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The Morning Brew with Chris Bennett
Ever wonder what really goes on at a small-town morning radio show?
The Morning Brew with Chris Bennett and Best Friends is your daily dose of real callers, big laughs, and unforgettable characters straight from QCountry 925 in Show Low, Arizona.
The Morning Brew with Chris Bennett
Arizona Peaches on the Road to Country Thunder + Dire Wolves & Good News
The heartbeat of the White Mountains pulses through this action-packed Morning Brew episode. We kick things off with Ashley Westcott of the Arizona Peaches sharing her experience at the Battle of the Bands competition in Florence. Despite literally performing in hurricane-force winds during their rendition of "Wildflowers and Wild Horses," the band held their own against tough competition. Though they didn't claim victory, Ashley's gracious sportsmanship and excitement about upcoming local performances at Honda and The Den showcase the resilience of our local music scene.
The conversation takes a surprising turn when we dive into a scientific breakthrough that sounds straight from science fiction – the successful "de-extinction" of dire wolves after 12,500 years. Using DNA extracted from ancient remains, scientists have cloned these predators that are 30% larger than Mexican gray wolves, raising fascinating questions about conservation, ecology, and the ethics of bringing extinct species back to life. The parallels to existing challenges with gray wolf populations in the Southwest make this story particularly relevant to our mountain communities.
Our "Talk About Something Good Tuesday" segment highlights remarkable human achievements, including Paralympic gold medalist Melanie Barrett becoming the first blind woman to swim the English Channel. We also spotlight Mountain Pines Little League's upcoming Opening Day celebration this Saturday at Mountain Meadows Park, complete with food trucks, vendors, games, and of course, baseball. The show wraps with a heartwarming update from the Darren Reed Foundation, which recently awarded over $20,000 in scholarships to nine local students – a powerful reminder of how our community takes care of its own.
Join us at Mountain Pines Little League Opening Day this Saturday! The festivities begin at 10:30 AM with ceremonies at 11:30 and games starting at 1:00 PM. It's the perfect opportunity to celebrate spring, support local youth, and connect with neighbors while enjoying a true American pastime.
From the Horn Auto Center Studios Chris Bennett and the Morning Brew. A lot of my best friends have been asking about Ashley Westcott and the Arizona Peaches. We know that they traveled down to Florence this past weekend and participated in the Battle of the Bands one of three bands invited for the Road to Country Thunder. And so, to talk about it, I have Ashley Westcott with the Arizona Peaches on the phone this Tuesday. How are you doing, Ashley? Hi, best friends, I'm doing good, Good. So the competition was Saturday. Go ahead and walk us through what it was like walking into that competition, the stage and just everything that went on on Saturday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we got there and the stage was great. It was huge, the weather wasn't great, it was kind of cold, like up here in the mountains. There was tons of people and they had a dance floor and, yeah, great sound system and they had sign language interpreters and it was really cool.
Speaker 1:That's cool. Is that the biggest stage you've performed on so far? It?
Speaker 2:is the second biggest um I performed at the yavapai college in prescott um in front of for a cowboy poetry gathering oh awesome.
Speaker 1:Did anything uh wild or unexpected happen backstage or during the performance?
Speaker 2:yes, actually funny, you should mention that. So the weather was great for the first band and it was great for the third band. We were in the middle and as soon as we started singing Wildflowers and Wild Horses that part where it goes in the eye of a hurricane it started like blowing and it goes um in the eye of a hurricane. It started like blowing and it was sprinkling and it was pretty much blowing so hard. The rest of our set, about half of our set. We were just holding on to our hats and our hair was blown in our face, but we didn't skip a beat. You know, we just did it. We did really great.
Speaker 1:What were the final results?
Speaker 2:Well, we didn't win, but you know, I thought we did great. We really. We played our A game and Cater Hogginsons won and I would almost be mad. But you know he's a great guy, he's super nice and I'm not mad that he won. He I'm really happy for him. He's super nice, I'm not mad that he won.
Speaker 1:I'm really happy for him. He did great. That's awesome, Even though you guys didn't win. What do you guys take away from this whole experience?
Speaker 2:That we could do it. We were great. I actually thought the band after us would win and they didn't win. It was the first band. It was interesting, but I'm proud of us. I think we held our own really, really well.
Speaker 1:Heck yeah, I'm super proud of you guys as well. What's next for Ashley Westcott and the Arizona Peaches?
Speaker 2:We play at Honda April 29th through May 3rd and we also play at the Den next weekend.
Speaker 1:All right, you have a lot of chances to catch Ashley Westcott and the Arizona Peaches here on the White Mountains. Let's check in with Janine Ford with our sister stations Magic 101.7 and Italk 106.7. Janine you over there? Yeah, of course I am. Hey, hey, hey. Any news we should know about?
Speaker 3:Oh news. Yes, there's one thing that is, I think, pretty huge for the White Mountains today. Kind of interesting, I got a tip, a news tip that everybody all I heard was everyone should listen to President Trump's press conference today. You know, about midday he usually has a press conference. There's something he's going to talk about. A lot of people probably know what it might be Things that he's talking about today midday in his press conference that directly affect us here on the White Mountains.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah. So stay tuned for that, for news on the White Mountain.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:I actually have a news story for you that is scaring me to death, Janine. It is. I read the story about the return of the dire wolf, this wolf that had been extinct for 10,000 years.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:They were able to like— take stuff from its teeth and bones and then make babies.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they had a tooth from one that was like I don't know a zillion years ago, and then a skull from another one a zillion years ago. I mean, they basically died out around 12,500 years ago and so they took from the tooth and from a skull and they made puppies. And you remember Dolly the sheep that was cloned. Well, now this is the world's first successfully de-extincted animal cloning. They're calling it de-extincted An animal that is extinct cloning. So, yeah, colossal biosciences did it and you can read all about it in there. Now they're hidden away. There's two brothers. I heard there were three puppies, a female and two males, and that they had named the female Khaleesi. I'm not sure, but I know that the two males they're talking about they're hidden in an undisclosed secret location 20 acres somewhere in North America. So there you go.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I'm just a fuddy-duddy or a wimp. I'm just a fuddy-duddy or a wimp, but this kind of scares me, maybe because I watched a lot of Jurassic Park growing up and I know where this can head. But how do you feel about it? I feel like this shouldn't happen.
Speaker 3:I know it's kind of creepy. It's pretty creepy. And the dire wolf is a subspecies kind of related to the Mexican gray wolf, which now ranchers are having huge problems with. It was all in the news that now part of New Mexico has declared a state of emergency because the gray wolf they're killing so many animals and so many cattle, and ranchers are petrified Because see the thing about wolves, when you reintroduce them they don't have any predators problems and they're massive killers and they don't even eat most of the things they kill.
Speaker 3:Down in the blue there's somebody running cattle down there. They have like about 250 head and word is they've lost almost 50 already and they run them to death is what they do. They'll run horses and cattle to death and just leave them lay there. It's part of the chase and the game for them. And of course, up in Alaska and other parts, like in Yellowstone now, they're trying to hunt them and they hunt them like coyotes because they're so prolific and reproduce so rapidly. But they're massive killers and so that's kind of scary. And now let's add the dire wolf, which is 30% bigger than the Mexican gray wolf.
Speaker 1:But I don't know.
Speaker 3:It's an exciting thought, but it's also scary at the same time. I'm with you. Please do not bring back the T-Rex, yeah, or bring back the grizzly in our area. We used to have grizzly in the White Mountains and I yeah not I.
Speaker 1:let's not do that. That'll become really bad. Yeah Well, janine, why don't we come back and share some good news stories on this? Talk About something good Tuesday.
Speaker 3:Let's do it.
Speaker 1:Janine, it is now time for some good news on this. Talk about something good Tuesday. You want me to go first? Sure, all right, check out this. Good news stories. A 49 year old Paralympic gold medalist, melanie Barrett, became the first blind woman to swim across the English Channel, and she crushed it in 12 hours and 20 minutes, beating her expected time by nearly two hours. She was born nearly blind, but swimming gave her confidence after years of feeling isolated. And she first found her love for the water through the British blind sport and went on to win five Paralympic medals before retiring, and now she's a special needs assistant and a mom. She turned to the open water swimming and trained with the help of her husband, who guided her via his kayak and a bone conducting headphones, and she called this channel Swim the Everest of Swimming and hopes. Her story inspires others to take on their own challenges.
Speaker 3:Oh, isn't that awesome, very motivational.
Speaker 1:Yes, a little motivation on this. Talk about something good Tuesday and just an incredible reminder of strength and spirit Pretty awesome, I love it. All right, janine, it is now time for your good news story.
Speaker 3:Yes, okay, here we go. Now I kind of like this one, because this is what's really weird. I solve a ton of problems in my dreams. I'll be sleeping and it comes to me and I wake up and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is what I need to do. I mean literally stuff. Just I work out stuff all the time in my dreams. And this guy in Washington DC, he was going through a really rough stretch Okay, bad stretch. Then he has this dream it was all going to be okay and he was going to become a millionaire. And he thought that was weird because he's like I don't do anything to become a millionaire. So for that day he just thought you know, I'll just buy one lottery ticket. He buys it, and he got a million dollars.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, that is awesome.
Speaker 3:And it came to him in his dreams. Just kind of a weird little one, right. And there's also a group of frat guys at the University of Southern Mississippi. They reunited a woman with her lost dog five years after he went missing. He, five years after he went missing, he's a tiny Yorkie named Kingston. He disappeared 300 miles away after Hurricane Laura in 2020. The president of the school's Kappa Sigma chapter says Kingston just showed up on their porch last week so they got his microchip scanned and tracked down the owner. She never thought she'd see him again, so they were reuniting on Friday. Yeah, he was probably living with the next-door neighbor that was hiding him out.
Speaker 1:Oh no, I don't know. Maybe the dog showed up for Pledge Week. There you go, exactly Perfect.
Speaker 3:Very perfect, yes.
Speaker 1:All right, that was some good news on this. Talk about Something Good Tuesday. Janine, thanks so much for having fun with us and I hope you have. Today is Talk About Something Good Tuesday and on the phone we have my friend Jason with the Mountain Pines Little League to talk about something good happening this Saturday. It is opening day for Mountain Pines Little League. Jason, tell the Mountain a little bit about what to expect this Saturday at Mountain Pines for opening day opening day Hi, chris.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's opening day, baseball. We're super excited. It's finally here. We're going to have food trucks out there, games for the kids, face painting vendors, all that good stuff. And then Chris Bennett's going to be out there hosting for us, and that should be a good time. He always brings energy and a lot of baseball.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a huge honor to be invited to emcee the opening day for Mountain Pines Little League. Little League was one of my best memories growing up and I was there last year and it was a lot of fun. You said people could start showing up at 1030, and there's going to be food trucks and a bunch of different vendors and also we'll have some giveaways and the fire trucks will be there as well.
Speaker 4:Yes, sir, yeah, so it should be a blast for everybody. So everybody's welcome to come and enjoy the day make a day of it.
Speaker 1:Heck yeah. And then there's also going to be games going on after the opening day ceremonies as well.
Speaker 4:Yes, we're going to have key ball starting at one o'clock and then in the evening we're going to have the older divisions start playing some baseball and get that season on the roll.
Speaker 1:All right, let's play ball. This Saturday it's opening day for Mountain Pines Little League. And where is opening day going to be?
Speaker 4:It's going to be at Mountain Meadows Park off of Woodland Road in Lakeside.
Speaker 1:All right, there we go. We're going to be right back with Jason coming up. Next it is Taco Bout, something Good Tuesday and we are talking to Jason with Mountain Pines Little League about their opening day happening this Saturday at 1030 at what's the park? Mount Meadows Park, off of Woodland Road down lakeside. That's right, it's going to be a lot of fun. Before I let you go, I wanted to ask you some Little League questions. You're very obviously heavily involved in Little League. What's your favorite part about?
Speaker 4:Little League, just helping the kids and helping the community and watch these kids grow as baseball players and young athletes. It always feels good to do something good for them. We've been working really hard to do this.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Do you have a best Little League memory?
Speaker 4:Yes, it would have been my first hit. I got in Little League. That feeling you get, it's like wow, I did it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember mine would probably be when I was 10 or 11. How I did it? Yeah, I remember mine would probably be when I was 10 or 11 and the pitch went by the catcher and I went and stole home and we won. Oh my gosh, it was one of the highlights of my short sports career. And last question for you, jason if you could give your 10-year-old self one tip before stepping up to play at opening day, what would it be?
Speaker 4:Just keep working hard and everything will come to you. Be patient, You'll be good?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's great advice Be patient and have fun. Okay, absolutely.
Speaker 4:Have fun, enjoy, absolutely Enjoy, the game. It's going to pass by fast, so enjoy it. You know it All right, everyone.
Speaker 1:Come on, you know it All right. Everyone, come on out to opening day. I'm going to be hosting and emceeing the day's festivities, playing some great music. There's going to be vendors, food trucks, raffles, games and giveaways, along with fire trucks are going to be there. Opening ceremonies start at 1130 and the opening games start at 1230. It's going to be at Mountain Meadow Park this Saturday and come out and support Mountain Pines Little League. As they say, play ball. Thanks, jason.
Speaker 4:Thanks, Chris. We appreciate everything you guys do for us.
Speaker 1:Good morning. It's the Morning Brew with Chris. Who's this Good morning best?
Speaker 2:friend, it is.
Speaker 1:Sharon, sharon, holy moly Sharon, what do we owe the honor of your call today?
Speaker 2:Well, it is talk about something good Tuesday. Right, we owe the honor of your call today. Well, it is Talk About Something Good Tuesday right. Yep. So I wanted to talk about the Darren Reed Foundation and the First Responders Scholarship and let everybody know that we, by getting donations from the community and the things that we do all year round, we were able to award nine students with over $20,000 in scholarships for the foundation or from the foundation.
Speaker 1:Heck yeah, that's amazing news and those are scholarships to students here right on the White Mountains right.
Speaker 2:Money stays right here on the White Mountains. We do some in need. We give money to the first responders when they need to help someone along the way, like Darren Reed would give tires. So if the police or fire or whoever finds someone in need, they can have money readily available to them. So this foundation 100% gives back to the community, and so it's never too late. Anybody that wants to make a donation they're more than welcome to, and let's just keep this going. This is a legacy that he wanted to see this community come together and help each other out.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Thank you so much for calling in and talking good about a great local nonprofit, the Darren Reed Foundation, right here on the White Mountains. We love you, best friend. Have a great day.
Speaker 2:Love you. Thank you, bye, bye.
