The Texas Story with Dr. Donald Frazier

What does it truly mean to know the Texas story — and who is responsible for making sure it gets told? In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Donald S. Frazier, Director of The Texas Center at Schreiner University, six-time author, historian, filmmaker, and the man Governor Greg Abbott appointed to lead the Texas 1836 Project. Dr. Frazier shares his journey from the college classroom to the forefront of public history, what it will take to restore pride and accuracy in how we teach Texas to the next generation, and why getting parents engaged is one of the most powerful tools we have. Of course, we dive into education reform — what's broken, what Texas is doing about it, and how short-form video and parent engagement could be the key to unlocking student success. This is a conversation every Texas parent, educator, and history lover needs to hear.

Learn more about Dr. Frazier's work at thetexascenter.org and subscribe to The Texas Center on YouTube at youtube.com/@thetexascenter.

About The Ashley B. Cash Show: The Ashley B. Cash Show features conversations with education leaders, policy experts, parents, teachers and reform advocates who are working to transform K-12 education. Host Ashley B. Cash brings her perspective as both a parent and business owner to explore systemic education issues and practical solutions for creating better outcomes for students, families, and communities.

About Ashley:  As both a mother and business owner, Ashley brings a unique dual perspective to education reform advocacy, driven by her desire for better educational outcomes for future generations and informed by her firsthand experience with the skills gap facing employers today. Her passion for transforming K-12 education stems from witnessing the real-world consequences of educational failures and recognizing the critical need for a system that prepares students for diverse career pathways, not just college. Through this podcast, Ashley champions solutions including aptitude-based education tracks, expanded school choice, practical skills integration, and alternative career pathways that align with students' individual strengths and interests.

Follow @AshleyBCashOfficial on Instagram & @Ashley Bowes Cash on Facebook.

Visit www.AshleyBCashOfficial.com for more content and features. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back to the Ashley B. Cash Show. I'm Ashley. And today I am so excited to introduce Dr. Don S. Frazier. You know, if you love Texas history as much as I do, you're going to want to pull up a chair for this one. Don is the director of the Texas Center at Shriner University in Kerrville, Texas, a six-time author on Texas and Civil War history, and one of the leading voices on the complex early relationship between Mexico and the United States. He has taught at Texas Christian University, or TCU as we call it, McMurray University, and Shriner University. But his reach goes far beyond the classroom. Dr. Frazier has shaped how Texans experience their own story from developing Civil War and frontier heritage trails across Texas, New Mexico, and Louisiana to writing and narrating a 250-part video series called E Pluribus Texas. He even penned a full-length play, Come and Take It, tracing the life of Susanna Dickinson. Through the Texas Center, he leads Texas Center tours and runs State House Press, a publishing operation dedicated to preserving Texas history. The honors he has earned speak for themselves. He is an elected member of the Philosophical Society of Texas, the oldest learned learned, sorry, learned organization in the state, a fellow of the Texas State Historical Association, and a director scholar with the Texas Historical Foundation. He serves as an advisor to the Alamo, the Texas Education Agency, and the State Board of Education, and the Texas General Land Office. And in 2023, Governor Greg Abbott apported him appointed him to lead the Texas 1836 Project. The state's effort to ensure the Texas history and Texas story is told with the pride and accuracy it deserves. Don, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited. I've been waiting and waiting to have this conversation with you. Um I first met you with Mandy Drogan in the Texas Public Policy Foundation boardroom. And um that's when I found out about your, I want to call them many, um, many history lessons, you know, that are reduced down to a bite-sized amount that any Texan can get their hands on and digest.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

And I just thought it was the coolest idea. Tell us a little bit about that. That's what you're calling e-pluribus Texas, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:43

Out of many, one Texas. And uh it's an attempt to uh re-establish the plot line on our state. And obviously. Well, yeah, I mean, the story itself doesn't need much embellishment, I'll tell you. It's pretty remarkable and it's full of uh, you know, heroes and villains and daring do and uh abject cowardice. I mean, there's a little bit of it all, uh, but through throughout the entire narrative, there are people that just stuck with it.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

And uh that can do Texas attitude.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

Yeah, my mother referred to it as stick to it-ness and so uh that's uh that's the one thing that comes through, and it doesn't matter where you were born. You could have been born in San Luis Potosí, you could have been born in Delhi, you could have been born in Paris. It doesn't matter. You come to Texas, you buy into this sort of thing that we have built here in Texas, and your life is going to be better for it. So that's I agree. That's the story I'm telling. And people are moving here to get a piece of this, but they need to know what they're joining.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

They do, and and and I think it's so important that we tell the history, the accurate history, uh with the goods and the bads, right? And because I'm so much like we need to remember the I mean, my ancestors came here and they burrowed into the side of a plateau in West Texas, up on the plains of Texas, which was very flat and very windy, and they dug a one-room dugout into the side of a plateau over 140 years ago. Thank you and they ended up having 17 children, one man and one woman, people. Like, let's think about that. Had 17 children.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

That's a really small dugout by the time that's it.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

They ended up making it a two-room dugout, which I'm like, that's still not enough. But God bless them, you know. Um, and I'm so fortunate that ranch is still in my family. Um, but the not just the can-do attitude, but the grit.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

Yeah. Yeah, you have to absolutely be tough here. Look, Texas is a rough neighborhood. And uh, you know, the the miles are long and the water is scarce, and there's a lot of things that want to eat you. Yeah, there's a lot of things that want to bite you or sting you, or yeah, and so uh, you know, you had to be made of a certain stuff to come here and persist.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

And I think that that's part of our story, and that's part of what people all over the world see about Texas because that still exists in us today.

SPEAKER_03 5:12

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

In in a different format a little bit, but still exists.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

And the people that come here kind of self-select.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

They they look at it and say, hmm, you know, Texas looks like it's uh it's an acquired taste.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

But I think I can acquire it.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

So that's uh that's what I'm really trying to do. And in with the five-minute format, I'm meeting modern people where they are.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah. Social media.

SPEAKER_03 5:37

Yeah, in five minutes, you know, you're in, you're out. If you watch the entire series, it would be about the equivalent of two or three seasons of a Netflix series. So if you've seen Landman all the way through season two, then you know you're almost spending much time in front of a screen as you would uh digesting this. The good news is it's a it it serves a lot of different purposes. So ePluibus Texas serves as a newcomer's guide to Texas. Uh it also uh serves as a uh um we can pause what were you asking?

SPEAKER_00 6:08

I'm just wanting to make sure his mic is close enough. Yeah, I'm watching the levels of it. Okay, perfect. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

So ePluribus Texas serves a lot of different functions. We've got one you know core narrative story that can serve as a newcomer's guide to Texas. It can also be useful for Coach Pringle in a seventh grade Texas history classroom out in Robie or Rotan. Yeah uh and uh that gives him some way to start the conversation and create a narrative arc that the students can enjoy. Uh my producer has a long history in television news.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

So he knows how to take a really complicated story and then digest it down to bite-sized pieces and make it compelling. And uh our our rule was if you say something, show something. Just like the news. Well, the problem is when you do 250 short videos, that's 80,000 different elements.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

Yeah, there's 40,000 just photographs and images. So I have scoured the state just looking for pictures of Texas and Texans, and uh people have shared their artwork. Uh my gosh, the folks out at the Petroleum Museum were extraordinarily generous. Uh Panhandle Planes currently shuttered.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Uh they shared their collections with us. Um and because everybody was so generous to us, this series is free.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

It is on YouTube, it is free to anybody on the planet. So there's really no excuse. We put no barriers in the way of seeing this material.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

So if you're a parent, you need to get this for your children so they know the real and and and the visual story of Texas. If you're new to Texas, get this so that you know the history. So the people whose families have been here for generations, when they talk about it, you know what they're talking about. And if you just think Texas is interesting, you need to watch this as well.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

Yeah, people in Massachusetts could benefit from watching this.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Well, there's just so much, you know, the characters of old, the grit, the tenacity, the drive, the not gonna quit attitude. Um there's something that is endearing, and I think people are desperate for that today.

SPEAKER_03 8:23

Well, and I'm trying to figure out where'd that come from? And you think about the shifting uh demographics in the state now. Uh third most spoken language in the home in Texas. Any idea what it is?

SPEAKER_00 8:37

German.

SPEAKER_03 8:38

You know, everybody in the hill country thinks it's German. It's Vietnamese.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Oh wow, okay.

SPEAKER_03 8:43

And number four is Mandarin.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 8:46

Number five is Tagalog, which is from the Philippines.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Okay. So that one I can see.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Having been in a hospital in Houston.

SPEAKER_03 8:53

Well, I was about to say, yes, a lot of times when I, you know, have this conversation, say up in Abilene, they look at you like, that can't be so, and I say, look, people forget that Houston's in Texas, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

There's it is the Texas is also a melting pot.

SPEAKER_03 9:07

And it's a melting pot, and Houston's one of the most diverse places on the planet. So uh we often get very bad press as Texans as being sort of backwards and insular. We're far from it.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Far from it.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

So uh that's the uh the interesting thing about this project is I had to kind of drill in on how did we become what we became. And one out of two Texas school kids right now have heritage south of the Rio Bravo del Norte, Rio Grande. And they don't know their heritage, they don't know their story. And so I said, you know what, we're gonna start at the very beginning and we're gonna incorporate a lot of Spanish history and we're gonna incorporate Mexican history at every turn, so that uh these kids that are in classrooms, you know, uh Lupe Gonzalez is watching this. She goes, wait, I see myself in this story, and I see how my family came here and how we helped build this place. So I I joke and tell people that um all those people that formed the United States, all those people wearing the wigs up in Philadelphia, uh, every last one of them was a Texan. They just hadn't met the place yet. And so uh I would argue that Texas is perhaps the best expression of the American idea and original intent.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

All right, that said, what happens when you throw in that Mexican heritage? Well, we got Miguel Hidalgo. So Thomas Jefferson says, we hold these truths to be self-evident, all men are created equal. Very nice, flowery language. Miguel Hidalgo stands on the porch of a church and says, eh, death to bad government. You know, he just cuts to the chase. So I'm thinking, well, if Miguel Hidalgo and Thomas Jefferson got together and had some sort of product, some sort of offspring, uh, I think it's Texas.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

You know, it's cut to the chase, but also there is natural law, there is uh inalienable rights that are baked into the Texas story. And uh we'll defend it. Yes, and we have defended it.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yes. And I think Texas, I mean, if you think about our founding there were people who came here before Texas was founded, right? And some of my ancestors, and they were looking for a place to have land and to be free. And they were they were in wagons and on horseback and they were driving long distances without water, and they were they were just searching for freedom, right? And but they were scrappy. They had to be.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

They were scrappy, that's a good way to put it.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Right? And and I think a lot of that still, you know, I'm very involved in ranching, very involved in ag um and and that that scrappy attitude is still out there in the rural areas.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

From from the uh uh your compottery that's stretching the wire all the way to the one going in to negotiate the loan so that they can get the crop in the ground. Oh every one of them. Every one of them is scrappy.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

And and and Texas is still a melting pot.

SPEAKER_03 12:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Ag is still a melting pot.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

You bet.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Um and I love that about it, right? Like growing up in in our ranch, um, I learned Spanish from the people that we worked with. Um Spanish is really important, and and I love that it's a melting pot, and I love that all of these people from all over the world came together to establish Texas. And and and and our history with Mexico is so incredibly important.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

It is.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

I mean, look think just think of the Alamo, let's just stop and think about that.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

But you know, and it's inextricable. Yes, you can't separate the two. You cannot string the two apart. Uh there's been a lot of people that have tried, but you just can't do it. I mean, uh this state was built on the backs of a lot of different boats. And I I argue in this series, it's about two-thirds of the way through, that there is a time in each nation's uh history where they quit thinking of themselves, say, as British. Yeah, they think of themselves as British North Americans and then just Americans. In Mexico, they started to think of themselves as Mexican versus Spanish. And there is a part in the development of these stories where all of a sudden people are going, look, we got a lot more in common with my neighbors.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Right. We have more in common than we have different. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 13:35

Mis amigos and Los Vecinos, and we have so much more to do with them and we interact with them that we're better together. And we're not we we have less and less in common with people in, say, DC or an Oregon.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

That's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 13:51

And so it's uh uh I think that there is an emerging ethnicity, and I think it's Texan.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

I am good with that.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

So it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

All colors, we're just Texans.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

Yeah, I love it. You can be a hyphenated Texan all you want, Vietnamese Texan, Indian Texan, you can be a German Texan, you can even be a California Texan, but Texans part of it.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Just just hey, I love people coming to Texas, but don't come here and change my taxes. Well, if you like it so much and you want to come, then participate.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

Correct, and that's why we did ePlurbus taxes because if you don't know the story, then you'll replace it with the story you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

So that's uh I'm just I'm inviting everybody to the story.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Well, I love that, and I love the format that you put it in, which is short and sweet and entertaining so that hopefully not only our children, and we're gonna get to that in a second, will engage with it and learn it. But all of these people, I mean, you know, we're seeing at the federal level that we have an immigration test that everybody takes and they learn all about our founding documents, and yet recently I heard that like less than 25% of adults over 50 can pass that test. Sure. U.S. citizens, natural-born U.S. citizens. And I'm like, that is that is horrible. And I don't want the same to be true of Texas, right? Like so I'm so glad that we have this and that we can get it out to people. Can you tell everybody where they can find it or how they can get a hold of it?

SPEAKER_03 15:31

Yeah, it's on our YouTube channel, the Texas Center YouTube channel. And so if you uh Google ePluribus Texas, it'll start popping up right and left. Uh but if you go to the Texas Center website, which is thetexascenter.org, it's not real uh fancy, uh, you will find a link to get to ePluribus Texas and the other things that we do just across the state and all the different people we work with.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

So and I love that you're gathering it all up and you're gathering it up from museums all across the state of Texas from from older people who still have memories of the history, and I just think that is cool. I know I was I was very sadder sad to see that the Panhandle Plains Museum was shuttered. Yeah. Um, a lot of my family's history is there. Um in fact, yeah. In fact, um when my mother and my grandmother passed, I had my great-grandmother's wedding dress, my grandmother's wedding dress, my mom's wedding dress. I had no idea what to do with them, and I gave them to the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum. And so I may be having to give them a little call and be like, hey, can I get that stuff back?

SPEAKER_03 16:37

Yeah, I hope somebody's there to answer the phone. Uh yeah, so that those are probably in a very nice uh archival box in safe storage, so that's the good news.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:47

But uh the future of all that stuff is still a big question.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

It's so sad that places like that are going out of business because people aren't going.

SPEAKER_03 16:56

Well, and it's also complicated too, because uh with the panhandle planes in particular, it has a relationship with West Texas AM. Well, museums are not profit centers. No, they never will be. You can try, but you're pushing a rope on that. So if you're at uh West Texas AM or if you're at any university that has a museum attached, you have some very hard decisions to make on exactly how are we going to keep this thing open without it being a drag on the overall budget. I mean, uh, gosh, there's some great cultural institutions all over this state. But sometimes, you know, it's just a relic of the past that's getting in the way of progress. So for instance, the old stone fort in Nacadoches, Stephen F. Austin State University is taking it down, and they're replacing it with, I think, a math or a science building, some sort of STEM-related building.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Well, haven't they talked to the National Ranching Heritage Museum? Maybe we could move it there.

SPEAKER_03 17:56

Well, that you know, I hadn't thought about that.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Uh because we've got, I think, 42 buildings from across the country, a lot from Texas.

SPEAKER_03 18:04

Yeah. No, it's one of the best building zoos I've been to, so we have to see if we can make that happen.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Maybe some people can help.

SPEAKER_03 18:12

I imagine Nacadocha's uh residents would meet you at the city limits with pitchforks and torches, though.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Well, is it better to have it torn down or better to relocate it?

SPEAKER_03 18:22

Well, they're supposed to be relocating it somewhere else in town.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Okay, well then that's all right. Then we'll let then I was just trying to save it.

SPEAKER_03 18:29

Yeah, yeah. No, if it if they're just gonna pile it up as a bunch of rocks over in the corner of a maintenance yard, I'd say, yeah, Ashley, we'd probably ought to give them a call.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

I have a feeling they're gonna move it around to a different location where it'll be next to a historic building. Now, it's already not in its original location. It was uh moved from downtown right on the square. Uh there's a bank there now. Uh so maybe the better play is somebody to go in there and buy that bank and tear it down. Put it back in its original location. Yeah, but uh anyhow, it's just that hist history, historic preservation, the story of Texas is complicated because sometimes it collides with bottom lines.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:09

And uh so somehow you have to make allowances for sustaining these cultural institutions because they are the touchstones.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

That's where the story is still there. It's sort of like tagging up on base before you make the run. You know, you need to go to these places, tag up, and then continue your run. And uh that's why they're important.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

I think one of the the reasons I'm so fond of what you've done is because you see today in America young people who think one thing that is not always necessarily true because they haven't been educated well educated on the history.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

You know, and so I think that that if we want to preserve our country, our state, um, that we have to make sure that the children are well educated on the history.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

Well, I mean, Texas culture gets made in Texas classrooms. Let's be very clear about that. So we raise our kids to a certain age and then we send them out the door, and then it's, you know, Mrs. Jones, Coach Pringle, it's all sorts of people that start pouring their lives into your children.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

And, you know, you can only dose do so much at home because all of a sudden you're spending less time with your kids than these strangers are. So it's pretty critical that the material they're being taught and the people that are teaching it are people you can trust.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Right.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

And that's kind of the bottom line of the entire transaction.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Yes. Well, and so let's get into that. So this week. This week the state board of education was reviewing the social studies, which is history. And um they had a we we've been working on these for a long time. This was the the hearing to pass it, fail it, does it move on into the classrooms? Is it approved? And I know you've been there all week, and I know that it's been very contentious that two in the morning, three in the morning, long days. There were people who came from Lubbock to Austin to testify on behalf of the new TEAKS um that drove and spent their but there were people from all over the state that came to vote to push for it to be passed, and some also that were against it.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

Oh, by a ratio of nine to one.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

There there was uh a lot of rent a mob action going on.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Uh which said rent a mob.

SPEAKER_03 21:38

Rent a mob, absolutely. That's what uh Mark Anthony's uh particular skill was for Julius Caesar. If Julius Caesar needed to have an outraged mob, he'd turn to Mark Anthony and said, you know, round up, round up the uh gutter snipes and all the people out there that just are permanently mad, and let's have some sort of riot outside the Coliseum so that we can, you know. Distract people from what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

So what are they so mad about?

SPEAKER_03 22:04

Well, first of all, it's change. It's remarkable. The people that would probably uh identify themselves as uh very left are the most conservative people you're likely to meet because they don't like change. The reason they don't like change is because they wrecked the system 20, 30 years ago and they can they can feel themselves losing their grip on it.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

They've had Well, they need to lose their grip on it. We're not well educating children today. No, it's a it's a failed system. It's a world. It's a failed system, and there's a failing the children, which is worse.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

There's members of the SBOE, State Board of Education, that write the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills who have which is the TEAKS.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Yeah, that's the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills.

SPEAKER_03 22:54

Whenever I say TEAKS, people look at me like, I don't know what language that is.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Well, it's it's uh It's an acronym for Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Part of the education speak. Uh but there are people on the State Board of Education that have been there so long they have presided over three failed attempts. And so maybe they get more joy out of wrecking it than building it. I'm just wondering.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

And so, you know, as an outside I mean you have to look at the if you look at the data points in the time they have been in those seats, the kids' reading levels, the kids' math levels, their social studies, their science abilities, everything has fallen.

SPEAKER_03 23:38

Yeah, I don't know why they take joy out of making our students dumber, but they they apparently do. And so uh, and they're trying to uh get in the middle of the of the system now and wreck it again so that they can put another notch uh on their uh uh gun handle, I guess. Uh it is very, very odd to me as a citizen of this state why there's people that just act so deliberately uh against uh what I think is the the best interest of our of our state.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

So you know what I found in all of my investigation of our education system is that neither the SBOE nor any school board that I have yet to find, I'm not saying there's not one out there, actually have in their priorities that the outcomes of the students are a priority.

SPEAKER_03 24:36

Wow. Color me shocked.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Uh I mean I'm shocked by that because I think number one should be safety.

unknown 24:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

And number two should be the outcomes of the students. Yeah. And that's what I'm pushing for.

SPEAKER_03 24:48

That's what schools are about. You're supposed to go there. And teach them something.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Because we're going to need these guys to become they're going to be the people to take care of us when we're old.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

Well, not only that, so yeah, they need the people.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

But I want them to have a good life.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

Yeah, I know. Yeah, somebody needs to know how to start a line, you know. So that's you know, those tactical skills are pretty good. But even more important, they are vital to the health of the Republic. For sure. And if we do not inculcate some sort of consensus story about who we are as a people, this is not a salad bowl approach, this is a stew bowl approach, and actually it's kind of a cream cream soup approach, you know, where we're all blended together and we're all pulling in the same direction. If we do not inculcate that in the next generation, we will lose this republic. I'm thoroughly convinced.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

I agree with I'm I'm afraid that if we don't try transform the K-12 education system in the next 10 years.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

Yeah, we've already lost 20 years of it, 30 years of it. The the students that come to me uh can't really read or write. You know, I'm at the college level, and these people have gotten all the way through the Texas public education system, and they are not equipped to read, write, or think. But they are thoroughly, they're thorough experts on things like why the electoral college should be abandoned.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Or climate change.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

Or climate they know all about climate change and uh our uh or so they think. Well, and some of our uh uh friends uh on the state board of education tried to introduce climate change as a TEAX, uh part of the TEAX, and um the majority uh voted that down.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

And tell the tell the people, the the viewers that aren't familiar with the TEAKES, with the essential I always forget it.

SPEAKER_03 26:44

Knowledge and skills. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Um but how that is like what is the process for deciding on a new curriculum?

SPEAKER_03 26:51

Okay, so this is essentially um the rule book or the guidebook for what gets taught in the classrooms. So you have to pay attention to a lot of different things. Coverage, you know, what key topics. Yeah, yeah, what are the key topics that you want to cover? Uh, how do you want to cover them? So verbs are I I have learned, I never knew this before, are extraordinarily important uh when you're describing how people learn about or how this material is taught and how the students will learn about it. Uh so that's important, but then also instructional time. Can you cover all this stuff in a certain number of class periods over a certain number of hours? So that's why the E is in the T's, because that's essential. All right. So if it's Texas essential knowledge and skills, then we've got to figure out what is the canon, what is the box that we want these people to carry out with them into the world that is the rucksack that has all the tools they need to operate in Texas, which, as we said earlier, sometimes can be a challenging environment. All right. So do we need them to uh know about, for instance, the characters of fortitude and grit and courage? Yeah, that would be pretty good. Uh, do we need them to know about, well, how ugly we're always to each other? Well, that ought to be mentioned, but we can't dwell on it. Do they need to be taught on how to effectively oppose your neighbor? Well, probably not. Should they know something about how to help their neighbor? Absolutely. So there's some character skills built in there too. Plus, they need to know kind of what the story is. So here's the big change this year that is just causing so much pearl clutching amongst the permanently outraged class. And that is, well, first of all, it's change.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

So if you've been taught a lot of people don't like change.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

Uh well, and then right now they all seem to be on the left side of the political spectrum, uh, from my observation. Um, so if you've been teaching the same class for decades, you might have to read a book over the summer. You know, I I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Watch your videos.

SPEAKER_03 29:09

Well, they're out there and they're free, and you can do it in your house shoes, so I don't know why you wouldn't. Um, and that's really why we did it, uh, is to help those.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

I do think there are a lot of adults that need to, at the very least, including me, brush up on their history.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

Yeah, sure. And it's broken into 14 units, so you can go to your favorite part. You don't have to watch the whole episode.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

I mean, it might have been a few years. I don't want to date myself and tell you exactly how many since I had Texas history, but let's just say it's more than 20.

SPEAKER_03 29:38

Well, you've been marinating in it your whole life, so you know that's part of it. Imagine if you moved here from Wisconsin, this is terri incognita to you. Um so that's uh the way that we come up with the teaks is through a process that is a And how many people are involved in the process? Well, my gosh, uh literally it's not just one, is what I'm saying. No, there's thousands.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

And so it's so this is not one person trying to assert their will on the people of Texas. This is thousands of people have input, thousands of people are doing research, thousands of people are asserting their opinions.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

Correct. And so it all begins with all right, what do we need to teach? You know, how are we going to teach it? Uh what what's a good framework? So you start with the framework. So we have elected officials, uh, 15 members of the State Board of Education, and Texas divided up into a number of uh SBO E districts, but you know, that means that their constituents are millions of Texans.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 30:38

And these millions of Texans usually have no idea who their SBOE member is.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

I know. We're trying to change that though.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

And so they have no idea. And they just figure, well, you send somebody off to school and they teach whatever they teach them.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Well, but they don't realize that the SBOE members are usually voted in off-cycle. Very few people actually vote them in. Oh, yeah. Very few people even know that it's a position or attempt to run for it. People really need to be paying more attention to this position, especially if you have kids or grandkids or are a business owner, like this is actually critically important to all of us. This is the information that gets in front of the kids.

SPEAKER_03 31:14

Yeah, this is one of the most important positions in the state, and nobody pays any attention to it. No, it's but the the uh ability for them to be social uh disruptors, cultural disruptors are huge. So, all right, you get this elected body of people that nobody knows, and they uh get together and say, all right, let's start with the framework. Great. So the framework is changing this time, and that has caused the first big gasp. All right, in the old days we would silo history. So you might be in eighth grade U.S. history, then you have these three hormone-filled years before you get the second half of U.S. history, and you're not gonna remember anything from eighth grade. You're gonna, you know, be mildly interested in 11th grade, but there is no connectivity.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Well, it depends on if you have girls and boys in your classroom. Then you might not.

SPEAKER_03 32:11

Well, you'll remember something, but you won't remember what the teacher was saying. Yeah. So uh then uh Texas history has been shunted off to the siding. It's not tested.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

So therefore, a lot of times it is because it's not tested, it's not taught as much as it probably should be. And I'm not saying it they it's not the teacher's fault, the teachers are awesome. It's they're being graded on the testing.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

Correct. And so sometimes it's a convenient place to take put a teacher whose skill set may be different than Texas. So my kids, for instance, had Texas history teachers that had zero hours of history, but they were chemistry teachers, but got shifted to Texas. But they're also really good volleyball coaches. So, you know, it's the old joke across the state. I can't remember who my Texas history teacher was, but I think their first name was coach, you know. So that is a reality, and it's not the coach's fault. It's not, it is the system's fault for making this guy all of a sudden figure out, or or woman to figure out, hey, I've got a new class I've got to teach in two weeks, and it's Texas history, and I don't know anything about it. So really, ePluribus Texas was aimed at them. All right. So what we're working, what what we do now, the way we do it now, clearly isn't working. It's siloed, history's not connected, it's not a story in your head, it's not the story that engages the heart and the mind and the soul in figuring out where I fit in this story. It's here, let's get through this material, let's give you a test. Let's skip a couple years, get you through this material, give you this test. There's some great teachers doing the absolute best they can under that system. So I said, let's break the system. You know.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

After 2022. The problem is the system.

SPEAKER_03 34:02

It is. In 2022, I was part I was a content advisor then, and the whole thing broke down. And it just, there were so many special interest items being thrown into there. And these were not special interest items like they should read the Constitution, these are special interest items like we should really focus on climate change. And very trendy, very current issues, but history goes a long way back.

SPEAKER_02 34:29

Right.

SPEAKER_03 34:29

Uh so uh I left that that experience very discouraged because I saw how influential the chattering class had become. Well, yeah, and then just people that like to, you know, chatter about stuff.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

And uh and and oftentimes the chatter is what they think something's about and not what it really is about.

SPEAKER_03 34:56

Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's amazing how misinformation is.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

It's amazing the misinformation that gets out there and then it runs rampant. And that's what I keep trying to express upon my viewers is that when you hear something, even if it's from me, go do your own research.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Yeah, go look it up, read a book, you know. But whatever you do, don't go on Facebook or pin to face or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

And even not ChatGPT, because I was just reading a study the other day that said it is receiving information mostly for one-sided information, and so it's not well balanced. It's being fed. It's being fed specific information. So go past page four on Google, go deeper.

SPEAKER_03 35:38

Go to a library.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

If you can find one.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

Wow, yeah, if you can find one, there's this thing called a book. All right, so uh you know, at least in the old days information had some sort of filtering process. Now it's the wild west. All right, so you got to be a discriminating consumer. So I left 2022 thinking, I don't think this system's fixable, and I'd given up on it. And I said, I'm gonna just build this video series so that I can at least try to have an impact across the state and get the story retold. I mean, it was it was a dark time. And then all of a sudden I started hearing that there were other people in the state going, ah, this ain't gonna stick. You know, we got to fix this. And so then all of a sudden I I had a renewal of hope. And when I saw that the State Board of Education came up with a framework that returned the narrative story of Texas, the narrative story of the nation, and the narrative story of the entire suite of human civilization to the history learning process, and then intentionally made connections between them.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

They put it in chronological order.

SPEAKER_03 36:53

They did, it becomes a story.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Which makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 36:56

And so, you know, people say, well, how can you tie ancient Egypt to Texas at the same time period? Well, that's actually pretty easy. Anybody that's living in this state for any length of time, especially out in West Texas, where you're from, after a rain, what do you find kicking up around the dry creek beds? There's going to be a chipped piece of flint down there. There's a lithic. And that lithic, I guarantee you, was chipped about the same time that the pyramids were going up in in Egypt. So why shouldn't Texas kids who are looking out from Texas classrooms through a Texas window at Texas know what's going on in Texas simultaneously to what's going on in Egypt because it's all the human story that we're all playing into. So uh the fact that this new framework was passed, and it was not passed without uh some clawing and scratching, um gave me hope and I wanted to get involved in that. And so uh two of the state board of education members uh chose me as a content advisor, and the way that uh process is done is the SBOE members team up and then they go find some expert. They dubbed me an expert. Now it was really on the strength of ePlurbus, Texas, frankly.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

And so that there's 15 SBOE members and they elect seven or they can't just content.

SPEAKER_03 38:27

And then the uh yeah, correct, and then the the governor's appointee for the higher education coordinating board, picks two. So there's nine of us, nine content advisors. Um two of them are kind of out of the the larger uh education industrial complex, you know, at the state level, and the rest of us uh just have to be held in esteem by the people that choose us. And so uh Tom Maynard, my particular SBOE member, and Will Hickman out of uh uh Houston area, um they got together and said, yeah, let's bring him in there. And so I've been a content advisor uh and my my particular uh role in all this is to make sure that the Texas connections are made. I'm the Texas guy. Somebody else came in, they're the uh Bill of Rights guy, you know, they're the founding documents person. Uh Andrea Hutcheson, you know, I have the highest regard for her. She's up in uh the the North Metroplex. Uh, you know, there's two Metroplexes now, the top one and the bottom one. She's up in the top one. Um, and she uh is absolutely a wizard at uh making the pedagogical and the educational connections correct so that it's actually deliverable. So we all had a role to play. Uh Yolanda Yeva uh from uh UTEP uh she was very, very conscious of the border in the story and the population that came from south of the border. And her uh member, um uh member Ravelis uh was very interested in that. And it we had that in common. I could I could speak to exactly what he was talking about because I had just written a bunch of videos about those very topics. So it was a very nicely uh uh diverse group uh that I thought, you know, we're gonna have a lot of consensus from this group because we're all pulling in the same direction. Uh but not everybody was playing in good faith. And you know, that was the problem. So I'll get to that in a second. We uh so after the content advisors were picked, a lot of different ways you can go with it. Uh the SBOE asked us, SBO SBOE asked us to come up with key topics. So here's your framework. We're gonna teach this and this grade, this and this grade, this and this grade. Within these grade bands, these time bands, what are the key topics? Great. So we came up with a bunch of key topics, and they said, All right, now we need to start fleshing these out with more of the language that you would find in the TEKS. Okay, so we advised on that and said, you know, we're going to get it to a certain point, but ultimately we've got to get some teachers in here. They go in there and say, you know, this is good, this won't work in the classroom, this is very idealistic, but not very practical, or this is exactly what they do. So you have a convening of what they call the work group A. Work group A is teachers from all over the state, and they came from near and far. It was a great group of teachers, dedicated professionals, all those kinds of. There was probably about a hundred anyway.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Okay, so it's not a small group, it's a big group.

SPEAKER_03 41:48

Yeah, it's not, you know, seven teachers from down the road. It's people from all over the state. You have to apply, and then you have to be vetted, and then you have to be chosen by the various members of the SBOE. So these folks came in, and these meetings were not all sunshine and lilacs. I mean, what there are some uh real conversations and sometimes some really gritty conversations going on. Uh but they came out with what they uh declared the work group A product. Content advisors brought back in, take a look at it, and say, well, this needs to be tweaked, they're nearly right here, or wow, we didn't think of that, good for them, you know, uh, and rendered an opinion that we then gave to the SBOE. Once that was taken a look at, it goes to work group B. Smaller group chosen from the larger group with a few add-ins to kind of get some new eyes on it. They came out with a product, we took a look at that product and said, All right, as content advisors, what would we adjust? And then that product went to the State Board of Education to what is now called first reading. There's two readings. First reading is alright, we're getting close. Let's see what everybody has to say about it. This is your chance, SBOE members, to say, cut that, add that. They didn't think about this. Because ultimately the authority lies with those SBOE members. Not me, not you, not the school teacher that came to work group A or B. We're all advisors. All right, so after first reading, what'll happen is there'll be a public uh period where everybody can take a look at it, weigh in on it, and stuff. And then ultimately it goes to a second reading, and then after the second reading, it gets passed into being the actual TEKS. That's not even the end of the journey. These won't be deployed until 2030.

SPEAKER_02 43:47

Right.

SPEAKER_03 43:48

Because you have to tell the textbook companies. Now we need a complete raft of textbooks. And because this is such a radically new framework and a good framework. All these publishing companies that have had the same book out there for 30 years are going to have to read a book and write a book. And they're going to have to go find people to write these books.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

Shouldn't be as hard these days with AI.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

Well, yeah. Well, I can get you a textbook in about 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

It isn't good.

SPEAKER_03 44:20

Well, correct. And so that's always going to be a challenge. So it's a complicated process. What your kids learn in classrooms across the state of Texas is the result of a process.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

A long, arduous process for many people.

SPEAKER_03 44:36

Arduous process.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Yeah, I am uh And that's not to say that it's perfect, and that's not to say that it's not fallible, but it's not two people making a decision and doing it. It's a lot of people putting a lot of time toward it.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

In 1876, Texas passed a new constitution. And the Constitution of Texas in 1876, just if you read it and it's just ponderous. The reason it is complicated and ponderous is because Texans, as a general rule, are skeptical of government. And we come by that honestly, because we've been in several clutch situations where our government was not particularly helpful. And it doesn't matter if your last name is Vasquez or if your last name is McCoy. There was some time in your forebear's past where the government was not helpful. So in 1876, this is after the Civil War, when people were moving back to Texas or moving from the destroyed South to Texas, where they're going, mmm, too much federal overreach, too much government overreach is not good. You leave it to the people, they'll sort it out. Well, democracy is sloppy.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 45:53

It's messy.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

But it still is the best form.

SPEAKER_03 45:57

It is the best form. And the thing that is But it's imperfect. It is imperfect.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

And we can do better for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 46:04

People got to be able to sit down and talk to each other. And you know, I can disagree with you.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:10

And you can disagree with me.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

And we might even.

SPEAKER_03 46:12

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I mean we can talk about it. But if we went point by point, I'm sure we would not be completely uh in uh in alliance. I mean, it would be more than less, I'm sure, because you're West Texas roots. I've got West Texas roots. But at the end of the day, I need to be able to go with whoever I'm talking with and go grab lunch and talk about things like the cats that I have behind my house. I have a whole colony of feral cats that I'm feeding back there. And that's a long story. But more people want to know about my cat colony than want to know about history, you know. That's the reason that cat videos on YouTube are so popular.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:50

Um, I need we need to Which in its own way is a little sad. It is. I mean, we need to be able to relate to each other as human beings, yeah. And then we can start grinding the ashes.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

And then we can start finding our commonalities.

SPEAKER_03 47:04

That's it. That's exactly it. And we have seen, we seem to have lost the ability to do that as a society. I have my theories on why. I think that a bunch of this outrage is artificially manufactured, and in many cases it is artificially manufactured by actors over the horizon. And here's why I think that. You know, before people say, oh, well, here comes the tinfoil hat, bear with me. I have been putting videos online for better than a decade now. And I had the an entire telling of the story of uh Texas when I was at McMurray, but I left the comments on. And so I'd start reading the comments. Man, there'd be no comments if we were talking about something like the discovery of uh or or Texans moving into the cattle range. You know, cattle, nah, there's no comments. If you mentioned race or Indians, tons of comments. Tons and tons of comments. Those were the flashpoints. Okay, I get that. It's some dramatic stuff and some crunchy, crunchy material. Okay. What sometimes the uh very nasty commenters would fail to do is to eliminate the Cyrillic or the Farsi or the Chinese characters from their comments. So these commentators were from Belorussia, they were from Iran, they were from the People's Republic of China, and their whole job, working in a big troll farm a long way from here, was just to raise controversy and feed that controversy. They were in charge of the rent a mob. Americans, as we have become less and less capable of being discerning knowers and learners, we're not even a rent a mob. They get us for free. And that's where we are.

SPEAKER_00 49:21

So you're saying that a lot of the animosity that we're feeling, the two sides of our country, the division, is being fermented by people from other countries.

SPEAKER_03 49:35

I guarantee you there's foreign money in this. I guess and they've they've they've given us their playbook. They said we practice asymmetrical warfare. Well, this is asymmetrical warfare.

SPEAKER_02 49:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:47

You know, I I talked about culture is made in the classroom. Well, then the classroom is battleground. And there are people intent on maintaining their hold on that battleground.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

And I think that is the reason that the history, the tr learning the true history, all the good, all the bad, is so critically important so that people actually know know the truth, and then they can't be led astray or divided by stuff that's not actual truth.

SPEAKER_03 50:18

And you know, I'm not saying that if they watch my videos, they'll know the truth. They'll have a starting point on their journey to find the truth.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 50:26

And they may go out there and say, you know, in episode 32, video three, he said something there that I just don't think is right. But then that should spur them.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Hopefully they will go and do their own research.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

And to go and do their own research and be a an informed citizen, which then will make them a virtuous citizen, which means that they will be a uh a worthy keeper of the republic.

SPEAKER_00 50:55

And I think that's what I'm really trying to impress upon people is you will hear things and don't even it's from your best friend or me, don't take it as fact until you've done your own research. Look it up because we don't know where your friend got the information. Right. Right? And and I do see a lot of that happening in the education space today, is somebody will read one snippet of something out of context, potentially, and then they will go into the rafters and then they will spread it to all their friends and all their social media, and when it comes back and you get it into context, you're like, oh wait, that's not what I thought it was.

SPEAKER_03 51:36

Correct. And you know, the the press is good at spreading that, and of course, the the press will never go back and retract.

SPEAKER_00 51:45

Ever.

SPEAKER_03 51:45

No, it's all that's the first draft of history is how it's always been.

SPEAKER_00 51:49

Well, and you know what I think is the saddest thing about that today? In the past, there was like integrity and and and actually even some written laws that said if you're going to be in the news, you need to attempt to tell the truth.

SPEAKER_01 52:04

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

Right? And and that you retract it if you find out it's not the truth.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 52:09

That's all been done away with.

SPEAKER_02 52:10

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

The news media does not have an obligation to research what they're saying, they don't even have an obligation to tell you the truth, and they definitely don't have an obligation to retract it when they find out it's wrong.

SPEAKER_03 52:22

And the uh 24-year-old, 28-year-old reporter has been essentially swimming in this great big sea of information that's been always true. That's been fed to them by this whole process. Yeah, so it's a complicated thing. I mean, the root of this goes deep. I mean, very, very deep. And so it's a uh uh it's we're trying to do better for the next generation.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

That's why we're here with the teaks, right?

SPEAKER_03 52:48

Some people say that we need to just take an axe to the root of this fowl tree, you know, and as a rancher, you understand that sometimes you gotta grub the stump. The mesquite's gonna take over your pasture if you don't go out there and clear that mesquite. And so, yeah, we're kind of in the mesquite clearing.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

Yeah. And I truly believe that the government that our forefowns put together is the best form of government in the entire world. And that's not to say that we can't do better by all of our citizens. Sure. Right? But I don't what I fear and what I see happening because people are not familiar with the true history, the true founding, the true documents, that they're just going off bits and pieces that they're hearing and sometimes taken out of context, is that um they want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Sure. And they want to start completely over. And I'm like, those things, the the socialism and the communism that you're being told is good, or that has, you know, we're gonna have a utopia one this time, and it's gonna be all fine. Nothing it's gonna work. Nothing in the history of the world has worked as good or given the people the freedoms and the opportunities that the government founded by in this United States, in this republic, by our forefunders, has this has been the best one ever.

SPEAKER_03 54:12

Communism's killed more people in human history than any other single cause. Um these people that had this romantic notion about communism or uh the pathway to it uh are just whistling past the graveyard, literally. So if you take a look at the communist manifesto, let's go back to the founding documents. In this case, it's Karl Marx, our uh our bearded hero from uh uh Germany and England and bouncing around in that axis. Um he said the first thing you need to do is sow chaos.

SPEAKER_00 54:52

And I feel like that's what's happening.

SPEAKER_03 54:54

Sow chaos and destroy the institutions. So the institutions include everything from law enforcement. I saw people that want to defund the Rangers because they're just an extension of state-sponsored oppression. Okay. Uh uh you need to get rid of things like church that help create some sort of nor moral consensus. Crash that too. Uh and then government, you know, you've got to make government just pretty much not work. If you can make that not work, then it'll collapse on its own weight. So what you're left with is rubble. Smoldering, flaming, stinking rubble. And then, according to Karl Marx, he never really had to produce anything in his life except these thoughts, uh, from there you can build a new worker's paradise where everybody is given a free shake and uh a fair shake.

SPEAKER_00 55:58

But in the history of that ever happening, those workers were never happy because they were not elevated up, they were pushed down.

SPEAKER_03 56:06

Well, what they're told is, no, you are happy. You know, the fact that you live in a two-room flat with, you know, eight other people and electricity only runs 12 hours out of a 24-hour day, um, that is happy. Well, can I pursue my own happiness under no circumstances? We, the state, will tell you what happy is. And that's the big difference is you're free to go pursue your happiness. I'm free to go pursue my happiness. But that is a rare, rare commodity on this planet. We are the last great hope of humanity, the United States.

SPEAKER_00 56:48

And I think that is the thing that um I really want people to understand is that the this country was founded on everyone having the opportunity to pursue their own happiness. That's yeah. And yet it takes work that was never said that you weren't gonna have to work at it.

SPEAKER_03 57:14

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 57:15

Which brings us full circle back to Texas grit and tenacity and hard work.

SPEAKER_03 57:20

And why Texas is the best expression of the American experiment.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

It sure is. Well, Dawn, thank you so much for joining us today. And I hope that everyone will go and find his video series, ePluribus Texas, and tell everybody again where they can find it.

SPEAKER_03 57:37

You can go to the Texas Center YouTube channel. Okay, and uh just if you'll just Google the Texas Center, it'll take you there. That's that's where you'll go. And uh it's there on YouTube, 14 modules, 250 videos, each one of them's five minutes long. Just make it part of your daily routine. You know, you you get your scripture of the day, I'm gonna give you your Texas of the day.

SPEAKER_02 58:00

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 58:01

And um, that's and it's a low threshold, uh, painless way of kind of getting an idea of what the story is. And it's just my version of it.

SPEAKER_00 58:10

But if it'll inspire people to go find their to do more research, to go find the rest of the story, or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 58:19

Then I've done my job.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

Yeah. Just getting people interested again.

SPEAKER_03 58:23

That's right. Just let's let's recapture the plot line and then you can spin out whichever direction you want.

SPEAKER_00 58:30

Well, thank you so much for coming. I think the history is so important, and I hope all the parents on here will go and have your kids watch it. And I know I'm gonna be redoing it again because it's been a few years since I took my Texas history. And I actually uh the governor recently asked me to serve on the Texas Bicentennial Commission.

SPEAKER_03 58:50

Excellent, because you know I'm over on 1836, so we are setting the table for you guys.

SPEAKER_00 58:55

Yes, we will be working hand in hand a little bit, and uh so I'm gonna definitely be reviewing my Texas history so I can make sure and be a very uh helpful person into that and uh looking forward to celebrating Texas 200th anniversary. And um, I just want to tell everyone out there, thank you so much for watching today. I hope that you've been inspired to go and search more and to do your own research and to learn more about Texas history and to check out your SBOE members. It takes all of us making sure that we're putting the right people in the right job to help the children of Texas so that we can make sure they have a better education and a better future for all. Thank you so much for joining us today, and we'll see you next week.