker 5: And I'll give an example.
01:03:45
Speaker 11: Okay.
01:03:45
Speaker 5: I'll give an example of teaching with intention.
01:03:47
Speaker 3: Okay.
01:03:48
Speaker 5: So when I first got an education, when I first got in the classroom.
01:03:52
Speaker 15: Uh-huh.
01:03:53
Speaker 5: In my first book, I teach about how I got an education. I started off as a security guard, Sister Tina, at Tech High School. If anyone listening that went to Tech High School or know anything about it, I was a security guard in the arsenal.
01:04:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay.
01:04:07
Speaker 5: Yeah, the building that looked like a house on the corner of Michigan Street.
01:04:11
Speaker 6: Okay.
01:04:12
Speaker 7: And so.
01:04:14
Speaker 5: Years, fast forward, I was asked to teach third grade or sixth grade. at this elementary school that had been recruiting me to come teach. And so I taught third grade, and you know, Sister Tina, someone who has the least amount of experience, and a man coming in education, who do you think got the students who were considered the most difficult students? Who you think got them, Sister Tina? You know I got them. You know I got them. So in my class, I had 23 students. And of those 23, Sister Tina, 16 of them, 16, and now this is only third grade, but 16 were at minimum two grades below grade level.
01:05:06
Speaker 7: True.
01:05:06
Speaker 3: Okay, I've heard. That's not hard to believe.
01:05:08
Speaker 5: It's not hard to believe.
01:05:09
Speaker 15: No.
01:05:10
Speaker 5: And the remaining seven, there were only three that were approaching grade level. So that still leaves the other four behind. So out of 23 students. Then when the school year first started, Sister Tina, out of the 23 students, I had 19 boys and four young girls. But let me tell you how on the very first day I started to teach with intention. I went to the board and I asked every student, who's your favorite artist? That's who has their attention way more than the educator. who's your favorite entertainer? Who's your favorite artist? So on the board, you know, I wasn't using a projector at the time. I was writing on the board.
01:05:57
Speaker 19: Old-fashioned chalkboard with a piece of chalk?
01:05:59
Speaker 5: No, I had the Sharpie.
01:06:00
Speaker 6: I had the Sharpie.
01:06:01
Speaker 11: I was a white boy.
01:06:02
Speaker 3: I had the Sharpie.
01:06:04
Speaker 5: So I had written every single artist that every single student named with the Sharpie. And so after I had written all the artists down, I took 15 minutes of the start of class after that just to teach the students on every single thing that they admire about these individuals up here. You have it in yourself. You just don't
necessarily know how to extract it from yourself, but that's my responsibility this year. Let's get it cracking. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
01:06:38
Speaker 3: I have to be more sophisticated.
01:06:40
Speaker 5: Let's get started.
01:06:42
Speaker 6: And so.
01:06:43
Speaker 5: That's where I began the school year from. So I was intentional on bringing the very best out of every single student because now I know what it is that you admire because the artist that you're naming is not only the money, is not only the fame, it may be the bravado. It may be the way that they look. It's all type of variables that gets a child to love these artists that are writing on the board. But I want to show you that what you really like is that there's a level of greatness that they're displaying that you just don't know you have inside of yourself. So Brother Thomas is going to spend this whole year bringing that level of greatness out of you. And the way I'm going to start is by coming to class looking like this every single day. Sister Tina, I'm saying at that particular time, my wife and I and our family, we were living in an apartment. Man, there would be some times with the little salary that I was making that it was hard to pay rent. But based on the way I'm looking and based on the way that I'm teaching, they still see some ambition in Brother Thomas. So they don't know that Brother Thomas is striving to make it out of here to pay his rent on time. But yet, all they see is man, I see some, I see some ambition in him and what's coming out of his mouth. I can believe it because he looks like he believe in what he's saying.
01:08:15
Speaker 11: Yeah.
01:08:16
Speaker 12: Yeah.
01:08:16
Speaker 5: That's teaching with intention. It's not all about what we say, but our educators also have to know that your presentation is powerful.
01:08:24
Speaker 7: Yeah.
01:08:25
Speaker 4: But educators have to be, you have an incredible sense of self-awareness. Educators in terms of being intentional, if I'm following you.
01:08:33
Speaker 5: Yes, ma'am.
01:08:34
Speaker 3: Have to find their level of self-awareness.
01:08:37
Speaker 5: How can I bring anything out of anyone else if I'm not striving to bring it out of myself, Sister Tina?
01:08:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.
01:08:42
Speaker 5: There's a problem. I truly believe. I made a video of this maybe a month ago and put it online. So when school was about to start, I was doing these videos just giving tidbits to educators from my little perspective.
01:08:59
Speaker 17: Right.
01:09:00
Speaker 5: Okay and so one of the things that i was saying educators must do is work on themselves daily yeah because how can i not work on myself daily but come in the classroom striving to work on this student daily yeah that's bass ackers i mean If.
01:09:19
Speaker 3: You get what I'm saying.
01:09:21
Speaker 5: So every single day, I have to take out a portion of time when I get home. I may have to use my lunch break. That could be
meditation. That could be journaling. That can be reflecting over the weaker parts that I'm striving to get stronger. Sister Tina, before I come in this classroom, important too. these students that are dependent on me to bring the best out of them. Because in a school environment, they're considered the amateurs. We're considered the professionals.
01:09:51
Speaker 4: So how do you get educators to embrace the intentionality of what it is you're sharing?
01:09:57
Speaker 5: Yes, ma'am.
01:09:58
Speaker 3: In terms of, yeah, how do you get them to embrace that?
01:10:02
Speaker 5: So the same way that I went up to that board with those students and asked them who were their favorite individuals.
01:10:10
Speaker 7: Okay.
01:10:11
Speaker 5: The very first thing, if I'm giving a PD, I'm asking the educators the exact same thing. Who are your premier educators? Not just in the classroom. Your educators in life. Is that premier educator in your mind your pastor? Is it your imam? Is it your student minister? Is it the professor that you had at such and such university? Okay, so now. that we ridden those individuals down, what made them a top tier educator? And everything that's in them, I'ma let you know that those attributes are in you as well, because every single one of us, Sister Tina, were created unique, but to deny that uniqueness is to deny the creator that created us himself.
01:11:00
Speaker 3: So tell us what you're doing and how, yeah, tell.
01:11:03
Speaker 6: Us about it.
01:11:04
Speaker 5: So that's what I'm doing. Doing PDs, so the school year just started. So I'm doing PDs, and the goal is to awaken the awareness in educators of themselves and the responsibility that they have to our students. And then for the administrators, the goal is to speak with the administrators to awaken their awareness to the responsibility that they have to their staff. So the same way that the staff, the educators, have the heavy responsibility of cultivating the children, the administration has the same responsibility as it relates to cultivating and growing the educators that they're hiring to be inside of their building.
01:11:59
Speaker 4: Do you think that we as an educational community are ready to receive and embrace this message?
01:12:05
Speaker 5: Well, because my calendar hasn't completely filled up yet, I will say that we're having challenges. But however, I was talking, I was having a conversation with my wife, Sister Tina, and I was coining a phrase, at least I think I was, but I was thinking of predatory lending. We were having a conversation about roughly the 2008, 2009 when the housing bubble, right, and predatory lending was happening. I say, well, what's happening right now is predatory education. The same way that the lenders were benefiting off of those who they were lending to, right now, we're having all of these political wars on education, charter versus public versus private. However, in our community, we see that nothing is really working to bring the absolute best out of us, so Predatory education. Everybody's benefiting off of our attendance. They're benefiting off our presence. Everyone is benefiting off of our children. But where is the true cultivation? Where's the true maturation of the minds of the individuals that sit in them seats for six hours a day?
01:13:28
Speaker 4: And so if people want to know more, how can folks get in touch with you?
01:13:32
Speaker 5: Please visit www.motivatetogrow.com. That is M-O-T-I-V-A-T-E-T-O-G-R-O-W. Motivatetogrow.com. And you can also email me at brotherthomasx at gmail.com. That is brother, B-R-O-T-H-E-R, Thomas, T-H-O-M-A-S, x at gmail.com. And please, I would love to... at least let's just have a Zoom meeting first so that we can fill each other out. And let's really collaborate on striving to begin to bring the absolute best out of our children, but not just our children. As administrators, let's collaborate to bring the absolute best out of our educators as well because we all are dependent on one another. It's not just the educator's responsibility to turn things around in education. But a lot of those up top have a heavy responsibility as well that they have to engage in.
01:14:30
Speaker 4: Is there anybody in that space that you are speaking to more than not? Because I remember when you sent me the first email, you said that this message is really timely because of the young student you were telling me about.
01:14:44
Speaker 11: Oh, yeah.
01:14:45
Speaker 5: Oh, no, no, no. So at that particular time, you know, I don't know if you remember, there was a video that had gone viral. maybe a few weeks ago, and it was a brother crying on camera because he was stating his 17- and 18-year-old students were unable to write full paragraphs or write sentences, something of that nature. But he was just basically, to summarize what he was crying over, was our children are just completely undereducated. However, this is not something that's new. His video may have gone viral. But yet my teacher, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, had written a book entitled Torchlight for America. And in this book, I think, I want to say it was written in 2001. In Torchlight for America at that particular time, studies had shown that over 50%, so nearly half of American adults were walking around functionally illiterate. Functionally illiterate. So we're able to still engage in what seems to be the normal activities. For the most part, we're illiterate. And illiterate in multiple spaces. Right now we talk about financial literacy. We have a character deficiency. So we're illiterate as it relates to functioning with a high level of character. We have a morality deficiency. So we're illiterate when it comes to functioning with a high level of morality. So we're illiterate in so many areas of life, and we're just functioning. So when we not just look at the black community, but when we look at America, we're really not evolving.
01:16:36
Speaker 4: And where is it most important to start, based on your experience, in terms of the turnaround? That you have seen in terms of the success that you have seen. Where's the best starting point?
01:16:50
Speaker 5: This is a plug for our family, specifically my wife's child care, love and light learning academy. Oh, man, at that age. I've been fortunate, Sister Tina, by God's permission, I've been so fortunate to work at the high school level, middle school level, elementary level, and I'm in business with my wife at our child care. So seeing, being able to witness the activity of children from six months to six years of age, right, in that space, being able to witness the activity of children K-2, being able to witness the activity of children 3-8, and being able to witness the activity of children 9-12 grade.
01:17:41
Speaker 7: Mm-hmm.
01:17:43
Speaker 5: And seeing where that gap begins to develop, where the aspirations begin to be assassinated, where the goals begin to be attacked, and they completely change. So when I was teaching in third grade, Sister Tina, I remember doing an experiment, if I can take a little bit of time. So I did two experiments. The first experiment I want to bring up is, I had taken my class, I asked fourth grade classes, fourth through sixth grade classes, if I can, I asked the educators if I could bring my students around because I was doing a poll. And I wanted to show my students how quick goals change once you get past third grade. So I took my students to one fourth grade class, one fifth grade class, one sixth grade class. The school went K through six. And so when I took my students to these classrooms, the day prior to that, we went through kindergarten, through second grade. And all I was doing was asking the children, what do you want to be when you get older? So the day prior to taking my students to fourth, fifth and sixth, they heard the kindergarten, Kindergarten is saying, I want to be a superhero.
01:19:05
Speaker 6: I want to be a fireman.
01:19:07
Speaker 5: I want to be a doctor. I want to be a veterinarian. The next day when I took him to the fourth, the fifth, sixth grade classroom, everything changed to, I want to play basketball. I want to play football. I want to dance. I want to sing. Not that those aren't noble things. We don't want to put that out there. However, the transformation of what we desire to achieve occurred when we left being six, five, six, and seven. By the time we became eight, nine, and 10, we had completely different goals. Then also the second experiment I did. So you have my book right here. Can I see the book, Christina? Because people could see online.
01:19:55
Speaker 7: Thank you.
01:19:56
Speaker 5: So I had a few, I had a few dollars in my pocket.
01:19:59
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
01:20:00
Speaker 5: And when I say a few dollars, I have to be specific. Because a few dollars can mean a few hundred. No, I had a couple dollars, single dollar bills in my pocket. And I
was having a conversation with my class about the perspective of if you want to hide some from a Negro, you put it where? In a book. In a book. So my class, they were, they didn't believe me. I said, all right, let's do an experiment. I said, I'm going to bring some students in here, and y'all better not say nothing. So now they geeked. They were smiling. So I took a few of my single-dollar bills, put it inside of the book. I had a podium right in front of my door. I set the book on the podium. So when I brought the students in, I gave the students the area in which they could look, say, you all have. You have full access to look in this area. So I had students raise the book up, look under the book, look around the book, look under the desk that the book was on, the podium. So after everyone went, I say, y'all ready to see where the money is at? Because I told them if they find the money, they can have it. So y'all ready to see? Everybody said, yeah. My students already knew. I got the book. Flip the book upside down, money fell out. So these are the type of lessons that we have to provide to our children when we teach them with intention, because it's not just the curriculum that's going to save us. It's going to be a high level of character that puts us on that trajectory to save ourselves.
01:21:45
Speaker 3: By the way, the second book that you have is?
01:21:47
Speaker 5: So the first book is Mountain Mover, the impeccable strength that accompanies your character. And that's a character development book. That book right there, the time is now. And so finding peace and purpose through chaos. And so that book was written primarily because we're living in a time of chaos right now. But in chaos, there is peace. And we don't want to utilize excuses to eliminate the time that God is providing us with every single day to begin to become the absolute best versions of ourselves and and do the best work that we can possibly do. So that's why I thank you for giving me the opportunity of being on here today because this is part of my work, and I'm praying that God blesses the words that are coming out of my mouth to reach the ears of every one of your listeners. And, you know, do what they do.
01:22:39
Speaker 3: Brother Thomas X, how can people contact you?
01:22:41
Speaker 5: Please, once again, you can contact me via email at brother, spelled out, thomasx at gmail.com. You can visit my website, www.motivatetogrow.com. And let's collaborate.
01:22:58
Speaker 7: All right.
01:22:58
Speaker 4: Keep on doing what you do, Brother Thomas.
01:23:01
Speaker 3: That's why we have you back periodically. Thank you so much for coming in. We really appreciate you.
01:23:05
Speaker 5: Thank you.
01:23:05
Speaker 3: Eric, we still got tickets? Are they still in queue? Still in queue. Okay, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out.
01:23:12
Speaker 6: Coming up.
01:23:12
Speaker 3: All right, we'll be right back.
01:23:21
Speaker 1: Let's get back to the conversation. It's Community Connection with Tina Cosby on Praise AM 1310, 95.1 FM.
01:23:37
Speaker 3: All righty, all righty, all righty. Busy in the studio today.
01:23:42
Speaker 6: Oh, it's been a busy place.
01:23:43
Speaker 3: Non-stop. I don't think, I mean, since we've been here, I don't think I've had this much activity in our studios in a single day.
01:23:49
Speaker 6: I don't think so. No, we have not. You have not. You have not.
01:23:55
Speaker 3: I don't think so. It's been great.
01:23:56
Speaker 6: It's been busy, though.
01:23:57
Speaker 3: It's been pretty busy.
01:23:57
Speaker 4: It's been great.
01:23:58
Speaker 3: I love it. This is the way it's supposed to be.
01:23:59
Speaker 6: It's supposed to be.
01:24:00
Speaker 3: Indeed, indeed, indeed. Let's go ahead and give away those tickets to this Universal Circus.
01:24:06
Speaker 6: Universal Circus. You can win them before you can buy them.
01:24:10
Speaker 3: Win them before you can buy them. You got to love that. Win them before you can buy them.
01:24:14
Speaker 12: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:24:17
Speaker 6: Let's see. What color should we take?
01:24:18
Speaker 7: What color?
01:24:18
Speaker 3: What's the number?
01:24:21
Speaker 5: Let's see.
01:24:21
Speaker 6: How about.
01:24:25
Speaker 3: Between 1 and 10. We keep it workable, manageable.
01:24:28
Speaker 6: Okay, manageable. You said 1 and 10. Let's go with 10. 10?
01:24:31
Speaker 5: Yeah, call her 10.
01:24:32
Speaker 7: 1310.
01:24:32
Speaker 10: No, not a 13.
01:24:32
Speaker 7: 1310.
01:24:32
Speaker 3: 1310, 10, 10, 10, 10. Call her number 10. If you are caller number 10 to the number 317-480-1310, 317-480-1310. Look at the phone lines lighting up there, Eric.
01:24:37
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah, they're lighting up.
01:24:38
Speaker 3: I'm here to tell you. Call her 10. Caller 10, so we see, I see one, two, three, four. They're coming in. They're coming in.
01:24:57
Speaker 4: Good luck to you, Caller 10, because if you are the 10th caller, you will indeed win two free tickets to the upcoming Universe Soul Circus.
01:25:06
Speaker 6: Universe Soul Circus.
01:25:07
Speaker 3: Universe Soul Circus.
01:25:09
Speaker 4: Coming to Indianapolis at Lafayette Square, September 17th through the 27th.
01:25:12
Speaker 3: September 27th is the last day. But guess what? Tickets go on sale soon.
01:25:20
Speaker 4: We're going to give you two now before they go on sale.
01:25:22
Speaker 6: That's right.
01:25:23
Speaker 3: The 17th through the 27th. We wish you luck.
01:25:26
Speaker 6: We do. Caller 10.
01:25:28
Speaker 3: Caller number 10. Eric, you go ahead and go to work.
01:25:30
Speaker 6: I'll see you later.
01:25:30
Speaker 14: Let me know.
01:25:31
Speaker 3: Okay. You see me later. See me later. We're going to continue with our education theme. And we are now going to welcome to the show a young man, Mr. Anthony Martin. He is the developer of an app called Brainiac.
01:25:47
Speaker 10: It's called Homework Land.
01:25:49
Speaker 3: Homework Land. Where did I say Brainiac?
01:25:51
Speaker 10: That's one of the tiers.
01:25:52
Speaker 3: Ah, Brainiac is one of the tiers. Okay, see, it's Friday. It's not even Monday. Homework Land. It's a homework app.
01:26:00
Speaker 6: Yes.
01:26:00
Speaker 3: Brainiac is one of the tiers. See, I got ahead of myself.
01:26:04
Speaker 4: We're hearing a little bit of an echo there, Eric. I'm not sure what's going on. Okay, now that's a little bit better.
01:26:09
Speaker 7: Mr. Martin, welcome.
01:26:10
Speaker 3: Thank you for being with us. How are you?
01:26:12
Speaker 10: I'm fine. Thank you.
01:26:13
Speaker 5: Thank you.
01:26:13
Speaker 10: Thank you for the opportunity.
01:26:14
Speaker 9: Yeah.
01:26:15
Speaker 3: So thank you for coming in.
01:26:17
Speaker 4: So tell us about yourself and tell us about Homework Land and how it all came to be.
01:26:23
Speaker 6: All right.
01:26:23
Speaker 15: All right.
01:26:24
Speaker 17: Well, my name is Anthony Martin. Well, a lot of people know me as Boss Beezy or DJ Boss Beezy. I DJ at the skating rink and also do a lot of music and production. I've done a lot of music and production for people in the city, local artists and things like that.
01:26:38
Speaker 10: Um, but I'm also a father, you know, um, a.
01:26:41
Speaker 17: Dedicated father who, you know, who values the, the, the education of my children. And I was, I was at work and my son was just, I was just getting too many phone calls, you know, and it was about his behavior and he's not focusing. And I was like, dang, it's something that I can do. It's something I should be able to do. And so I just came up with the idea. I'm like, maybe if I can just create something that makes, that gets straight to the point, you know, a lot of these athletes, Kids apps, they bounce around with games and little contests. No, I just want to get straight to the point. Let's make some homework. This right here, and let's make it kind of fun so that way it replaces the device time that's taking the kids' attention away right now and making their mind move so fast that they can't focus in class. So this right here, once I got it for him and I made it for him and I started working for him, Then I started realizing there was a lot of other children that's just like him who needs this type of focus to sit and actually do homework and make it fun. They can get Roblox points, V-Bucks points if they keep just going. The more points they get by doing the homework, the more assignments they get. It's incentivizing homework and make them want to do homework. It's not get in trouble for not doing homework. Let's do something for doing homework.
01:27:57
Speaker 3: Are you an applications developer?
01:27:59
Speaker 17: So yes and no. I went to school for computer design technology. And I got a chance to get a little bit of the education back then. So I was able to use some of that background to help me in today's futuristic world, should I
say.
01:28:20
Speaker 3: So it's embracing.
01:28:21
Speaker 4: Eric, I'm hearing a little bit of an echo. Let me see if we can go. Maybe we can figure that. So it's embracing the technology that the youngsters have to use and use every day and making it work for them in a way that perhaps it hasn't always worked based on your is this your son here yes hi there hi what's your name.
01:28:44
Speaker 15: I am Bryson I'm Bryson Bishop I'm the one that is his father I mean son of the education I was actually having bad I was having bad grades I was failing in class what was giving you trouble It was just I wasn't learning enough. I wasn't in class enough. So my dad started trying. So it's this thing called Base 44. He went on there and he got homework land. That's how this is made. Homework land right here.
01:29:16
Speaker 3: Homework land.
01:29:17
Speaker 15: That's how it's made. And that's when I tried, when I went on there, I got about 200 points now.
01:29:22
Speaker 7: Okay, go ahead, Marek.
01:29:25
Speaker 3: Go ahead. You did good.
01:29:26
Speaker 15: Yeah, when I was doing that, I was getting better and better at my learning, and then once I did my iRead, I'm telling you, it is the best website of ever. I literally passed it in fourth grade. Before I submitted my test, I was praying to God. I was like, God, please. I'm like, God, please make me, please have me pass this test.
01:29:51
Speaker 3: How old are you?
01:29:53
Speaker 15: I'm 10 now.
01:29:54
Speaker 3: Oh, okay.
01:29:56
Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead.
01:29:57
Speaker 3: He's nine when it happened.
01:29:59
Speaker 15: Yeah, I was nine when it happened. And once I got to getting on homework land, me and my cousin, we was up to like two in the morning doing it. And that's how he passed to sixth grade. So because we were both doing homework land, he just started about.
01:30:17
Speaker 10: A year ago.
01:30:20
Speaker 17: So it's like I keep seeing it work for a child who's not in this state. He comes from a whole nother place and he gets on there and he works it too. And he's learning and he's in there battling. I got more points than you. And you know, I just saw it working.
01:30:36
Speaker 4: What do you think it is that you keyed in on that you discovered that made it lock in with these kids?
01:30:41
Speaker 10: Incentive.
01:30:43
Speaker 17: When a child is incentivized to do homework, when they, when they know that they're doing it, it's like, you know, I play, you know, certain video games and if I'm not going to play a game, if I don't get any reward for doing it, you know, I'm just playing over.
01:30:55
Speaker 7: And over and over.
01:30:55
Speaker 17: So when I started seeing that the children are not getting incentivized with the homework because they're so worried about being disciplined, it gave me a different focus on it. Okay, well, maybe I should try incentivizing them. So now we got Roblox, we got V-Bucks, we got things that they like to do.
01:31:13
Speaker 10: Go chase it. Go work for it like we do. We work every day. This is how you're going to do it.
01:31:17
Speaker 17: And also, like I said, it replaces the device, Tom.
01:31:20
Speaker 12: Yeah.
01:31:21
Speaker 17: And it makes them want to do something that's going to get them something that they're going to use for their devices later.
01:31:26
Speaker 3: So how did you load their homework into the app? I mean, how does that work?
01:31:31
Speaker 17: So basically what it is is AI, you get onto the website, you click on, you pick the grade, you pick the assignment.
01:31:38
Speaker 10: I mean, you pick the subject. I have seven subjects on there right now.
01:31:44
Speaker 7: And so.
01:31:45
Speaker 17: You pick the subject. After you pick the subject, you pick how many questions. You also pick if you want a worksheet or a test. And then you hit generate.
01:31:54
Speaker 10: It automatically generates an assignment form.
01:31:56
Speaker 18: Wow.
01:31:58
Speaker 10: And then it's based off of education.
01:32:01
Speaker 3: Oh, okay. Please hand me this.
01:32:05
Speaker 15: So that's what that is. That is homework land. And it's like AI. It's like real life making....
01:32:12
Speaker 6: Wow.
01:32:12
Speaker 15: Like, subjects for you. He just added, actually, he just added money to it. Before, it was science, and it's a K-8 math.
01:32:20
Speaker 7: So, finances.
01:32:21
Speaker 3: Learning, you know, learning finances.
01:32:23
Speaker 15: Yeah, math, K-8.
01:32:24
Speaker 10: Yeah.
01:32:25
Speaker 15: And it was, um, like, so, like, so.
01:32:28
Speaker 10: I had site mechanics.
01:32:29
Speaker 7: Yes.
01:32:29
Speaker 17: So, site mechanics are more for, like, when, you know, children who are, you know, a lot of parents were like.
01:32:34
Speaker 10: Well, my kid, you know, he's not really in school yet.
01:32:37
Speaker 17: Well, you got K-2 on there, which is, um, for site mechanics, which is like visuals, like bananas, colors, shapes, apples.
01:32:48
Speaker 10: And it teaches, and all this is for us to help work with them.
01:32:52
Speaker 17: This is not for us to babysit, for this to be babysitting your child.
01:32:57
Speaker 10: This is for us to also help them. This is a parental tool. This is not a game.
01:33:01
Speaker 17: It's gamified for the children to enjoy it. But this is really for us parents to get on there, get our child dialed in on education. And make it, like, he can't go outside unless he gets 90%. He can't even go play the game unless he gets 90% on a math thing.
01:33:20
Speaker 15: And the thing is that if you go 80 or higher, you get your points. If you don't go 80 or higher, you get, like, 70. It'll be green. You got it right. You'll get some coins and stuff, but you got to retry. It's like a retry zone. You got to go in the retry zone, redo it. until you get it right.
01:33:38
Speaker 3: So this makes all your schoolwork that you're doing now, sir, it makes it all make sense to you? Is that what
you're saying? Tell me about that. You're quite articulate. You're a very bright young man.
01:33:49
Speaker 10: Thank you.
01:33:51
Speaker 15: Yeah, thank you. So when I was in school, I was about nine. I was about nine years old.
01:33:57
Speaker 3: A long time ago.
01:33:58
Speaker 15: I was like eight years old. I was in third grade. I was in second grade.
01:34:05
Speaker 6: Third.
01:34:06
Speaker 15: Second grade and eighth. And what, third?
01:34:09
Speaker 7: Third.
01:34:10
Speaker 3: What grade are you in now?
01:34:11
Speaker 15: I'm in fourth now.
01:34:12
Speaker 7: Okay.
01:34:14
Speaker 17: He got held back one year and he was on the verge of being held back again. I got.
01:34:22
Speaker 6: To do something.
01:34:23
Speaker 3: Wow, that's beautiful.
01:34:25
Speaker 10: And I stepped up and made this.
01:34:26
Speaker 17: And then when I realized, like I said, there were so many other children like him who's struggling like him.
01:34:31
Speaker 3: Struggling with the traditional?
01:34:34
Speaker 17: Struggling in a sense where because the parental is so lax right now, people are just giving their child a device and sitting them in a room somewhere and letting them just YouTube, doom scroll themselves to death.
01:34:51
Speaker 10: And that's what's happening everywhere.
01:34:52
Speaker 17: Because the scrolling is messing with their attention span.
01:34:57
Speaker 10: They're going to class.
01:34:58
Speaker 17: They can't sit down long because they can't focus long because their mind is still on doom scroll mode. And so with this, being able for them to sit down and actually get dialed in, you can do it on your phone. It's also bilingual. I got it also in English and Spanish for our Latin community as well.
01:35:18
Speaker 3: So how's school going so far this year?
01:35:22
Speaker 15: It's going great. I got my favorite teachers this year. Back when I was in third grade, and this was at the same school. I'm still in the same school. Back when I was in third grade, I was just noticing that if I had not passed the third grade, because it was this one night where I was in my house. I was in the house with all my family and stuff. Anyways, it was all there, and We was all hype about my school. We was all saying, I'm going to pass. I'm going to pass. I'm going to pass. I kept that in my mind. And once I started using homework land and all that, I passed. So we started doing that. And then when it was time to get over on whoever got held back and whoever was going to fourth grade, I was the first one, I was the first one on there. I was the first one on there, and I made it to like 450.
01:36:25
Speaker 5: For 60 years old.
01:36:26
Speaker 4: So you all have always known. And by the way, his grandmother is here. We've known her. We've talked to her, Eric, many times. DJ Mama Mia.
01:36:34
Speaker 6: Oh, DJ Mama Mia.
01:36:35
Speaker 7: DJ Mama Mia.
01:36:37
Speaker 3: I know you're familiar with the mic.
01:36:39
Speaker 15: Okay.
01:36:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just so happens that you happen to be his grandmother. I mean, this is a happenstance.
01:36:44
Speaker 9: Yes.
01:36:45
Speaker 3: I'm very proud of him.
01:36:46
Speaker 19: He's making an effort now that the homework land has come into his life, and it has really changed his life. His perspective, it really has changed his attitude. He's more energized, more focused now. My son, Anthony Martin, he was programming VCRs and microwaves when he was two years old.
01:37:10
Speaker 3: Literally.
01:37:13
Speaker 19: For him to actually create something like this when it comes to electronics and all the new wave stuff going on.
01:37:21
Speaker 3: This is not even a surprise to me.
01:37:23
Speaker 4: That's an interesting dynamic that a lot of people talk about as to why video games and things of that nature have the attention of young people so much is because of the immediacy of immediate gratification. Because with the video game, you get gratified immediately, whereas homework, it's kind of in a vacuum and there's no immediate gratification. But what sounds like what you've done is merged up.
01:37:45
Speaker 3: Merge the two.
01:37:46
Speaker 4: Have you always felt like you were a pretty bright young man? And was that what was frustrating you? Because you always felt like, hey, I'm smart.
01:37:52
Speaker 15: Yeah, I always felt down when I was getting good. I'm like, I'm skating. When I first started skating, I was in there. I was actually in there with my grandma. My grandma actually told me how to skate. I was in the kitchen. And I started learning new moves every time, every day, every time, every week, every month. And right now I'm on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook.
01:38:17
Speaker 19: He's a master skater aged 10 years old. He'll be in a Circle City Classic Parade so everybody can see his skills.
01:38:23
Speaker 15: Every Wednesday through Saturday I will be there. I actually am going to... circle. I haven't been in one yet. Which one was it?
01:38:33
Speaker 19: No, that was a parade at the Fairgrounds.
01:38:37
Speaker 15: It's on Facebook. I don't know if it's on Facebook or TikTok.
01:38:40
Speaker 19: People know him from the skating world, though.
01:38:42
Speaker 3: What's your name online?
01:38:47
Speaker 15: Sometimes they call me Cinco, sometimes they call me Master Skater Bryson.
01:38:51
Speaker 3: Master Skater Bryson. Master Skater Bryson.
01:38:54
Speaker 15: Let me write that down.
01:38:54
Speaker 7: This is definitely dope.
01:38:57
Speaker 4: So it says here on this flyer, create homework for your kids in five seconds.
01:39:02
Speaker 3: And the app, again, is called?
01:39:06
Speaker 10: Homeworkland.app. It's www.homeworkland.app.
01:39:11
Speaker 17: And you can also go to homeworkland.app slash demo if you guys just want to get it quick preview of it and show.
01:39:17
Speaker 10: You how it works.
01:39:17
Speaker 17: Right now, I have a Labor Day sale going on where
you can get the Brainiac tier or any tier half off right now for just type in Labor Day.
01:39:28
Speaker 3: How many tiers are there?
01:39:30
Speaker 10: Okay, yeah.
01:39:31
Speaker 6: Let me get into that.
01:39:32
Speaker 17: So it's two tiers right now. We have three tiers total. We have the basic tier, which is when you first get on, you can get on, you can sign up. It gives you three to five generations per month. They reoccur if you don't want to really, you know, But if you get the 999 tier, which is the smarty pants tier, that is 25 gens plus five tests. And it also unlocks the golden tests and golden gen assignments for the kids. And that also allows you one child to be attached. So then if you get the Brainiac tier, which is where you was, you know, Brainiac is $ 19.
01:40:08
Speaker 2: 99.
01:40:08
Speaker 4: I looked down and didn't see all of it.
01:40:11
Speaker 10: It's all good. No, this is the one that you get unlimited.
01:40:14
Speaker 17: Gens and you get unlimited amount of children to attach so that way you can attach your whole child you know your second grader your third grader and your fifth grader on and then you can send them to you can send the fourth grader some some math you can send the third grader some some homework uh language arts you know and it basically it it keeps them you know it keeps you to where you can keep all your kids localized you can see the analytics of each one This one's doing this homework.
01:40:44
Speaker 10: This one's doing that.
01:40:45
Speaker 17: And so we also have the genius package, which is coming up after here. Here I'm working on. I'm almost in my last little part of it. And basically it's for the teachers. And it loads up a whole classroom. And then you can generate an assignment. And then you can send it to the whole class at once. They can all do it. They hit submit. It shows the time they got it done, everything. And it also allows the teacher to grade it.
01:41:09
Speaker 7: Yeah.
01:41:09
Speaker 17: AI doesn't grade on the genius package immediately. It allows it because that was one of the concerns I had to address being a new AI developer is that peak teachers are like, well.
01:41:21
Speaker 6: It's going to take our jobs.
01:41:22
Speaker 17: No, I don't want you guys to feel like that. Understand that this is a tool. This is not to take over your job. This is to help.
01:41:30
Speaker 3: Help tool in the class.
01:41:31
Speaker 1: Yes.
01:41:32
Speaker 17: You know, if you, cause I noticed like when I was going up, we went to, we had worksheets already sitting on our desk.
01:41:37
Speaker 11: Yeah.
01:41:37
Speaker 10: Don't work. She's came from a book somewhere.
01:41:39
Speaker 11: Yeah.
01:41:40
Speaker 4: And so before we, we wrap up because we got to, you know, this, this is really interesting. And I know we're going to have people that are going to be calling and wanting to know more. The name of the app is called homework land, homework land, homework land,
and how to find out more about the application and, And your child and you, what do they need to do?
01:41:59
Speaker 3: What's their website?
01:42:01
Speaker 17: So to get on Homeworkland, go ahead and go to www.homeworkland.app. That's H-O-M-E-W-O-R-K-L-A-N-D dot A-P-P. And then when you get on there, you can also, and if you guys want to help in keeping it going, I also have a GoFundMe built for it too as well. It's GoFundMe.com slash U, the letter U, and then slash Homeworkland.
01:42:25
Speaker 6: That's really simple.
01:42:26
Speaker 3: Homeworkland.app?
01:42:27
Speaker 10: Nope, just GoFundMe.com.
01:42:29
Speaker 9: No, no, no.
01:42:30
Speaker 4: I mean, to find out more about the GoFundMe, that'll all be on there.
01:42:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, all of that on there.
01:42:37
Speaker 4: And the reason, I don't want the computer to take you because I want to get all the information in before we have to go. But a lot of educational opportunities, a lot of educational ideas on the show today.
01:42:49
Speaker 3: This is encouraging. Master Skater Bryson, thank you for your testimonial. Thank your dad for his ingenuity.
01:42:57
Speaker 10: And this will help out your grandson as well.
01:42:59
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
01:43:00
Speaker 15: Little guy, yeah.
01:43:04
Speaker 3: Well, we're going to give it a try. I'm going to give it to his mother.
01:43:06
Speaker 7: We're going to give it a try.
01:43:08
Speaker 3: He just started having homework.
01:43:09
Speaker 17: Oh, and like I said, this is for, you know, this is for when them kids come home and say, I ain't got no homework.
01:43:17
Speaker 7: Or I don't have nothing to do.
01:43:18
Speaker 15: I ain't got nothing.
01:43:19
Speaker 3: Yes, you do.
01:43:20
Speaker 17: Because I'm about to make you two assignments before you can do anything else.
01:43:24
Speaker 19: Yeah, before you do your chore.
01:43:25
Speaker 15: You got to do your chore.
01:43:26
Speaker 6: We're parents.
01:43:27
Speaker 17: We got to take back over because the kids is taking over and we got to stop it.
01:43:31
Speaker 3: We got to offer that guidance. I'm telling you.
01:43:34
Speaker 4: You know, this is a labor of love and I thank you for coming on and sharing that with us.
01:43:39
Speaker 3: Thank you, Tina. And with all of the other parents. DJ, Mama Mia, we'll be seeing you.
01:43:42
Speaker 19: In the house this weekend at Mike's apps. oh yeah this weekend I'll be.
01:43:47
Speaker 4: Talking about that it's coming up Mike Epps big weekend this weekend we got a winner.
01:43:52
Speaker 8: We got a winner you want to grab her real quick Annette are you there I'm here Annette she's been patient.
01:44:01
Speaker 3: Congratulations you get your applause line there it is.
01:44:07
Speaker 8: Annette you have to take it Universal Circus before you can buy them congratulations.
01:44:11
Speaker 3: Annette thank you so much who are you going to take with you Me? My granddaughter. Oh, her granddaughter.
01:44:18
Speaker 7: Okay.
01:44:19
Speaker 1: All right.
01:44:19
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for listening, and enjoy the circus.
01:44:22
Speaker 6: Enjoy the circus.
01:44:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, enjoy My Camp's weekend. It's a biggie.
01:44:26
Speaker 4: It's a biggie.
01:44:26
Speaker 7: The comedy show tonight.
01:44:28
Speaker 19: Yeah, the floor show is going to be there in the kids' area where the swings are at.
01:44:32
Speaker 3: We'll be there giving away prizes. And make sure y'all.
01:44:36
Speaker 17: Get y'all some legal shield, please, because that's what helped me get my business together.
01:44:40
Speaker 10: So y'all get y'all some legal shield as well.
01:44:42
Speaker 13: No, no, no, no, no, no.
01:44:44
Speaker 3: No, we can't do that. We can't do that. We can't do that. We'll get in trouble. They need to give us some money. Yeah, that's right.
01:44:52
Speaker 4: That's okay. That's okay.
01:44:54
Speaker 3: Hey, it's Friday. It's Friday. Thank you all so much. Thank you. We'll see you over the weekend. Eric, I will see you on Monday.
01:45:04
Speaker 6: Sounds good.
01:45:04
Speaker 3: All right. Everybody have a fantastic weekend.
01:45:08
Speaker 11: Thank you.