Fire Safety, School Fundraising, and Cat Day Meowing Contests

The Morning Brew served up a perfect blend of community concerns, laughs, and local support in this episode featuring the popular "Jerk Court" segment with Judge Jineane Ford. When a desperate apartment dweller discovered their roommate had been hoarding dirty kitchenware in a mold-filled bedroom, Judge Janine delivered a firm verdict: searching the room was absolutely justified given the serious health hazards involved. The judge advised swift action to address both the living situation and the roommate's concerning behavior.

Fire safety took center stage as Timber Mesa Fire Marshal JD Pepper delivered a crucial warning about ongoing Stage 2 fire restrictions. Despite recent rainfall bringing some relief, JD explained the region remains dangerously dry—even drier than it's been in two decades. While many residents are eager to burn yard debris, JD stressed the importance of finding alternatives like local disposal programs and urged everyone to help keep firefighters "safe and bored" this summer by following restrictions closely.

The show welcomed special guests from St. Anthony Catholic School who shared exciting news about breaking ground on a much-needed new school building after 17 years of operating from borrowed church spaces. Development Director Jennifer Butterbrodt and teacher Steph G announced their upcoming "Starlit Soiree" fundraiser on July 19th at The Gathering Place in Pinetop, inviting community support for this milestone building project for the St. Anthony Catholic School. The segment concluded with information on how listeners can purchase tickets or become sponsors by visiting stantschool.org/events.

The fun continued with Paul from Beaumont, Texas joining for National Hug Your Cat Day celebrations featuring a hilarious "Meow That Tune" contest where host Chris attempted to meow popular country songs while contestants guessed the titles. The episode wrapped with cheese-themed trivia for National Cheese Day that sparked debate about the proper pasta shape for authentic macaroni and cheese. Want to support St. Anthony's new school building? Visit their website today www.stantschool.org/events and help put the "fun in fundraising" for these local students!

Transcript

Jerk Court: The Dirty Dish Hoarder

Speaker 1 0:00

From the Horn Auto Center Studios, chris Bennett and the Morning Brew. All rise. It is now time for, am I? The Jerk Court the Honorable Janine Ford presides. You got your wig and robe on.

Speaker 2 0:18

Yes, I do.

Speaker 1 0:18

Heck, yeah, we're ready, let's knock this out. Here's the case, judge this gentleman. I live in a three-bedroom apartment with my longtime friend and a third roommate we found on Facebook. Things started out fine, but soon our kitchenware plates, bowls, cups began disappearing. Hmm, we asked about it and she'd return one or two, but most were still missing. My other roommate bought all new stuff. Same thing happened. Eventually we'd lost 15 plates, six bowls and countless utensils. That is so weird. I suspected she was hoarding them. Her room reeked and when I glimpsed inside once it looked like a health hazard. I love that sound effect In a hazmat suit. In a hazmat suit it was disgusting Trash, moldy dishes, rotten food, even used Kleenex. All our missing stuff was there, dirty and covered in filth. I didn't touch anything, just confirm the truth. I have severe mold allergy and OCD and I feel like I'm going crazy. Am I the jerk for searching my roommate's room while they were gone?

Speaker 2 1:42

Absolutely not. I think you need to find a way to evict that roommate as fast as you possibly can. That was pretty sick all the stuff you're saying, and I want to tell our listeners that, yeah, Chris didn't even tell the full entirety of it. Yeah, she needs to be, it needs to be fumigated, she needs to be like yeah, get her out.

Speaker 1 2:04

Get her some help. Get her some help. Get her some help. You ever have a gross roommate.

Speaker 2 2:08

No, this one's really gross, though. The stuff you told me that's pretty scary, that's like, and it's a health hazard.

Speaker 3 2:14

Right.

Speaker 2 2:15

So I don't think the person's. Do you think it's a jerk?

Speaker 1 2:18

No, no, I don't think they're a jerk at all. I remember when my wife and I lived in California, we had a fellow comedian that was a roommate and he would steal all the plates. He was kind of the same thing as this lady, but the thing that my wife hated the most is he'd get drunk and at night he would eat all our cheese. He was like a drunk mouse.

Speaker 2 2:42

A cheese eater yeah, a bad roommate like that. And also the thing is just confirming everything that's suspected. That's not a bad thing to go in there and confirm it, that's fine. And now he's got to find a way to get her some, you know, some counseling some help or something.

Speaker 2 2:59

Get her out, have an intervention, talk to her and say, hey, this is really a problem. I have mold allergies and this is I mean, it's just gross. Not to mention they will never get their security deposit back and all that stuff Right, Absolutely Pretty sick In the case of.

Speaker 1 3:14

Am I the Jerk for searching my roommate's room while they're gone? Janine ruled.

Speaker 2 3:18

No, not the jerk, not the jerk. This is an emergency situation. Need to get her removed.

Speaker 1 3:23

All right, thank you, janine, we love you best friend.

Speaker 2 3:25

Have a great day. Love you too. Bye-bye, have a good one.

Speaker 1 3:29

Good morning, it's the Morning Brew with Chris. Who's this? Hey, chris, good morning, it's JD. Heck yeah, jd, peppa, the fire marshal minute for us this morning.

Speaker 3 3:43

Yeah, man, hey, just want to let everybody know look, we've had a little bit of weather. You know, we've been blessed with this wet weather and our humidity. It's pretty good, but it's not enough. We're still. We are still what people don't understand. I get a lot of emails, our department gets a lot of emails and calls, and people are upset because they can't burn their debris, their yard debris, their woody biomass stuff. And I just want everybody to understand, like, hey, we don't take this stuff lightly.

Speaker 3 4:13

Look, I'm a proponent of prescribed burns and getting rid of that stuff, but now is just not the time. Even though we've had a little bit of moisture in the air, our winds are still out there and we're coming back into our temps and those we are still above. We are still way above the average uh the, the uh energy release component for our fuels. If you go back in history and look at, look at how dry we are, we're drier now than we've been in in 20 years. So so, while I understand we need to get rid of that stuff, look, the best thing to do right now is just if you can take that stuff to the Greenway site. Look at your local town or city. They've got some programs out there that possibly allow you to take some of that stuff. I want to say, maybe this weekend is one of those weekends for the city of Show Low, but you'll have to go to the website and look at that. Operation Clean Sweep or Green Sweep or something like that, that's what it's called. But a very good program. But look, no more fires. We're still in Stage 2.

Speaker 3 5:15

Over the Memorial Day weekend we did great. We did great. Our partners with the Forest Service were up here with their fire prevention team. We worked hand-in-hand with them to get the message out. Look, there were some folks that just did not adhere to the ordinance and the message that we put out and we were enforcing it and those folks unfortunately got cited because they just didn't pay attention and didn't listen. So if you see something out there, please let us know so we can get on it as soon as possible. But so if you see something out there, please let us know so we can get on it as soon as possible. And again no more, no, no fires. No charcoal. No, no wood fires, no, nothing like that.

Speaker 1 5:51

All right, don't mess around Stage two fire restrictions and let's do our part to keep our firefighters safe and bored this summer, right. That's absolutely correct. We don't want to go out there and and uh have to have to fight fires, that's right. Well, jd, we love you. We love everything uh that you guys do over there at the timber mesa fire department, and all our firefighters and first responders. Thank you uh so much to all of you. How about uh little george straight the fireman?

Speaker 3 6:21

my mantra heck, JD.

Speaker 1 6:24

Have a great day. We'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 3 6:26

Bye buddy, have a good one, bye-bye.

St. Anthony School Fundraising Event

Speaker 5 6:32

Normally I am all by myself. Not today. Not today, we're here.

Speaker 1 6:35

That is our friend Steph G. You know Steph G. Her husband is Joe G, a good friend of the show, and joining Steph G is Jennifer Butterbrot.

Speaker 6 6:46

Yeah, the real fun last name, the best last name.

Speaker 1 6:49

Butter and bread. Steph G is a teacher over at the St Anthony Catholic School. That's a K-8 school right.

Speaker 6 6:56

K-8. Pre-k Awesome.

Speaker 1 6:59

And Jennifer, you have students there and you're helping with fundraising as well.

Speaker 6 7:03

So I have a third grader there, well, soon to be fourth grader in Ms Carrie Jones' class. And then I'm also the development director. Basically, my job is to put the fun in fundraising. Oh heck yeah.

Speaker 1 7:13

Put the fun in fundraising. You guys actually have a very fun event coming up. You guys have broken ground on a new school. Finally, you guys have been basically using church space and the students need a little bit more space. So tell us a little bit about the new school.

Speaker 7 7:33

Okay, so hopefully you guys saw us on the front page of the Independent a few weeks back for our groundbreaking ceremonies. We have been piggybacking on St Rita's Parish, borrowing all their modulars and buildings, for the past 17 years and we finally have the funds raised to start breaking down the ground on our new school and to help support those costs. That's why we're going to be putting on this wonderful gala this summer at the Gathering.

Meow That Tune: Hug Your Cat Day

Speaker 1 7:59

That's right To raise money for this project to keep it going and get it done on time. We're doing the Starlit Soiree at the Gathering Place in Pinetop, july 19th. Good morning, it's the Morning Brew with Chris. Who's this? Yee-wee, yee-wee, it's everyone's favorite redneck. It's Paul from Beaumont, texas. You're on the line, paul, with Steph G, wife of Joe G and teacher over at St Anthony School, and Jennifer Butterbrot Say hi to them Good morning, good morning.

Speaker 6 8:36

Hello, hello. How's it going this morning? Oh, they're doing good.

Speaker 1 8:39

Do you have any redneck wisdom for them?

Speaker 4 8:41

No, not really man, it's just something you got to do. It either comes naturally or it don't.

Speaker 1 8:48

It either comes naturally or don't. You know, paul, he is this big, burly redneck. So you think of him just being stereotypical redneck. Well, I've learned don't judge a book by a cover, because you would think he's all about the dogs. But no, he loves the cats. And today is Hug your Cat Day, paul. Hug your Cat Day. Oh yeah, kitty, yeah, give your cat a little hug. So I thought we would play a game today in honor of Hug your Cat Day where you have to meow that tune.

Speaker 1 9:21

I'm going to meow the lyrics to some popular country songs and, Paul, you're going to compete against Jennifer and if you know the name of the song I'm meowing, say your name. That's your buzzer. Are you two ready?

Speaker 6 9:33

Yes.

Speaker 1 9:34

All right, here we go.

Speaker 6 9:35

All right, let's go, jennifer, do I meow no, no, no Okay.

Speaker 1 9:38

I meow.

Speaker 5 9:42

One Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow.

Speaker 1 9:46

Meow, meow. Do either one of you know what song I was meowing? No Keep going, keep going, paul.

Speaker 5 9:53

Paul, no, I'm listening, I had a meow meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow meow.

Speaker 1 10:02

Meow meow.

Speaker 5 10:03

Meow meow.

Speaker 1 10:04

Meow, meow. It's Jolene, jolene, Jolene.

Speaker 7 10:08

Oh, dolly Parton Meow meow, Meow, meow.

Speaker 4 10:10

I live with a meow meow yeah, I get it now, I got it All right, Now, I hear it, now I hear it.

Speaker 1 10:15

This is a little bit more current. Came out in 2013.

Speaker 5 10:19

So meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, Meow meow. Do you guys know?

Speaker 1 10:29

Guess. Come on, just guess something. Ball, it's Wagon Wheel. It's Wagon Wheel by Darius Rucker, so rock me mama like a wagon wheel.

Speaker 6 10:40

Well, Jennifer knows this song. I know the song, but the meowing is horrible.

Speaker 1 10:42

Oh the meowing.

Speaker 6 10:43

It's so bad.

Speaker 4 10:45

You meowing like one of them crowd-siding kids.

Speaker 1 10:49

All right, last one.

Speaker 7 10:51

Here we go. Okay, come on Paul, come on Jennifer.

Speaker 1 10:53

Here we go, last one.

Speaker 5 10:56

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow Meow.

Speaker 1 11:02

Meow, meow. I'll start from the beginning again. It's a meow.

Speaker 5 11:06

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow Meow. I can't look at him because then I stop thinking.

Speaker 7 11:15

Paul, you're not going to guess either.

Speaker 1 11:18

It's a four. Could you do?

Speaker 7 11:19

like a couple meows and maybe one word, maybe like the chorus.

Speaker 1 11:22

It's a great day to be alive by Travis Tritt, it's a meow meow, meow meow, meow.

Speaker 4 11:29

Hey, I'll tell you what. It ain't a great day for you to be meowing, no, no.

Are You Smarter Than a Redneck?

Speaker 1 11:34

We're going to be right back with Paul from Beaumont after this. It is now time for. Are you Smarter Than a Redneck? Paul, you normally go head-to-head against me, but today Steph G, a junior high teacher over at St Anthony's Catholic School, is going to be taking you on. On this National Cheese Day, we're doing some cheese trivia. How do you feel about that?

Speaker 4 11:56

I'm feeling great.

Speaker 1 12:04

I hope the state recognizes this school with smart kids because otherwise she's losing. All right, here we go, here we go. Which cheese is commonly used in traditional macaroni and cheese recipes? Is it mozzarella, blue cheese, swiss or cheddar? Stephanie Steph, not Steph, was first Cheddar. Is it mozzarella, blue cheese, swiss or cheddar? Stephanie, steph, no, steph was first Cheddar. Is it cheddar? Of course, it is Correct answer it is cheddar. She's up 1-0. Next question what is the term used to describe the crispy golden brown layer on top of baked macaroni and cheese? Paul A, is it A cheese crust? Holy moly, it's not easy being cheesy.

Speaker 7 12:51

Is that right? That is right, oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 12:53

Paul.

Speaker 4 12:54

All right Of course it's right.

Speaker 1 12:56

Of course it's right. This last question will determine who the winner is. Paul, pick a number from three to ten.

Speaker 4 13:05

Let's see, we'll go with six because she's a junior high teacher, we'll do some sixth grade stuff.

Speaker 1 13:11

Oh, sixth grade stuff. Okay, oh, that's good, all right. Which pasta shape is typically used for macaroni and cheese? Oh, paul, he's not even. Oh, stephanie, elbow, elbow. Here's the option. He just blurted out the wrong answer. Here's your options. The pasta shape typically used for macaroni and cheese is tabular, farfella, penne or linguine.

Speaker 7 13:40

I'm going to go, penne Is it?

Speaker 1 13:42

penne no Paul.

Speaker 7 13:44

What.

Speaker 1 13:45

What's your guess? Is it tabular, farfella or linguine? What's tabular?

Speaker 4 13:50

It's not going to be that one. That's either A or B. I say eating eating money, move, catch DJ by the toe. That's either A or B. I say eating eating money, move, catch, catch DJ by the toe. I don't know. Eating eating money, move A. A, he's definitely the right answer.

Speaker 1 14:05

Is it tabular? It is, I don't even know, what is tabular it's what the internet is telling me is the truth.

Speaker 6 14:11

It's the right answer I thought it was just macaroni.

Speaker 1 14:14

No, it's.

Speaker 7 14:15

Elbow macaroni. Is that what it? I said elbow at the beginning.

Speaker 6 14:18

Yeah, I mean that's not macaroni, I mean it's his own, maybe elbow.

Speaker 7 14:21

Maybe Tim.

Speaker 4 14:22

Whatever you said is a fancy name for elbow. Elbow is just a generic term.

Speaker 6 14:27

They know.

Speaker 4 14:28

The answer A is the actual answer.

Speaker 1 14:32

Okay, I don't know. I think the internet might be wrong in this case, but unfortunately, steph, you are not smarter than a redneck today, so sorry.

Speaker 7 14:45

Sorry everybody.

Speaker 1 14:47

Thanks for having fun with this Paul, and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

Speaker 4 14:50

All right, y'all have a great day. You don't know how the macaroni shapes are? All right, buddy, bye, bye.

Event Details and Contact Information

Speaker 1 14:58

Bye, Y'all have a great day. All right From the Horn Auto Center Studios, Chris Bennett and the Morning Brew. We are back. I have had the honor to have some best friends in studio. We have Steph G and Jennifer Butterbrot over at St Anthony Catholic School. We got a big event coming up. Mark your calendars July 19th is the Starlit Soiree. This event is to help raise funds and awareness for your new project that you just broke ground on. It's the new school for St Anthony Catholic School. Yes, please help us. If people want to get tickets or maybe they want to be a sponsor for the event. There's a lot of great ways they can help out St Anthony and receive great things in return. If they want more information, Jennifer, where should they go? What's your website and who should they email?

Speaker 6 15:50

wwwstantschoolorg backslash events, or you can go to stantschoolorg and you'll find events on there, or you can email me directly jenniferatstantschoolorg.

Speaker 1 16:09

That's right, jenniferatstantschoolorg. That's S-T-A-N-T schoolorg. That's right. Well, I hope you guys have an amazing event. I know you guys do great things over at St Anthony's, and thank you so much, steph G, for being a teacher yes, one of the hardest jobs out there, indeed and thank you for being on the show and having fun with us today.

Speaker 7 16:33

Well, thank you for having us and for supporting us.

Speaker 6 16:35

You are welcome.

Speaker 1 16:37

Thank you. Thank you for having us and for supporting us. You are welcome, thank you, thank you. Thank you To get your tickets. Go to stantschoolorg backslash events. All right.