Episode 18: Jimmy Yoakum; What If Policing Started With Grace Instead Of Force

A police chief doesn’t just arrive in a town like Haines, Alaska with a clean slate. Every choice gets remembered, every interaction becomes part of the story, and trust is earned one conversation at a time. That’s why I wanted to sit down with Haines Police Chief Jimmy Yoakum and let you hear the full arc, from where he comes from to how he plans to lead.

Jimmy opens up about growing up in Tennessee, learning in junior high that he was adopted, and the complicated mix of curiosity and peace that comes with searching for biological family. From there we follow a career that spans ROTC, Army intelligence, the messy reality of post-9/11 activations, and decades in law enforcement during a period when policing culture, community expectations, and public scrutiny all changed fast. He also shares the surprising detour into teaching criminal justice, where phones and AI tools collide with student motivation and what “real learning” even means now.

We get practical about what leadership looks like in the Haines Police Department today: body cameras and transparency, tightening report writing for courtroom credibility, reviewing policies and evidence procedures, improving communications tech, and building better intelligence ties to address narcotics and potential trafficking concerns in Southeast Alaska. Then the conversation turns personal again as Jimmy explains how faith informs his work, what “grace” means when you still have to enforce the law, and why he dreams of creating nature-based trauma retreats for veterans and first responders using dogs, horses, and the outdoors.

Subscribe, share this with a friend in Haines or anywhere, and leave a review if this conversation gives you something to think about. What part of Jimmy’s story hit you the hardest?

Transcript

Welcome And How To Listen

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, thanks for joining us for this episode of Doug Has Questions. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please like, subscribe. We're available if you want to watch us on uh YouTube or if you just want to listen to the podcast version on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and each episode goes live on Thursday morning. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and we're happy to have you listening. Welcome to this episode of Doug Has Questions. Today my guest is Haynes Police Chief Jimmy Yoakum. Thanks for joining us, Chief. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Thanks for having me, Doug.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yeah, you bet. I think it's a good opportunity. I appreciate you being on because you're new to Haynes, just got back from the academy. I think it'd be good just community have an opportunity for people in the community to kind of get to know your background a little bit. Sure. What brought you to Haynes and kind of who is Chief Jimmy?

Learning He Was Adopted

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Love to see it, love to share with you. All right. Let's let's let's start. Where'd you grow up? So I grew up in uh Marival, Tennessee, uh, which is just south of Knoxville, East Tennessee. I was born in Chattanooga, I was adopted, and uh my parents that uh they they adopted me at a very, very early age, so I was fortunate that you know I've spent my whole life with my mom and dad. Um so I grew up in Maryville, Tennessee, and uh went to local public schools there and grade school and high school. Um so yeah, that's that's pretty much it.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Did you know you were adopted at a young age, or was that something your parents waited until you were a certain age before telling you?

SPEAKER_01 1:33

It was it was kind of it was it just kind of happened by coincidence, or quinky dink, if you know what we might say. But uh I was probably junior high age, maybe a little bit younger, and my my dad and mom always used to, on Sunday evenings, they used to, uh we used to go to church, come home, do our thing, then go back to evening church, and then we'd come home. Dad would always watch 60 Minutes, and if we were quiet during 60 Minutes, then we got to watch the Disney show. If uh if we weren't quiet, if we weren't No Disney, no Disney, there was no Disney at all. Um mama always you know typically made a homemade one of the little Chef Boy RD pizzas, which I thought was the coolest thing ever, you know, making pizzas in your own house. Yeah. But uh it just so happened that that one night um there wasn't there was uh some sort of expose or or uh subject came up about adoptions and this, that, and the other. And uh I don't know how it got brought about, but uh I asked my mom and dad about it. I don't know why, I can't remember why I asked them about it, and they told me that I was. And, you know, as a kid, I was just like, it doesn't really mean anything to me because you're my mom and dad, you know. But I think it upset my mama uh because I she was kind of sniffling in the kitchen, you know, because she didn't I don't know if she just didn't realize how much I loved them and thought of them as my those are my parents, you know. Um I think it kind of bothered her a little bit, but uh she was okay with it, you know. So I probably found out in mid, you know, mid-junior high age a little bit earlier.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Did you ever have a desire to find out who your birth parents were? Um or have you found out who your birthday was?

SPEAKER_01 3:24

I have not. Um I uh I thought that I had a lead um at one point, and I was never able to contact the uh the gentleman, you know, my biological dad. And um I I was pretty sure I w I had found my biological mother um and reached out to some to her and my and her sister, and never got any response from it. And it didn't upset me. I mean, you know, there's the there's a part of it that you know every time you go to the doctor's office, do you have any medical history? Right? Do you have any medical history? I have no early idea, right? Um but then there was just kind of the wanting to honestly, you know, down in my soul, I just really wanted to say, hey, I'm good. You know? Um can't imagine, you know. I mean, I I hope I wouldn't have if I did get in touch with them, I hope that I wouldn't be disrespectful about it, but I mean to just to let them know I'm good. My parents, I couldn't have asked for any more than than what I what I came out with.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

The people they gave you up to did a great job with you, is what you're saying.

Searching For Birth Family

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Yeah. That they did they took care of you. Absolutely. I mean, I you know, they're my mom and dad, and I'm their son, and they know piece of paper that's gonna say any different about that. And you know, so you know, I tried to find them, wasn't able to, cool, you know. Life goes on. Yep, life does go on. So did you have other siblings? I do. I've got three older sisters. Are they were they adopted also or they no I think my mom and dad had three girls and decided that we want to make sure we're getting a boy? Yeah, yeah. Uh because my daddy was the last one in his line with the with the family name.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Um, and so uh, you know, I I they adopted me and and I was able to carry on the family name there. So how much older were your sisters? Uh my young the youngest of the three older ones is sixty one. The second of the oldest is sixty four, and the lat the oldest of the three is sixty seven, I believe. Okay. Yeah. So I was when my youngest sister was going out of high school and going on to college, then I was coming into uh high school. So it when baby Jimmy gets brought into the house with three older sisters, was was that were you just like the baby and everybody all the kids your sisters are taking care of you or they cannot confirm or deny any shhenanigans or tomfoolery that I fooled. Um no, it was uh we had a we had a we had a great relationship growing up. Um I I had a I had a bit of a temper growing up. And so um, you know, I was just the pesky little brother that uh always wanted to be around their friends when they would come over and spend the night, or if they were going on some sort of youth trip, you know, with the church. I always wanted to go. And um every now and then I got to go or be around their friends, but most time I got kind of shooed off. And uh that made me mad, and I'd fuss and complain and kick and scream. I might throw something at them or something, but then Mama would tell me, you know, when your daddy gets home. That was the end of that.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

You you rest up right now because there's gonna be consequences when dad gets home.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Yes, absolutely. So uh, you know, I I I took the belt a timer three or and even took took the switch from my granny several times. And so when I when I got those magic words, you know, I knew it was time to, okay, let's let's get back in line.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Took you a little bit and then you finally figured out that that there's a line we don't cross here. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Absolutely. Are you s do you still close with your sisters now?

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yeah, it's uh it's kind of funny because you know, my wife, um she is a uh uh she she's her she comes from an Italian family, and I mean they talk like all the time. It's kind of a weird dynamic that we have now, you know, kind of moving into into the present time. It's a weird dynamic because they talk all the time. I call my mama and daddy every Sunday.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yeah.

Sisters, Temper, And Growing Up

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Um, but me and my sisters sometimes we won't talk for two, three, four months. And it's okay. Yeah. It's just kind of the way it is, and it drives my wife crazy because, you know, she's like, Did your kids call you today? And I'm like, No, they didn't call me. And did you call your sisters? No, I haven't called them either, you know. Um so, but yeah, I mean, we're growing up we always we've always had a good relationship. Um stayed in touch, you know, however often that is for our normal family. But even even today, uh there's still a real strong bond. So any any sports? I did. Um if if it involved being outside and doing something, I played it. Um kind of when I when I grew up, and and this is where I feel very fortunate because when I was growing up, man, when it was basketball season, we were playing basketball. When it was baseball season, we were playing baseball. When it was football season, we were playing football. Um, you know, and I mean we would make up games in the backyard. We'd take daddy's post hole diggers and dig holes in the ground, and we'd play um yard hockey, you know. So, and of course in the 84 Olympics when we won the gold medal, I mean, we were breaking rulers and kind of taping them at the end and playing hockey on the air conditioner, and um, of course, then all playground games with uh, you know, pickup smear and uh we played Ultimate Frisbee. I mean, if it was as if as long as if it had a ball or some sort of winning objective, I was playing it.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah. And then when I got in the Army, actually, I went to uh when I got to Fort Bragg, uh, I was driving by the ice rink and it said rec league hockey signups.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

And I was like, I wonder what that's all about. They got they got an ice rink at Fort Bragg.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

They do. They do, absolutely they do. Dang. Surprise me too, right? Yeah I'm driving by to see ice rink and I'm like, hey, that's cool. And then the marquee said uh rec league hockey signups. Uh-huh. And I was like, I wonder what that's all about. So I went, it's kind of okay to tell about it?

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Okay. Um, so I went in and uh I said, hey, uh, I said, what's the deal with this rec league hockey that you've got going on? And the guy behind the desk was like, it's rec league hockey.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yeah, what more do you need to know? Yeah, and I'm like, no, okay. I said, okay, that's fair.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

I mean, that's fair, right? I said, okay, let me let me back up a little bit. I'm from East Tennessee, and about the only time we ever went ice skating was like at Christmas time in high school. You know, we it was a big romantic date or something. We'd take our girlfriend to Gatlinburg and uh and go ice skating like once a year. I was like, so I've only skated like six or seven times in my life. I said, can I still sign up? He said, It's rec league hockey. I'm like, all right, cool. Where do I sign? Yeah, how much is it? I paid the hundred dollars that paid for my ice time and and uh the equipment rental and everything. And he gave me this, he gave me this big garbage bag full of stuff. Yeah, and I went home and I looked at it, and I didn't have an absolute clue what any of it was. And I I I called my buddy that that was that actually played at BU at Boston University. He played there and played on the post team. I said, hey, I just signed up for this thing, and because I'd like to try ice hockey, never played. But they gave me a big old bag of stuff and I don't know what to do with it. He said, Oh man, I mean, he said, that's cool, good job. You know, that's that's good. You know, I'm gonna be out at the uh tryouts, you know, to uh to try to help sort people into teams and stuff. And uh he said, wait a minute. He said, Jimmy, do you even have ice skates? I said, no, don't need them. I mean, let me check the bag. I said, I did. I was like, let me check the bag, see if they're in it. He said, Oh, he said, I could just see him rubbing his head like this. He said, Okay, we need to, we need to at least get you some skates.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

That's gonna help to play ice hockey. I think skates is a key component of that. Yeah, I've never played, but watching it, I think that's one of the key elements.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

I I think it might be optional. I'm not sure. But the skates weren't in the bag, so he helped me get some skates. And uh it was it was I was a little embarrassed because we know we went in there for the first for that that that when they did the tryouts, and I'm pulling this stuff out of this garbage bag. I mean, these guys are coming in with these big old hockey bags and yeah, and stick bags and all this other kind of stuff. I didn't even know it was called a stick bag at the time. Um, and I got all my stuff laid out on the floor, and there's this guy over across the locker room that I mean he looked like he knew what he was doing. He had all his own stuff and everything, and I was just like, I don't know what to do. I really, I mean, I don't know what to do. And so I'm like, he'd do something and I would do it, you know, and there was one time he was almost done. I said almost done. And he he looked up real quick, and I'm like, he got this sour look on his face. He grabbed his stuff and walked down. I was like, I felt like saying, listen, buddy, I promise you, I don't know how to put this on. But uh so I got it on and and went out there and and did the tryouts. That was a disaster because I didn't know how to stop. I just ran through the wall, you know, to stop myself.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Walls, it stopped you.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

It did, absolutely. And then they did some stick handling stuff. I looked at my buddy and I said, you know, I'm standing there with my stick straight up in the air like this. He said, just push the stick. Just push it with the stick. So I gave the puck a shove and it went all the way down to the other end. I'm like, I just kind of chased after it. It was but yeah, I mean, as far as sports goes, if it was if there was a if there was a game involved and and there's a winner and a loser, I'm I was I was signing up for it. So did you end up playing? I did. I did. I ended up did you get better? I did. I ended up my my first 30 seconds on the ice, I ended up with a five-minute major because I crossed. Yeah. I asked my coach, I said, What am I supposed to do? He said, just go get the puck. Well, when I got on the ice, the puck was in the corner, and the dude had his, you know, he was trying to dig it out. I just I just I just caught him right at the base of the neck with my stick. I got the puck and I started trying to kick it and chase it and push it down the ice and the whistles were blowing. This guy, this guy and the the referee came up, comes up and grabs me. He goes, get in the box. You got a five-minute major for cross-jacking.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

And I'm like, I was told to get the puck, and I got the puck. That's what I told my coded.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

I said, I said, What'd I do? I said, he said, you can't hit them in the back. I said, you didn't tell me that.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

That would have been good information to know.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

So so I did. I ended up playing and actually started practicing with the post team after a while. Okay. I actually got to go to a tournament with them up in uh in uh New Jersey and got a little bit of ice time there. We played against uh like club teams from North Carolina State and UNC and that sort of thing. And uh one team came in, they didn't have very many players, and they were like, hey, listen, can you guys let us you know lend us a player or two? You know who got to go. Well, guess who could who scored a goal that game? I did, and they were pissed at me. I mean, they were mad. I was like, look, y'all, I you guys are the ones that sent me down the river. Exactly, exactly. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Yeah, you should have known after all this time I was just poised for a goal breakout.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

And I think that was that was the only I only scored one, scored one goal in my entire hockey career. But to this day, I I still say that if because in high school I played football, basketball, and baseball, played all three. Um but to this day, I s I'll still say that if they had had ice hockey around where I was growing up, that's the only sport I would have played. It's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

It it looks like a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

It is absolutely the best time ever.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

I think I've been on ice skates once when I was like six or seven, right for a very short period of time. Never had an opportunity to be on ice skate since. Yep. And so I yeah, I I don't think I would be much of a hockey player, but uh it it looks like a fun game. Any anytime you can have a stick and you get to hit people, right? Maybe not cross the shoulders with you know with the cross checking or anything like that, but you know, lower shoulder and them crunch them into the boards and stuff, that looks like a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

It is brutally painful. I mean, that you know that you've got padding on, but it you know, you don't have like football padding um for the most part, and and it is brutally painful, but it is it it's just so much fun. So much fun.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Although as injury prone as I was in high school, I probably would have spent most of the season in a cast if there's a spring of some kind sitting on the bench injured.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Absolutely. Yeah, so sports, sports was always in uh uh in the picture, and uh actually uh uh when I graduated from high school, I went down to uh middle Tennessee State University and started playing football down there. I just I mean I love the game.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

What position did you play in football?

SPEAKER_01 18:02

I played uh fullback and linebacker.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

And uh I went to MTSU didn't prepare for it because I didn't think I was gonna play. And I was just like, man, I really miss this. And so I went out. They had me at they had me at safety, which I had played safety early on in high school. And I just loved the game. I I to this day I love coaching football. Love it. And uh uh found out real quick that MTSU was probably not the program for me to just go out and enjoy the sport in. Because it was uh Division I double A school.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

And so they were they were pretty serious about it. And I was like, this is just not for me. So I went back to Marival College, Marival, and uh played basketball there.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

What what were you gonna out of out of high school, what were you studying when you when you because you went you went from high school to Minnetou Middle Tennessee State first? What was were you going to criminal justice or were you just at that point law enforcement wasn't on the radar?

SPEAKER_01 19:03

It was just a it was just undeclared. Okay, have no earthly idea what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get my uh undergrad credits, my or my my core credits, and get those out of the way, and then I'll figure out what I'm gonna do. I wanted to fly um and thought about declaring as a uh for the professional pilot degree, um, which would have took me to all the way up to my commercial license. And uh I got some uh I got some flight time in. I got my ground school in. Um it was just so expensive. It was just so expensive, and and uh I just couldn't pay for it.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

So how long were you at Middle Tennessee State before you went back to Maryville?

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Just a year.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Just the your freshman year? Yep, just the freshman year. And then Maryville, was that the name of the college? Yep, Maryville College. Maryville College.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

And uh so I played basketball there, busted my back up, had to have surgery.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Um was that while playing basketball? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

So I went to Maryville College and and and actually um I got really, really super, I was very fortunate that I got invited, I can't even remember the connection. There's I think there was a recruiter for the University of Georgia that worked the East Tennessee area, and I had met him, and the summer before I started, he got me in to be a coach at Hugh Durham when he was the basketball coach at Georgia. Um he got me in as a uh coach for the summer, and I went down there. I told I coach I told Coach Durham, I said, I just want to be a part of this program, of the Division I program. I don't care if I never wear a game jersey. I just want to be a part of this program. So at the end of the week, we would play every night, and uh at the end of the week, um I I went to him and went to his office and he said, I've watched you play. If you want to be a part of the team, then you can walk on and uh you can practice with us, but you'll probably have to pay for your own ticket on game nights. Fine. I was just man, I was over the moon, you know what I'm saying? And uh it was late in the summer when I was at that camp, and so I went home, put all my stuff in, um, and apparently they had already taken all the out-of-state applicants that they could. Yep. And so uh I got denied for admission. You said, I know the coach.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Coach, I'm willing to pay.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

I did.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

I'm gonna be paying. I said, I'm gonna be paying to get in. I'm supposed to be a walk on. I'm supposed to be on the team.

College Detours And ROTC

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Even if I gotta pay to get in the gym for the game night. Didn't help. Didn't help. Um so I was back at Merrill College and uh we got into the season. Um I got undercut a couple three, two or three times. In practice, and I ended up rupturing the L5 uh disc. It was just a herniation, so it wasn't major. My orthopedic surgeon said, You're not playing anymore. So we did the surgery. Been great. That never bothered me since then. And so then I was like, okay, now what am I going to do? It was along about that time that I started finding about ROT out about ROTC in the military. The program at I went up to ET East Tennessee State University that had a really strong ROTC program. And I went through that, ended up getting me a two-year scholarship that paid for the last two years of my school. And we ended up going in the Army after that.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Where'd you get your degree in then?

SPEAKER_01 22:56

I got my degree in criminal justice.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

That's when you got finally got into the criminal justice strategy.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

It was right about my right about the start of my junior year. And I was going, I was thinking about doing veterinary science. Um, and just the chemistry just was not for me.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

That's a pretty big gap between criminal justice and veterinary science.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Yes. Well, the veterinary science had a real passion for, because I love animals.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Um love animals, always loved animals, especially wanted to work with large animals. Um you were growing up?

SPEAKER_00 23:37

I was around them. You were around them all the time.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

I mean, we were around cows and horses and everything all day long, every day. We never had any on our property because my dad was a my dad was a chemist and a metallurgist.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

And so um, you know, obviously he had he had no time for livestock and uh started three different businesses on his own, uh, very successful. Um just he made a modest living, you know. He didn't ever get rich, but uh he did he did well by our family and that sort of thing. And um, but he just had no time for that that kind of stuff. We're around it, but I just always have had a shy towards uh dogs, horses, cows, you know, that sort of thing. And uh when I told him I was thinking about veterinary science, he was like, okay, you know, whatever. I'm you know, do you, basically. And I realized how much chemistry was involved, and I just I couldn't do it, man. I couldn't do it. I I it was like reading Greek to me. And of course it drove him crazy as his bread and butter, you know, and uh as a chemist, and then that's where that adoption thing comes in. I you know, that apple definitely fell far from the tree because man, I could I could just I could call him uh we didn't have email and internet then, or we may have had internet, yeah. We'd had internet, but anyway, I couldn't just zap him something and have him answer it real quick. But I would call him to tell him what I was working on. He's like, oh, it's blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, you know, and I'm like what what are you doing on Tuesday at two o'clock?

SPEAKER_00 25:17

I gotta I gotta test. Can you can you take this for me, Dad?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Yeah, can you where's where was FaceTy or the or the or the the uh the meta glasses? Yep, the meta glasses when you get up with a little earpiece there, yeah. Help on the test. Um and and so I was getting I was getting into the military. I knew I loved the army, I loved the structure, I loved the camaraderie and the brotherhood and sisterhood. Um and so I was just like, honestly, I mean, just to if we're being completely transparent, I was just like, I'll just get a criminal justice degree because I'm gonna spend 20, 30 years in the military, and I'm getting out because I love this. I love it. And so I went in as a um, the only thing I ever wanted to do was be an infantry officer. And uh I knew I was gonna have a family, and uh I knew that infantry, infantry spent a lot of time in the field. They really, you know, they did. And uh I was like, okay, let's be a little responsible here, you know. You want to be there for your kids, you want to be there for your wife, you want to be there for the whole family, and be able to spend some time with them. Probably infantry is not the thing ultimately that you want to end up in.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

So I chose military intelligence. My dad, he was a marine reservist. I was all proud when I got branched into MI field. And I called him, I told him, and he said, not, hey, congratulations, or that's great. He's well that's an oxymoron if I've ever heard of it. I was like, thanks, Dad, you know. Um, and so, you know, it's getting closer to time, and uh, and I was I started thinking about it, and I was like, I really don't want to do Intel, I really want to be in the woods, running, you know, running around in the woods. It was too late to change it. And what kind of nobody told me when I was in college was when the infantry goes to the field, everybody goes to the field. You know, it's not just the infantry guys, it's everybody. And so I spent just as much time in the field as an as an Intel guy, as an infantry officer probably would, maybe a little less, but um just the intel stuff, and and of course they told us in college about all the cool stuff that intel officers do. Well, they also didn't tell us that that's not until you get 15, 17, 20 years in.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Well, they didn't want to ruin the surprise for you, right? Right. You gotta have something for you to look forward to, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

And so I was I was a little disenchanted, and uh when it was time for me to get out, I went out and uh went back to home and I was like, holy moly, what am I gonna do now?

SPEAKER_00 28:05

So we're going through the so you were two years with the Rotsi program. And so do you do when you get done with that when you graduated college, did you have to go boot camp then? Do you do that in the summer while you're in in Rotsi?

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

How how does that work?

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Yeah, so I had to go to basic first because of my back. Okay. I had to go and then I had to get my I had to get my waiver. So I had to go to basic. And then between your junior and senior year, you go to the ROTC advanced camp. Okay. So that is an ROTC um camp that they send all cadets to before you get into your senior year. So that way when you get done with your senior year and you've reached you've you've done everything that you need to do ROTC wise, then you're eligible for commission.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

So did you go in as a lieutenant then?

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Mm-hmm. I went in as a second lieutenant. Okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

And uh And Brag was your first study station?

SPEAKER_01 29:04

It was. Uh initially I was supposed to go to Fort Lewis and I asked for Bragg.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

And and was able to get that switched. Um, and it was so funny because before I left my officer basic course in Fort Wachuca, Arizona, um, they sent me my orders, and my orders said Special Forces Command. And I'm like, oh man, that's cool, you know. And I get there, and the uh Chief Warrant Officer 2, CW2, that was the the adjutant uh at the time, I walked in and he goes, You lost? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

And I was like, somebody told me to be here.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

I got a piece of paper. That's exactly what I said. I said, Chief, I got this paper, and this is what it says here. And he looked and he goes, Oh my gosh. He went into the to the to the G2, G2's office. He came back out and he said, Go in there and see the major. I went in and he's like, Lieutenant, I have no earthly idea why they sent you here, but grab a desk somewhere and we'll figure something out for you. And I was like, holy moly, you know. Um, so I was there for anywhere from four to six months.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

And and the major, Major Finley, I believe his name was, um, he said, All right, he said, we've got to get you down to the 82nd so that you can start doing some of your career progression stuff, you know, assistant intel officer for one of the uh infantry battalions, uh platoon time, and that sort of thing. So that's when I went down to the 82nd and uh did the uh I was a platoon leader for a Spanish Linguist Platoon. Um I was assistant S2 at one of the infantry battalions, actually went up to G2 in the division office, and I was assigned to be the Intel liaison for the uh the what I know as LERPS, the long-range recon guys for division. I was their intel liaison that gave them their intel dumps before they went out on missions and that sort of thing.

Army Intelligence And Career Reality

SPEAKER_00 31:18

So And so you're in the Army for how long? You do a four-year hitch?

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Did four years and then I actually I've got a total of ten because I was reactivated after 9-11. Okay. Um and then just after uh before and after I stayed in um another six. So you're in the reserves then or were okay yeah, I did some reserve time and then some National Guard time with the actually the Tennessee Air Guard. So I kind of did a branch transfer over, um, but it was still continuing my service time. Got to 10 years, 9-11 happened, that was such a that was such a uh cluster for reservists and and National Guardsmen. I was and that was at the 10-year mark, and so I was just like, you know, I'm not re-opening, I'm getting out.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Was that just because you had no I they had no idea what they were gonna do with you or because of where they were sending you? How was it uh how was it screwed up at that point in time?

SPEAKER_01 32:21

You know, I think after initially that first year to year and a half was just really crazy. I think that the reserves and the National Guard, I think this is my personal opinion, I think they started getting their stuff in order and they started figuring out where they fit in that big picture on the war on terror. Um but that first year was just crazy because uh, you know, the planes hit the the the World Trade Centers, and uh I was on the golf course. We were on our way to North Carolina for our kind of an annual fall golf trip with a bunch of a bunch of other police buddies of mine, and um that happened, and our everybody's phones started beeping and carrying on, and uh mine said, get to the airbase now. So I had to go back, and we were actually locked down at the at the airbase there locally for three or four months, I think. Um on the airbase, couldn't go home. Families could come out and see us from time to time. Um and then uh after about three months, four months, I was on graveyard, so I was working six P to six A or seven P to 7A at the morning day for day shift formation of the security forces as far as you know military police. And uh my phone started blowing up when I was uh asleep. I was like, what is going on now? You know? And there one of the guys was like, You're not gonna believe what just happened. Apparently, one of the generals from the Tennessee Air Guard uh came in from Nashville and made this, you know, gave us a good attaboy, gave them, well, the people that were in the formation gave them a good attaboy speech for the whole uh squadron and said, and you know, we this is why we call ourselves the volunteer state, because we are so proud of you men and women for volunteering to be out here like you are. And they we were like, wait a minute, we were told we had to be here. What's going on here, you know? Uh so that just put a really bad taste in everybody's mouth. And uh so after they they eventually did, and shortly after that, put us on Title X orders, which is active duty orders again. And so for you know, we were on a we were on active duty orders for like a year and four months or something like that. And that's about when my 10-year mark was rolling around. I was like, I'm done. So that was just me being a big crybaby because I should have stayed in and got the other ten and got my retirement, but I was I was being a little crybaby.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Well, just because you didn't get the other ten, you know, sometimes sometimes you get to the point and that's the time to move on.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Yeah, it was it was a tough time. I mean, it was it'd been really tough on my family too. So it is what it is.

9/11 Recall And Guard Chaos

SPEAKER_00 35:37

So when you get when they call you to duty like that, I think how did they come because you're a policeman at that time, right? So you go we'll we'll backtrack a little bit. You got out of the got out of the army, got back home, trying to figure out what to do.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Is that when you I I had a criminal justice degree and I thought, you know what? I think I want to, I'll I'll just go in law enforcement until I figure out what I'm wanting to do. And I got in law enforcement and and I tell even I ended up being in a field training officer as well. And so I would even tell my FT, my trainees when I would get them, you're gonna do about three years, and you're gonna start going, what am I doing? Do I need to stay in this or do I not? If you get to the five-year mark and you're still in, you're gonna be in for the rest of your life. Um, so I got in law enforcement and I got to that three-year mark, and I was just I was loving life. I mean, I was chasing and chasing people and fighting people, and it's a lot different now than it was in '95. You know, most of the most of our usual customers, we knew they were gonna fight, and we knew it was gonna be a knockdown drag out, and they knew that they were gonna go to jail, right? And and so they were they were gonna make us earn it. Uh-huh. And I mean, I've gotten, I got my bell rung so many times, you know. I've I've had my I've been whooped a lot of different times, but it was always kind of a mutual respect that once the fight was over, it's like, okay, now we gotta go to jail, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Yep, this is the next step.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

And and and we didn't, they knew that we weren't gonna be unfair to them. Or at least they knew the cops that weren't gonna be unfair to them and stack try to stack a bunch of charges on them and this, that, and the other. Um that one guy who just about knocked me out cold. And that was the end of the fight. And he comes over and he goes, Are you okay, Jimmy? He picks me up and I'm like, Yeah, I said, come on, turn around, man. You got me that time, but not next time. And then so we cuffed him up and took him on to jail. But it was a different time then, you know, it was different, and and I was really enjoying the I was really enjoying law enforcement at that time. And so So how often is is this like fisticuffs and everything? I mean, we were probably fighting two or three times, two or three times a week. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Just you know, just a bunch of old, you know, a lot of just drunk guys that normal customers um weren't bad people. Um you know, matter of fact, I mean, got to be pretty good friends with most of them. Uh one guy that one guy ran the uh I won't say his name, but one guy ran the uh the local motorcycle club. And uh I got surrounded by a bunch of bikers down at the lake one night, and all I heard coming down the lake was this. And I'm like, oh my gosh, now what's going on? Well, I'd done him, I'd done him some solids as far as not charging him with a bunch of craziness and this, that, and the other. And he comes sliding in sideways on that big old Harley, and he walks up and he said, If anybody's got a problem with this man, they got a problem with me. So let's just go ahead and get started. And I'm like, no. No, no, no, we don't want to get anything started. No, there's two of us, like 28 of them, you know.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

It's not gonna end well.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

But uh they're like, Well, he just said, You call me if you need anything, Jimmy. I said, Yes, sir, I'll do it. And uh, so yeah, I mean it was it was just it was they were breaking the law, they were criminals, but it was pure. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 39:47

I mean it was it was Yeah, I can I've had people talk about that too, that you know, there's a uh code of conduct or whatever that there's we're we know we're doing this, we know you're gonna catch us some of the time. These are kind of the rules of the game as you go along, right? And yeah.

1990s Policing And Changing Culture

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Yeah, that's exactly how it was. And then, you know, everything started kind of shifting in uh I would say it was probably right around the late 90s 90s into the early 2000s, everything kind of started shifting. There was a big push for uh community-oriented policing. Um that brought on a lot of uh I mean it's good it's good philosophy, good, good approach. I do not disagree with it at all, and it still goes on today. If if a law per if law enforcement person is smart, it still goes on today. Um but it did start changing the the dynamic of of law enforcement and and you know the wild, wild west was pretty much I caught the last tail end of of the of the craziness, you know.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

But uh yeah, so uh so the town that you're a police officer in at this time, how how big a community was that?

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Um Blunt County has about 750 square miles. Um it was divided into four zones. So do the math on that. And when I started, it was usually if we were lucky, we had three patrolmen, three deputies and one supervisor. So I would take, you know, for example, zone one and two, another guy would take zone two and three, and then uh I'm sorry, one and two, then another guy would take two and three, then he would take the last guy would take three and four. And so you kind of crossed over boundaries. But it was not uncommon for us to to have one guy north and one guy south and a supervisor, you know, um back up being 30 to 50 minutes away. Um had a guy wanting to kill me one night with his bare hands. I walked, got a call, drove up in the driveway, and this guy's carrying an engine block, right? And he puts it down, and we talked for a minute. I said, I listen to somebody, you're gonna have to go to jail. He said, I ain't going to jail. He said, Matter of fact, I'm just gonna kill you. He didn't never pick up a weapon, nothing. And I'm like, hey, I need some help. And I was in the south end, my supervisor and the other guy were in the north end, like the far north end. And uh I ain't gonna I ain't proud. I ran around my car. Uh-huh. He'd get tired and we'd stop and take a catch up breath, and then he'd try to run around and catch me. I ran around that my daggum car for probably 40 minutes. Yeah. With him threatening all kinds of stuff at to me. Again, never picked up a weapon. I never let him get close to me, especially man's carrying an engine block around. You don't let him grab hold of you. And the boys got there, and I was like, it's gonna be ugly, but here we go. And then that kind of that code of conduct, those rules kind of came into play, and he threw us all around like, you know, we finally got him all hog hog tied up and trussed up like a Christmas turkey and put him in put him in the car and took him to jail. But yeah, it was uh 750 square miles, very limited coverage. Um by the time I by the time I left that department, we were, I mean, gosh, we had uh we had one per zone, sometimes two per zone, a backup north, a backup south, a canine running backup for the whole county, maybe sometimes even two canines back you know for the county, and you know, a supervisor or two at least. And so that was that was kind of frustrating because you know I mean you get that many people. Of course, the call volume then was not near what it is there now.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Um was that kind of the beginning of the opioid? Or was that did that come later with the opio opioid epidemic? That was that the or did you even have to deal with that much back there? The main That seems like the when you talk when you hear these reports on it, that seems like the geographic area where that was fairly prevalent.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Our biggest problem, at least in East Tennessee, was has was was the uh initially was the the crack. Um and then that kind of I think that kind of phased out. Um and the biggest problem we faced was the the methamphetamines.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Oh, methyl. Yep.

Meth, Rural Coverage, And Risk

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Uh it was it was uh cheap, it was easy, and those those those guys and gals could make it pretty much anywhere. And so the biggest the biggest issue was was a lot of times just the meth. You know, everybody was still smoking a little bit of weed here and there, but man, the meth just blew up in East Tennessee. I mean, they've got we got so many hills and hollers and caves and RVs and everything, you know. Uh they were cooking it just wherever they could find a spot. Yeah. So the meth became a real a real issue for us in East Tennessee.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

And how long were you at that department?

SPEAKER_01 45:35

Um I started in '95 and I went to do Young Life in 2000 and 2005. Worked for Alcohol Police Department for a year in there, but I was at the what's Young Life? Young Life is a uh non-denominational Christian ministry to high school kids.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

And so you went from police work and then in 2000. So you you started working for Young Life then? In 2005, I did. 2005?

SPEAKER_01 46:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:05

Okay.

Young Life Ministry And Family Strain

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Uh and so um I was a volunteer young life leader while I because I had moved off the street and I'd went into the school as a school resource officer. I was a volunteer young life leader in the school I was assigned to. Um and I just thought, you know what, I really feel like I need to do this full time. And so I went into Young Life in 05, and I went to Great Falls, Montana. And uh my first wife uh just she struggled with it just because she was so far from her grandparents or her grandmother. Um she was just really afraid that her grandmother was gonna pass, her she wasn't in good health. And I mean, gosh, you know, first time she'd been lived 3,000 miles away, and it's uh it was a it was a it was a really hard transition for her. And uh she just said, I need to go back to Tennessee. And so, you know, God opened up some some wonderful doors there. Um and young life in Great Falls is still going, as far as I know. Um prior to me getting there, uh it had never worked. Nobody had ever been able to get it up and running. And that's not a testament to me. That's you know, a testament to the Holy Spirit and the work that he's able to do in a community. Um, I was just kind of, you know, helped drive the train. I I that that's that was all that was all a God thing with the doors that he opened up and the fact that it's that it's still going today. Um so I went on we went on back to Tennessee and I got back in law enforcement and uh um and then I ended up have getting a divorce and uh met my second wife and she was from uh South Florida and moved down there and uh 2010 maybe I don't remember exactly. Um and we were we were together and we were I was down in South Florida for five years and uh I handled uh narcotic dogs and bomb dogs for the guy when I was a canine officer in Tennessee, the guy that sold our department, the dogs, was in South Florida, and I worked for him as a dog handler um on the in the ports uh checking the uh the commissary going on the ships for for bombs. And then I started bombs.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

Yeah. You weren't doing you weren't looking for drugs, you were looking for bombs on the ships.

SPEAKER_01 49:09

Mm-hmm. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

Was that the cruise ships or the container ships?

SPEAKER_01 49:13

The cruise ships. Yep. Really? The sheriff's office had uh uh dope dogs in the terminal, and so they were working those, and we were working the uh bomb dogs on the commissary going on cruise ships.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

Wow, yeah, I didn't know they'd all the cruise ships have they got bomb dogs checking everything.

SPEAKER_01 49:36

I'm not sure. Or is it just out of Miami that they're well no, we were, I mean, we were gosh, he was his company had contracts with don't quote me, but uh Carnival, MCM, Princess, um, there's another one.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

It makes sense now that you're saying it, but it's not anything that I would that I would have was thinking that yeah, they're gonna have a bomb bomb dog going through that.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

Royal Caribbean.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

Royal Caribbean.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

And he had contracts with them, and he actually had um canine teams in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, and I worked both of those ports.

SPEAKER_02 50:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:25

He had um contracts in uh is there a port in Jacksonville? I think there is. I think it's northern, more northern Florida. He had a couple of contracts up on the eastern seaboard, some in Texas and some in Washington.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:47

Um so yeah, I mean, there was there was always, especially after 9-11, um, pretty much every cruise ship that goes out, at least now that I know of, could be wrong, but I I can't imagine them doing away with them. The the at least the commissary that goes on the ships is getting all that's getting checked. All that's checked. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 51:09

Like I said, it makes sense. I mean, that's a pretty large target. Yeah. A lot of damage and with minimal effort if you can get something on there, but well, and I mean it's it's I mean, where where else are you gonna check it?

SPEAKER_01 51:23

Because I mean the trucks come the trucks come onto into the uh into the port. They have to show their twit card and all that kind of stuff. Um, but they drive their trucks straight to the dock.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

And and w the the guy the uh guys in the union were unloading, they put them all, they had a system and everything. Um but I mean other than that, there was no no place for it to check. No place to check them. Yeah. So yeah, I spent a lot of days, a lot of hours on the docks. Uh-huh. What kind of dog? I worked um both Shepherd's and Malinois. Okay. Um Tony, Tony was such a good, I mean, he's an unbelievable dog guy. Um built a huge business and serviced police unit, you know, police departments, sheriff's departments, I mean, you name it. And this guy did it. And so he created a trading program that was that was so good that we could just, if we needed to, we could just go down to the kennel and grab a dog and take them and work them. And so I didn't necessarily have an assigned quote unquote dog. I worked with several different types of dogs and and uh when when I was there and that but mainly it was just shepherds and malware. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

And so how long did you do that for? Uh like five years?

SPEAKER_01 52:53

No, I did that for about three years. And then I got into got back into law enforcement. Actually went through the the I actually I actually received permission to be a lateral transfer for the state of Florida. So I just had to go through a one-month classroom thing.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

Okay, from Tennessee to Florida to be a lateral transfer. Yeah.

Bomb Dogs At Cruise Ship Ports

SPEAKER_01 53:14

And uh had to do my weapons and my driving and all that stuff that's required. But yeah, Florida approved my Tennessee certificates. Um so I did that and I went to the uh I got hired by the uh Palm Beach School District Police, and I was assigned to um Santa Lucias High School, um, which is in Lake Worth, Florida. Uh probably 2,500 kids, more inner city, uh, and just me. And it was uh, you know, it was on the daily that uh it was so funny because I had the uh uh the the Hispanic gangs, the uh black gangs, and the Haitian gangs, all three in my school, smell weed in the school in the hallways on a daily basis. Um shoot, I had the FBI come one time and tell me that ISIS was actually recruiting out of my school. And I'm like, wait a minute, they're here? And he's like, no, no, no. He said, they're in the community, but the kids that they're that we have known we know that they've been targeting go to this school. And that's the last I heard of it. They never sent me anything or or followed up with me or whatever. I was like, well, what you know, what good did that do? But um uh but yeah, so I was but you know, it was it was really nice because um those kids when they came on campus, they were different. They they for the most part they were they were just very respectful. Um you know, it's not like I built a whole lot of great friendships or relationships there, but it's it's almost like they enjoyed not having to look over their shoulder for a strange car coming up their street. Does that make sense? Yep.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

And so when they were there they feel safe. Right. They feel like they got yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:17

Yep. And uh so uh you know, I was there and and uh and then uh my wife and I just decided, you know, that uh we talked about it and I convinced her to let me come back up to Tennessee and she would follow on.

SPEAKER_00 55:34

So how before we get to that, at the school, for you're the loan officer, was that a closed campus? Was it just one building? I mean, is there how did you keep other people that might be doing harm to those kids off of the campus as one person?

SPEAKER_01 55:50

Yep, the parking lot was open to the public. And the school though, uh, it actually it was actually pretty impressive because they built the school in in like a square. Right? There was a big courtyard in the middle, it's where most of the kids ate their lunch and that sort of thing, and at every entrance there was a big uh big uh chain link gate that we would close during the school day. Um and if somebody came they had to to ring the buzzer for the front office, and then somebody would go out and let them in through the through a through a uh a walkthrough gate. Okay. Um so it's not like anybody could just walk on campus that they that wanted to. I mean, at least you know, obviously you could go to any school in America, probably on any given day or and time and find an open window or door.

SPEAKER_00 56:47

Um but that's were you were you screening the kids at all when they were coming on? Was there because I know there's some schools in different places they gotta go through a metal detector or whatever to get onto campus. Was that ever an issue there?

SPEAKER_01 56:58

Yeah, we didn't we didn't get to that point. Okay. We didn't get to that point. And uh I think the two years I was there I had maybe two fights. Maybe. I know we had one, and it wasn't really even a bad one. But I'm telling you, it was just it was just different because they were like you said, they felt safe there, I feel like.

SPEAKER_00 57:23

Might be wrong, but um so the this the administration, the teachers in the school administration must have must have done a great job with those students as well.

SPEAKER_01 57:33

We had a really good we had a really strong team um when I was there. Uh had some good administrators, had a good principal. Um Tamika Robinson was her name, and she was just a wonderful woman. Uh I sh I served with her the longest. Um there was somebody before her that I got along with well. Um, and then uh Miss Robinson came in and and we hit it off and had a great relationship and she knew what I was there to do, and I knew that when I needed to step back and because this was a school issue, and blah, blah, blah. But yeah, we had a good uh we had a good we had a good staff.

School Policing And Gang Pressure

SPEAKER_00 58:15

So after three years, you want to go back to Tennessee?

SPEAKER_01 58:18

Yep. So I did uh convince convince Liz to go back up home and uh so we um we got her her place already and got it sold and uh bought a house in Tennessee and same place in Tennessee or where'd you go where'd you move back to? One county over. Okay. One county is uh Loudoun. Loudoun County? Yep, it's it's L-O-U-D-O-N, and a lot of people say Loudon, but it's Loudoun, Loudoun County, and uh started out with the sheriff's office. I got enticed with some things to come over to Lenore City P D. Went over there and uh, you know, worked patrol on the evening shift. Uh there was uh our canine handler took a contracting job overseas, and so I took his canine, uh, worked his dog for for a little bit of time after that. He got cancer and passed, went back on patrol. They needed somebody at the high school, and so I you know, I'd uh been in high schools before, I loved the kids, love coaching and teaching and all that stuff. And uh probably it was the fall after COVID, so the end of 2020, 2021, maybe, I can't remember. Um the criminal justice teacher came to me and said, Hey, you need to apply for my job. I said, Well, you ain't leaving, man. What's wrong with you? You know, and I mean I had I had a great gig, right? It was it was the the interactions with the kids, I was you know, it was a great gig. And uh he said, no, he said, I'm leaving. I said, Are you kidding me? He said, no, and back up to 2000, I was SR and two SRO from 2000 to 2004 in a high school, school resource officers. Yep. And my administrators down at William Blunt, where I was actually my alma mater, um, and right before I went into Young Life, they convinced me to get my vocational teaching license. And so I did then. So when this job came up, I was like, man, I love teaching, I love coaching. I went and talked to my principal. He said, Look, it's yours if you want it. And so I applied for it, I got it. He said, you know, we need to get your teaching certificate. I said, already got it. Here it is. And so, yeah, before I came here, the last four years, I was uh teaching criminal justice, um I was coaching baseball and eventually football and uh just loving life.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:04

And then why that sounds like a good gig. What things are going well in Tennessee, you got this great gig, you gotta have an opportunity to to touch on the criminal justice, you're connecting with kids in multiple different ways. Yep. What why happened? What why why Haynes? How did how did how did that top all that?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:30

Yeah, so it seems a lot to leave behind. I've always wanted to, I've always wanted to be a chief of police somewhere. Okay. It's a professional goal of mine. Um my dad brought me up here fishing. And I was to Haynes? No, it was a yeah. We went to uh I don't know, we fished the Kenai. Okay. And I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

And when was that approximately? Was that when you were growing up or usually like in high school or junior high school?

Back To Tennessee And Teaching

Student Apathy And AI Reality

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

Yeah, high school. And uh just I just uh I fell in love with it when I came up here, honestly. And I was like, man, I can't believe people get to live here, you know. Um but uh so I've always wanted to be a chief. It's a personal goal of mine, uh professional goal of mine. Um my buddy, who grad who who I went to college with and was and worked at a department with briefly early, early on, he left there, went to state troopers, and then went to the U.S. Marshals. Um he retired and came back home, and he took the criminal justice job in Knox County, which is just across. He's like, What do I do? And I so I got him set up with all of his lesson plans and this, that, and the other. And he's he goes, he called me about halfway through the second semester. He said, This is ridiculous. These kids are out of control. He said, I'm going to Alaska to be a chief of police. I said, You've lost your mind. He said, Nope. And next thing you know, he's the chief in Cordova. Seriously? Yeah. And you know, so he's so Tennessee is the pipeline for police chiefs of the state of Alaska now? Well, remind me to come back to that. Okay. To that specific point that you just made. Um, so he's up here in Cordova, and he's sending me pictures of all the snow, and he's spending me pictures during the summertime and the wildlife and all the hikes he's going on, and and I'm like, sorry, sucker, man. You know, I'm like, might be my time. And and it just so happened that at the end of year, or in the middle of year three, it seemed like the the school board, not the school board, it seemed like the state of Tennessee really started tweaking the the educational um requirements. And you know, I get where math teachers have to stay on a specific schedule and they need to teach certain lessons on certain days, you know, to be on track to to get to the to to meet the requirements. I get that. Um and of course, it's not just education. It's one of the things I've tried not to do here, but everybody when they get into a position, it's like, oh, I've got to put my touch on it. Oh, I've got to tweak it so it's mine. And everybody feels like they have to do that, it seems like. And what it was doing was causing more work for the teachers. And they were really starting to come down on vocational teachers. They would tell us on the one hand, um, y'all are here to get kids ready for industry. That's the purpose of CTC. Uh, career and technical uh college, right? No, CTC, vocational. Okay. That's what you're here to do, is to get kids ready for the industry. Okay. But you need to fill out all these lesson plans. You need to do these, uh, you need to give us a uh a calendar and what's what lessons you're going to teach on what day and you need to get this education. Um, I actually had to drop out of seminary. I was I went through the VA and started back to seminary for marriage and family counseling. And I had to drop out because I had to go back to college and take a non credit, non certifiable teacher's. Um course that made because my vocational license that I got, they now had an apprentice license. They changed it to where it's an apprentice license and a professional license. And so if you got an apprentice license, which is what mine was turned into, you had to go through a college uh uh educator prep course. And you know, the the there's a one-semester one. There was one you can you could get to them with one semester at certain colleges, but it was like$6,500. And then Knox County did a great job, they did a great thing, and they offered a uh a two-year um program that met once a month, and you did a lot of online stuff and that sort of thing. And so after year two, or actually in the middle of right before year two started, I I entered that program. And uh, but it was just it was just things like that that just felt like they just kept stacking up and stacking up and stacking up. And I'm like, I'm a cop. I'm not an educator. I didn't go to school to get my degree in education, and my mother was a teacher. There's nothing wrong with an educator, but I'm trying to get kids ready for what they're gonna see in the real world in law enforcement. I'm trying to teach them about constitutional law, about state law, about things you can and can't do. I mean, I wanted them to know everything they could because not because they needed to know if policemen were wrong. You know, uh hot topic has been, always will be Fourth Amendment illegal search and seizure, right? They need to know if that cop is violating their Fourth Amendment rights. I wanted them to know that. Um course I would try to instruct them, hey, listen, it's the side of the road's not the place to get in a fight with somebody, you know, a cop. There is a there is a venue for that. That's the court, that's the courtroom. But you know, I I'm trying to impart this knowledge to them. And uh, but yet I'm I'm having to spend every spare moment trying to develop schedules and plans and you know meet requirements and blah blah blah blah. And it just started wearing on me though. I got uh it started wearing on me, and I was just like, this is not what I got into teaching for. I realize it's part of it, but I think I'm just I think uh and then the you know too the the apathy. Uh students. I think the apathy from the students really started getting to me. Um and it hit me one day. We were in I had a criminal justice two class, and criminal justice one is basic cop stuff 101, death by PowerPoint, you know. Um, do mock trials in CJ1. But in CJ two, I do my uh crime scene investigation, I do uh uh uh psychological profiling on serial killers module, do a uh felony traffic stop module close to In high school you're doing like a profile for serial killers and stuff?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:40

Yes, dang, that would have been fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:41

Yes, I mean I had uh that would have been a fun class to take. Yeah, it was my favorite crime scene investigation and stuff and behavioral profiling, yeah. Absolutely, psychological profiling. I and because they're everybody's like because when I would give my spill to the kids that were coming up from the middle school or whatever, they're like, Oh, we could talk about serial kills. I was like, Yeah, but it's not what you think. It's it's it is um it's not like an episode of CSA. No, no, it is a uh um, but I mean I make them I make them dive into the um oh my gosh. It's the manual for psychological disorders.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:24

Uh I make them dive into that and take the clinical diagnoses that has been labeled for that serial killer and make them coordinate the the clinical diagnoses, the uh attributes and the the the um all the things that go along with that diagnosis. Um I make them relate that to their crimes. And so that way they can see, hey, this is this is what started that this was a trigger, this was the escalation point, this was uh so yeah, it's it's a lot of fun. Yeah, it sounds like it. Um we flew drones, talked about doing aerial searches with drones, we did uh close quarters battle, and and it was that day I was doing close quarters battle. I had a I had a bunch of kids, a bunch of guys in my class that I thought, you know, they're kind of they were athletes and kind of that that jock mentality. I thought these guys might do okay. And they were just shucking and jiving, and I mean I got I got pissed, I got mad, and I jumped on them. I said, look, I said, this is what I do, this is my life. And this is stuff that quite possibly, if you learn it, could save you and your family and your house. I said, if you guys just want to screw around, you need to get out of my class. And from that day on, that was in the that was in the middle of the fourth year. Um just the the the phones and the the AI and the the the uh the AI coming into the classroom. Yeah, I couldn't get a single kid to to to write something that was their own. There was a few. Take that back. There was a few. I I have I had some really good students, but for the most part, it's just like AI, copy and paste, and I would I'll be honest with you. I wasn't gonna spend my off hours after baseball practice or football practice or weekends sitting at home doing an AI check on a criminal justice, on a vocational class paper. Yeah, you know, um, it just kind of wear it, it started wearing on me.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:42

Um how do how do we overcome that in the schools? You're not the only person that's told me that the that was in education and in different levels and stuff that the apathy with the kids has been increasing over time, looking for the easiest way to do things, you know, the phones all the time, short attention spans. Got any ideas on I think we embrace it. Just just embrace it?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:08

I think we have to. Yeah, I I mean it is coming. There's nothing that can stop the the technology, the technological advances.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:20

And the thing that worries me about that with the AI is I was listening to somebody talking the other day, and and they said that when you're using AI to supplement what you know, it's one thing. But when you're using AI to do something that you don't know, because then you don't know if it's wrong.

unknown 1:13:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:39

If you've got a working idea of a concept and AI is assisting you with it, and it screws up because there none of the models are perfect out there, right? Then you can like, wait a second, this is we need to do some more on this, or do and you can fine-tune what you're looking for if you know enough of the subject matter. If you don't know the subject matter, you can get some really bad information.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:59

Yeah, 100%. I mean, you can get whatever you want off the internet through AI, whatever. I think I think on the one hand, I think we embrace the technology, and I think that we make our kids experts in its use, but somehow I think we've got to instill in them that sense of this is my product, I still need to check it. You know what I mean? Um AI has come to law enforcement. Axon has a program that will uh transcribe your entire body cam uh interaction and put it right in your report for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:54

Um online, yeah, that's when I upload these videos, it comes with a it does the transcript of the whole thing for me. Right. A lot of spelling and everything like that. There's spelling. I I tried to go and fix all the spelling on it, but I was like, yeah, I don't have that much time. I don't want to go through and do all the spell checking. So anybody that's looking at this, and I do know how to spell Hanes. A lot of times they spell it with a Y. It's just like I'm not gonna go through all of that, the whole deal. But yeah, it puts the amount of things that it comes up with. Yep, there are some really cool uses for it that save save you and your officers time because you can if it's putting that report off your body camera in there, and then you can go and check and make sure everything's correct on it. Yep, that saves you a lot of time to get you back into the field.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:41

It does, it does. And currently, I think that program is is uh it's very, very new. Not a lot of departments are using it. The ones that are using it have said that they it has decreased the officers' time on reports from you know three hours to you know an hour, 45 minutes to an hour. Now, they found out real quick that if they didn't have a system of checks and balances, that some of those reports were just so screwed up because of the transcription. Yeah. And so now they're going back and they're like, okay, we need to, okay, you can put your report in there using the axon AI, but you better go back and double check it. You gotta check it. You know, you gotta you gotta go back and double check it to make sure that it's what was what the is gonna be viewed when the body camera video is is is is looked at. Um a lot of scrutiny behind it, too. There's been a lot of uh outcry for its its um abandonment because um what are the concerns about it? The can just the fact that it's computer generated and it's not the officers' words. It's not the officer's uh input. Um they're concerned with obviously security. Uh even though police reports are public record, um they s you know there's some concern about uh personal information, that sort of thing, uh that that would be uh going into that type of program. Um but it's it's I I think it's coming, obviously it is coming and and there's nothing that we can do about it. We don't have it, I don't intend on ever bringing it implementing it until it just becomes the industry standard. Um I will probably wait until an organization like the International Association of Chiefs of Police adopts it and says, hey, this is good, we we stand behind this, you know. Um but I I don't I don't have any intent to bring it here.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:57

Um but back to the kids, I think we embrace it, but I think we also have to somehow instill the the the thought process. Uh the hey, you need to have a little bit of pride in your work. Now, now we can have the conversation about work ethic and you know, when I was young, I I walked both both ways uphill in the snow, you know. Conversation. Yeah, barefoot. Um what it, you know, work ethic for the kids. I'm not even gonna get into that. But uh, but yeah, I th I I don't I don't think that we should try to keep it out of the classroom.

Why Alaska And Why Haines

SPEAKER_00 1:18:36

So they so you're getting frustrated with teaching. You got a buddy that's police chief in Cordova. Is he the one that lets you know about the Haynes position? Or did he say, hey, there's a spot down here?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:46

He said there's a spot in Haynes that's been open for a while. There's some other as well. Um and I just I looked at the pictures of Haynes, I looked at the area, and I was just like, man, that is gorgeous.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:02

So when you when you brought this up to your wife, what was her reaction? It was like, hey, honey, we just just a few years ago we moved from Florida back to Tennessee, got everything settled down, everything's been going great. I think I think I'm gonna go to Alaska. I think I'm applying for a job in Alaska. How well'd that go over at the dinner table?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:22

She honestly said, if that's what you feel like you need to do, I'm I support you. I was ex- I was I was waiting. I was waiting. She's asking a lot. Yeah, uh, but man, what a strong woman she is. My wife is awesome, she's the best. Um, but she did. She said, she said, well, she said, if if if that's what you feel like you need to do, then go do it. And we'll figure it out. And I said, okay, so um I applied, actually, I applied at uh several different places throughout uh throughout Alaska. And uh I don't know, just my thoughts just kept coming back to Haynes for some reason.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:13

You were here what March or April last spring for the interview. For the meet and greet. Meet and greet. I think it was April, maybe. April. I was good. I was thinking when I'd asked you if you wanted to do this, I was like, man, it's about a year ago that I first met him. Yeah. And I didn't remember if it was the end of March, first part of April, but anyhow, spring, spring of 25. Yes. And then you were hired in May, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:34

Yep. Um I actually put my res I actually put my application in in January, the year before. Okay. And um I got passed over. The borough wanted to hire somebody else. Mm-hmm. Um They withdrew. I actually sent you an email when you were still on the assembly.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:01

Well, I was a mayor? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:03

Really? Yep. Through the through the the borough connect link.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:09

Yeah. Contact link. Yeah. Um did I respond? Nope. Yeah, sorry about that. It's all good.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:17

I don't remember getting the email. It's all good. Um, but the reason I tried to answer all of them. The reason I was reaching out was because I knew that that the the fellow who'd who'd withdrawn, uh, had withdrawn, and and I kept looking at articles in the paper. You know, hey, not sure what we're gonna do. Right now we don't have I can't remember the specific verbiage that was in the paper, but it's we know we don't have any applicants, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:45

And I'm like, wait, you got me. Yeah. Um I don't think I was a mayor when that happened, though. Because I think I think Heath resigned right before the end of my term. And so they hadn't started while I was still mayor.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:03

Well, your name was still on the my name was still on there? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:06

So it probably went to my email. Maybe it goes to whatever archive they've got of old emails or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:13

That's probably what it did then.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:14

So I'm just trying to think of an excuse on why I didn't respond to you. I I think I'm gonna go with that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:20

Let's go with that one. Um and I think, if I'm not mistaken, I think they selected another guy who also withdrew. And I kept calling the borough and saying, hey, you know, is my application still good? Do I need to reapply? Whatever I need to do. Because it just haynes just kept coming up in my mind. And I kept looking at it.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:44

You decided to call after the the wannabe mayor wasn't responding to it. I better make a phone call or this dude's ghosting me. What is going on? I wanted to try something different. I don't know what this guy's got against me, but is this where I want to be?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:58

Nobody answers the phone or email. Um but yeah, you know, then uh the I got the call and uh you know just went through the uh went through the application process and interview process and uh you know the borough, Alecka and and her staff and uh Mike Denker was super good to me throughout the interview process. And uh they just I guess they decided to take a chance on me. And here I am.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:32

And then you you moved to Haynes?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:35

Uh I got up here July 16th.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:37

July 16th of 25. 25. And then you started because your Tennessee, unlike Florida, Alaska wasn't gonna let your Tennessee credentials carry over, so they had to send you to the academy. That started what in October?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:53

So you go up to with Officer Max Marty.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:57

Went up to off with Max Marty, went to Fairbanks October 3rd and uh started the police academy.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:04

Spent four months in Fairbanks.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:06

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:08

Um what was that like going through the academy again? Um did you feel I guess the question is what is it easier the second time after you've got some history in law enforcement? Was there enough differences between Tennessee and Alaska or Florida and Alaska that it made it difficult in any way?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:30

It was um I was very surprised, pleasantly surprised. I I you know the Sitka Academy, that's for you, that's for a young man, young men and women. Um that would have been a real test. Uh yeah, I mean, I'm older.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:52

Is the sitka one? Is it the more of the That's the Trooper Academy. That's the Trooper Academy.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:57

Yeah, that's the Trooper Academy. That's the you know, in your face, flip over bunks and throw your stuff out the window and tell you your room's a mess, get it fixed. I mean, that's uh that's that kind of that academy.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:10

It's more of the boot camp type academy.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:12

Yeah. And uh actually they've got a really high, really high injury rate as well. Yeah. Um sorry, AST. It may not be a high injury rate, but just hear a lot about injuries that occur there. So I don't know what the rate is. Let me quantify that. Um anyway, we get to we get to Fairbanks and Who runs the academy in Fairbanks then? That would be uh Kelly Copeland.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:38

Okay. He is a uh he is the Is that a private institution then, or is this a it's through the University of Alaska Fairbanks?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:44

University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is part of their CTC staff. He answers to the University of Alaska Fairbanks. That program actually was they all they were almost ready to discontinue that entire program. I don't know if it was budgetary, I don't know if it was staffing, I don't know if it was curriculum, don't know. Let's just suffice it to say that they were uh they were getting ready to close the program now. They brought Kelly Copeland in, who had been a uh he had been a police officer, SWAT officer, canine officer in San Diego uh for years, and uh worked in Daytona Beach for a little while. And just him and his wife just decided that they wanted to come to Alaska. They did. He worked uh for Fairbanks PD, um and then moved into the director's job. His wife is uh is a police officer up there as well. Um, but just he brought a whole new standard to the academy. Um he's very demanding, he's very um detail-oriented, very uh very up on his training and techniques. Um I I told Will in the uh newspaper article, you know, one of the biggest things that he harped on was officer wellness, officer safety, um being very lethal when you have to, but being able to come off of that and de-escalate whenever given the chance. Um but just a super super guy. So going into the academy, he was pretty hard on all of us. Um we uh he divided us up into squads, and there was like five of us that were probably forty and over. And he put us in the C squad, and that became known as uh um we called it the Crip Squad. The Crip Squad. Crip Squad. Yeah. Short for crippled squad. Yep. Yep. And and so, you know, it was it was not uncommon for, you know, two or three days, two or three times a day for about the first three or four weeks. Downstairs with your sandbags now. Oh my gosh. So we have to go, we have to grab these 40-pound Go Ruck sandbags. We have to run downstairs, get information, drop them, push-ups in the snow, in the wet, you know, dragging these things across the gym, doing PT with them and just wearing us out really. And then he came, he, you know, we had, you know, we had a really good class. We had a really good class and and at the end of it, Director Copeland told us that he said, you guys, and especially Charlie Squad, made this class not only enjoyable, but really valuable. Because we had a lot of, we had, we didn't really have any of the 21-year-old, you know, young guns that were that were just you know just crazy. Right. We had some good, we had some good, good, solid people in our class. Probably the average age was honestly probably around 2930. Okay. So some life experience, you know what I'm saying? So after he kind of realized that we weren't the the crazy foot loose 21 year old crew, you know, class, that we had some maturity to us, and that we had some response, you know, accountability to us, he kind of started coming off of that a little bit. And eventually he just, you know, I suffered a hand injury, my my hand went numb. I had to have the carpal tunnel surgery when I was up there. Another girl she uh got pneumonia and broke a rib. Another guy broke a rib uh this is all during defensive tactics.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:24

Um another guy busted his foot up this is all in crippled squad.

The Tennessee To Alaska Pipeline

SPEAKER_01 1:30:31

So you you're talking about a lot of injuries at AST Academy it sounds like well that's not really for you right you're probably not going to have 45 and 50 45 year old this is all the C squad that was having all the C squad yes yes so imagine what the injury rate would have been if we had been down there with the with those guys I'll still be in the hospital probably wouldn't yes um but we he's he really he really worked with us. Now I mean if one of like the guy that got injured with the rib thing he had never been to an academy is new in law enforcement I mean he actually called his department said if it's up to me I'm sending him home okay but I will you know I wanted to talk with you first he's very reasonable and uh let's make a decision together and they said we love this guy he's a good guy he can do the job this was just unfortunate he said okay I'll keep it which I mean to me showed a lot of a lot of character that he was willing to um be flexible in his own with his own standards but he didn't ever not uphold the standards you know what I mean um and then as the academy went on the the old us older folks we really started playing a big part in the training because we were playing the bad guys for the young kids we were playing the uh scenario the people in the scenarios for the young kids we were the ones that were trying to help mentor through uh different things for the kids so it was just a really good um mix you know and uh so that part of it the relationship part of it was just really really really cool um now the Alaska state law stuff and the constitutional law stuff might be the most messed up thing I've ever seen uh it's Alaska law is what it is and that's fine but there's just a lot of the stuff that was just like are you kidding me you know um you know there's no there's no alcohol charges you know guy's walking down the middle of the street and he's intoxicated hey buddy get over on the sidewalk you know um you know nobody's around if you you know and you stop him get it there's really not a charge for it yeah is you know the the the district attorney's office won't prosecute an assault because he didn't really ever hit you yeah but the and then there's the you know he's not really disorderly conduct because nobody's around to see it you know to make it disorderly it's it's just there's just some really weird nuances in the Alaska state law that uh took me quite a while to kind of get a grip. Yes yeah so that was that was probably academically that was the hardest thing for me was just getting my mind wrapped around the difference between you know theft theft one and theft five you know in Tennessee it was zero dollars to nine hundred and nin doll it was a misdemeanor yeah if it's a thousand dollars or more it's a felony that's it you know felony theft misdemeanor theft but Alaska's got five different ones you know and it's just it's just weird you know it's just different so that was tough.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:22

So you'd mentioned earlier we're gonna get back to this about the Tennessee to Alaska pipeline. Is this a good time to hit that absolutely can we take a break? We can take a break right so let's get back to this Tennessee to Alaska police pipeline here.

Vision For Haines Police Department

Reports, Policies, And Drug Intelligence

SPEAKER_01 1:34:37

Tennessee Alaska police pipeline what's this all about um so I get to the academy right and Doug there was a there was this big tall six foot seven six foot eight a mountain of a man that walked into the uh classroom and uh no big deal right I mean I but we go up and and we come we come together and and I introduce myself I said hey I'm Jimmy Oakham and he said hey I'm Mike Hall and where you from you know we we we got it you can hear the hearing and I said he he said uh he said uh where you from I said I'm from Loudoun Tennessee he goes he said man come on he said dude I'm from Cleveland Tennessee part of those so it's like a one county in between in between one county in between it takes us like it takes like 35 40 minutes to get to one another and you're both in the police academy we both policed in those counties in those counties never knew each other never knew each other ever and you end up at the same police academy in Fairbanks Alaska he is the he's the new chief of police in Sitka okay and I'm the new chief here we end up at the same police academy in Alaska and at the end of week one there was there was something going on I can't remember what it was Mike said something and I finished it or I said something he finished it and one of the kids in the class I say kids you know they they're not kids but one of the kids in the class like oh yeah that's easy for y'all to say you know y'all be able to finish each other's sentences or talk or talk like each other or think like each other or whatever because y'all you know y'all known each other forever and we said no we said we have never met and they said are you kidding me I mean it was just it was such a strong bond that that we were it it was like you you've met people I'm sure that you just were like we've been friends our whole lives yeah and that's the way it was with Mike and I while we were there and so that was that was pretty you know Kelly Director Copeland Kelly Copeland he uh he had a big time with that I mean golly that he would he would fuss at us and get mad at us and he'd tell us I can't understand a thing y'all are saying so just shut up and get out of my face you know we and it was just it was a good time it was a good time and having him there uh was was really nice you know you kind of felt that old home connection and but it's weird because like I said I mean there's one county in between us and uh we policed down there together for years and years and years never knew each other. Wow yeah so small world it is you never know when you're gonna run across somebody and you know that law enforcement community up here in Alaska is even is what we're what we found out real quick is is is even smaller than it is back home you know um even though the state is so big the law enforcement community is really really small here yeah so but that's that that's that Tennessee Alaska law enforcement connection now you've you've you've been through the academy back in Haynes for about a month now a little over a month yeah what is your what is your vision of the Haynes police department your role as chief what you want your officer to do you're still short an officer you're looking for another one to come on but what is your what do you see as the police department's role in the community how they interact with the community what what's that look like so one of the things I talked about in the interview process that I still still firmly believe in to this day is transparency um and the the uh implementation of the body cameras is goes a long way for that uh I want the you know I want to make sure that everybody that we deal with knows unless something malfunctions right that interaction is going to be on body camera and they're gonna be responsible for that conversation as well as the officers going to be responsible for what they do and say um I feel like that that is that is the only way and I am so thankful for the body cams and Sergeant Juicy Sergeant Juicy Max Juicy man what a thoroughbred you know I mean he has kept the department running for a long time and he uh he is so knowledgeable and he makes such good decisions and very very um uh forward thinking and he saw this whole body cam thing coming uh I think even uh uh Mike Fullerton was involved in the in the process to get that started uh both great guys and just the fact that they were able to get that going uh speaks volumes for them because that is a huge part of uh the accountability that we need to have as officers um the guys always talk to me about social currency and I think that that is a I think that that is a very important part of of being a police in a community like Haynes. It's it's so small that I don't feel like that there's any reason why we shouldn't ever be able to have some sort of conversation with somebody that's at least not on some sort of personal level. And for us to implement uh policies and procedures that that just you know sound like just a fax ma'am uh I I don't think that that should be a part of our pro or of our uh demeanor or or anything like that. The I do think that um I do feel like I um I'm doing some good things in bringing some of a some things like a you know of a larger department into our department here. Such as um the it's more more little internal things um like uh you know our reports our report writing I think I can I've contributed a great deal to um how we do our reports and what we say in our reports um as far as it was relates to courtroom testimony. Okay. I've got a lot of experience testifying in court um and so uh just a small example the other day is um there was a there was a uh a vehicle incident I don't remember what it was but there was no disposition in the comment line for the for the vehicle and and I asked I said what happened to the vehicle and they said it was they at the owner's request it was left where it was where it was I said okay that's fine and it probably says it on the body camera but I can promise you that a defense attorney is going to see that there's no disposition for a vehicle and they're gonna ask about it. And it may be a drop in the bucket in the overall case but that's just one more thing that they have to to pick at and will because I had a guy get burned on that back home. I mean I wouldn't mention it to you if I hadn't seen it right I'm not just making stuff up I feel like I'm bringing that uh a little bit kind of just tightening the screws a little bit in in our in our report writing in our patrol procedures uh sergeant juicy and I are um trying to figure out the best way to uh get a get our evidence room uh up to speed get our uh policy and procedure up to speed uh there's nothing wrong with our policy and procedure right now um Chief Scott uh approved those in 2019 and they're still uh as far as we can tell they are still applicable and valid even today but I would like to do a more in-depth review um now that I'm back um to see if there's anything that we might need to tweak or if you know some situations have changed that we need to tweak something. We need to get the policy I'd like to do the policy and procedure review. And then uh you know we've uh unfortunately just not had the manpower especially if we can get this this uh fifth officer hired um I would like to really start putting in some work on uh the narcotics traffic and the narcotics use here in town um we are it's been it's been explained to me that we are an inline user uh because it's not like you know in Knoxville right Knoxville Tennessee you've got I-75 running through Knoxville north and south you got I-40 running east and west you got 24 going to Chattanooga I mean you know it's it's a very active spot for transportate transporting narcotics um this is more kind of an end the line end of line use uh scenario um but it's still here and I have uh I've been talking to our sister cities and and communities in the Southeast and other chiefs other um specialized units about how we can get better intelligence coming in to Haynes uh better you know even if it's just a heads up hey you might want to be looking for this car this boat this person this plane whatever it is just develop just establishing those research re um resources those partnerships um so that we can then begin to really look into uh putting a dent in it you know the in the in the uh the narcotics coming into into the to the burrow and and the use um you're never gonna be able to get rid of all of it just not gonna happen um you know if somebody's buried in a concrete six by six form if they want to get out they're gonna get out um but we we need to do our part and and be vigilant in um trying to to to lessen that threat um and then also been talking about the uh uh talking with some folks about the uh uh human trafficking um picture in the southeast and I was saying I'm not even gonna play I'm not even gonna say the problem because I don't even know if it is a problem around here trying to figure out but looking into human trafficking in the southeast also looking into uh um the uh no human trafficking yeah so narcotics human trafficking um starting to develop a lot of good contacts to uh to help that get that intelligence passed back and forth so what do you see as uh with Haynes' location small force relatively small community what are the challenges for the department that are different from what it would be in Tennessee as far as narcotics wise just department wise in general just just in general that what are what are some of the things you've you haven't you haven't even been here it's over six months but four months of that when you were in in Fairbanks so just in your time here it's probably not the complete picture that you'd like you'd have in another year but right what are some of the things you're like man I got to figure out a solution to this um I've got to figure out a solution to uh first of all I would like to I would like to begin updating our our uh electronics our communications um maybe even our CAD RMS system that the dispatchers use and that sort of thing um it to me my my lead dispatcher she loves it loves it absolutely loves the system that we have to me it feels very um user unfriendly so is there some more is is there some tech out there that we can bring into the department that might bring us up to the departments that I've worked in in the past right so I I feel like we're we're behind a little bit in that um that obviously boils down to a financial issue um budgeting and all that kind of stuff and that's up to me to to manipulate that budget to where we get the things that we need um so I'm figuring that out um just the you know the low call volume is just I I catch myself thinking what are they doing why are they just sitting there what are the what are you know why are they why are they coming back to the office you know it was I'm not used to I'm used to coming in for a 15 minute roll call briefing giving a giving a roll call briefing and then you know we hit the road right we go work traffic we follow up on cases we do some interdiction we run warrants and chase uh fugitives um there's just not that much here and that's a good problem to have yeah right I mean I heard though that I heard that was it you or was it uh Officer Marty that uh got gave the mayor a ticket going out of the public safety building uh but that was not me that wasn't you that was not me as I put it in his mayor's report that uh be we on the lookout when we were getting close to the fall he got he got nailed without I forget what it was wrong to didn't use a turn signal or something on that and I was like I appreciate the warning because I can guarantee you I

SPEAKER_00 1:50:00

I know I'm and I'm probably not the only one. I'm glad I read that in the mayor's report because I know that my adherence to traffic laws had diminished over the last year and a half when there's only two officers because the chance of you getting caught was really, really low.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:17

And so I've tried to step up my game and get a little bit closer to compliance on there since I saw that.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:21

So yeah, and and you know what? Uh I gotta give you props. Yeah, absolutely. Well, to the mayor. You know what? As far as I know, it didn't sound he didn't complain about it. He never said a word to anybody. Yeah. Never said a word to anybody.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:40

And and you know, it's not like that back. I mean, that's a lot of people like you know who I am. Mm-hmm. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:48

Yeah, yeah. And no, you just take if you you're wrong, take the hit, move on. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:55

And so, you know, kudos to him.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:57

Yeah. No, I thought read reading it in the police report, I thought the way that he worded it, or not the police report, in the mayor's report for that meeting, the way he worded it and everything, I thought I thought it was a good public service to the community, but also it was kind of a nod that, hey, these guys are out there doing their job, and you guys didn't. I thought I thought he handled it very well.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:16

Yep. So and I'll tell you the the the the thing that really makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:19

And I thought that was good that you've got an officer that's brand new and sees the mayor and is like, here's your ticket. I think it sends good, I think that sends a good message to the community as well that I'm not playing favorites. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:37

And and and to be fair, I think it was Officer Marty that that noticed the violation. Uh-huh. It's actually Officer Russell. Oh, he's with Russell because he's still doing the field training. Field training.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:49

Um, it was actually Officer Russell that wrote the citation. Okay. And the thing that excites me about that is knowing that I'm gonna add because Travis is a go-getter.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:59

He isn't he is an absolute go-getter, and uh he he will not leave uh uh I undotted or a T uncrossed. And Max is super, super smart guys, young guy. Uh he's energetic, he's he he really enjoys this job. Um and he's extremely coachable. And so knowing that I'm gonna have those two guys on evening shift is uh makes me feel really much, much more comfortable. Um and so, you know, then we got Sarn Juicy and I that work the day shift together, and I can't say enough good about Sarn Juicy, um, but having him there with me during the day is a very is a huge comfort because man, I'm I'm going into him at least once or twice a day saying, Teach me how to do this. I forgot how to, I know, I don't know how to do this. How would you guys do it now? You know, uh just a wealth of knowledge for me. So I'm extremely blessed that that he's there for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:04

I was I was really impressed with both of those guys for the amount of time it was just the two officers. And it got it got to be this winner when I'd see the one of them was like, okay, what's the countdown until those two get out of the cabin? And they usually this many days. The closer we got, the more excited they were that it wasn't gonna just be the two of them yard. Yeah and then there's still the field officer training and stuff like that. So it's not they're not you guys aren't fully on your own and on in that aspect yet. So I know they're still waiting for that next step and even getting that fifth officer, but getting you guys back out of Fairbanks and just having more people in the building and everything, I know it was a big boost to both of those. I my personal opinion, the community owes both of them a huge thank you for the way that they handled that under adverse conditions for as long as they did with the amount of call out time they were getting and stuff. Um they they did a great job.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:58

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's I I I not even looked because I'm not even sure I want to know, but now I didn't even look to see from January of 2025 until the present or until February 1st when we got back, I hate I would hate to even see the amount of overtime, the amount of hours that they put in for that. I mean, a normal year is 2,080 hours. I can promise you, it was they didn't put in 2080 hours.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:29

Oh, they were way over that.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:30

That was way over that.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:31

Way over that. And for them to for them to still be willing to come in every single day and perform the job in the professional manner that they do, um, it's just and and and and along with that is just when you would when you would see them and engage with them, they still had a s they still had a smile on their face. They're still going a lot of people get really disgruntled during that period, and and maybe at home they were had a punching bag, they're beating up. I can't believe I'm doing this crap under nobody here. Right. But the the comments from them and everything is like, yeah, we're gonna get through this, we're gonna get through this. And just that really positive attitude um was was great to see that we're we're lucky to have both of those officers here.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:16

And and I mean every time when I was up, you know, every time when I was up in Fairbanks and I would I would talk with Aleca, even she was like, you know, we need to we need to make sure we're taking care of them. We need to we need to when we can, we need to make sure that we do everything that we can to to help them kind of refill their tanks. So I mean even even the borough staff was was really super I mean and and you you know like you and others in the community, the community was worried about them as well. And just what a just made me made me feel good that even though I'm me and Officer Marty were up there and they're still down here just grinding, you know, that the community was going to look after them. And they and and they did, they did, just like you said, they always maintained a positive attitude. Um Will from the paper asked me if if I was being briefed on what was going on while I was up there and I said, Man, Sergeant Juicy just I mean, if he needed to call me, he would. He knew what I needed to hear and what I didn't need to hear. He'd done this himself. Been the acting chief for how long? And he knew what I needed to hear and what I didn't, and he would tell me what was going on, what he was gonna do about it. Who I'm not even there. Why would I second guess him? You know? I mean, you know, for me to tell him what he ought to be doing here when I'm what is it, 700 miles away? Roughly um that would be crazy. Especially with a seasoned officer like him. You know, him and Travis, they knew what they were doing, and and like you said, they just they brought a smile into the office almost every day and maintained a good attitude. I never heard any I never got any complaints about them being grumpy or whatever. And man, they just they just trooper troopered through it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:12

But and it and it goes beyond that too, because as we're talking about this, they're I think they're fully staffed now at the dispatcher's office, or they might be down one, but there's a time we're down to two dispatchers there too for a little for a while. Yeah, and you know Jane and Linda they they bucked up and did the same thing. There's some core groups in those in that department in that building over there. Yeah, you look at the EMT, the whole thing, that uh it's really cool to see their dedication to the job on that core group and how how they keep everything going over there.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:45

For sure. You know, we we talked about the dispatch thing. Um Jane and I were talking about it one day and uh talking about that can-do attitude, you know, with Travis and and Max. We were talking about it, and and James was like, look, she said, it is what it is. If we if we lose a dispatcher, or if we lose three dispatchers or two dis, she said, we'll handle it. We'll handle it. We just just like we always have, we'll handle it.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:14

And I'm like, you know, okay. Yeah. I hope that that happened, but that that's not that's not as much, that's not a very common thought process as much anymore. Right. And it's really cool when you see that that yeah, it's gonna suck, but we're we're gonna make it work.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:30

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:30

We're gonna yeah, whatever comes, let us have it.

Staffing, Dispatch, And Community Trust

SPEAKER_01 1:58:34

Both sides of the fence, dispatch and patrol. That's that was their attitude. Yep. We're gonna handle it. It just makes my job a whole lot easier, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:46

So is your wife staying in Tennessee? Is she coming up here?

SPEAKER_01 1:58:52

She she's in Tennessee. She's still in a she's she is finishing up, she's I think she's on the last little bit of a of a contract that she signed with the uh hospital that she works for. Um she's uh advanced EMT, a BSN RN. She's got her degree in in nursing. Um she's going on year three now. Um so I'm going back to Tennessee right around the first of May because I want to see my son. Uh my youngest son is still there. Um I'm gonna see him, watch some of his soccer games and stuff. He's 17. 17, okay. And uh, and then um, but also some of my kids that I coached and taught are graduating. Oh, cool. Yeah, so I'm gonna go back and and watch them graduate and and love on them a little bit and uh catch up with them. And then I think she's coming back up here with me.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:59

Um Did you have to promise that all the snow we've been getting is gonna be gone before you have you been telling her about that? She's like, you need to make sure that's gone before I'm gonna come visit come up to Haynes. That'd be a smart if she's listening before she's coming, that'd be a smart request to make because it comes up here. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:15

I will uh I will check, I'm going to check the forecast, make sure we don't get hit with nothing late, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:00:23

That's snow coming off of the room.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:25

Oh, because we can we can push it off if we need to. Um but after that I think she's gonna take uh a week or two vacation, come up here and uh hang out with me. She's been researching the uh the nursing opportunities up here. Um hadn't been real profitable as far as finding positions. I'm not sure if we just haven't plugged in right, or she she is, like I said, she's not she's finishing up with a contract now, so it's you know, she doesn't want to really um after this contract's over, she she doesn't have another contract, right? So I think after she gets freed up from it and she can actually focus on am I staying here, am I you know going, whatever. So, you know, she hadn't really found a whole lot of opportunity up here yet as an RN. Um but then she also is thinking about doing the travel thing. She doesn't do real well with cold weather, um, but being from South Florida, I'll go I'll gonna say if she if she grew up in South Florida, I would not think she's gonna like the snow. She she's never she's never ever really learned how to layer and and and make the clothing work for you. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 2:01:50

And there's a part of me that wishes I never had to learn how to layer either. I mean, I like being outside and everything, but there's times in my life I've thought I was like, man, what if I never had to learn how to do this? I wouldn't have to I wouldn't have to worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:04

Yeah, there might have been a better scenario. Yeah, and see, I'm sitting here going, I love it, bring it, bring it, bring the cold, bring the snow. Um, but uh, you know, I think once she's she understands, because I said South Florida, she just yeah, one layer of clothes and that was it. And uh, I think once she understands that you know, you buy the right stuff, you layer it the right way, the cold is not really cold. It's not a factor. It's not a factor. Um, but she's thinking about doing travel um so that she can maybe come up here and do summer, spring, summers, even falls with me up here. Um her her family is still down in South Florida, and so she may do winters, you know, do a uh one or two winter contracts down there so she can still see her family. She's the brains in the family, isn't she? She is 100%.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:03

Come up to Alaska in the summertime and South Florida in the wintertime. Absolutely. She is definitely the smart one in the world.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:08

I definitely I definitely married out of my league. Yeah, good job. I definitely married out of my league. Um so you know, that's a possibility as well. And you know, I mean, we're not we're not spring chickens. So, you know, it's we don't have this 19, 20-year-old lovey-dovey, oh, we've got to be together. I miss her terribly. I mean, it I it it hurts every day when I when I'm not with her. But if we need to spend, you know, two or three months apart or four months apart while she does her contract there, it gives her a chance to see her family. Her dad's getting older, you know. Um not sure how long they're gonna have him. Um but to that would be a blessing to know that she got to spend some time with him down there, and you know, the travel thing may work out. So we'll see how it ends up.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:58

So going back to the law enforcement as we're talking about that thought hit me that earlier you talked about uh young life and the ministry aspect of that. How do you see your faith in law enforcement? Is there is there a blend between those two? Is there uh is there not? And those are two separate parts of your life, or how how do you intertwine those?

SPEAKER_01 2:04:22

No, the best thing I ever did was bring faith back into my profession. Uh that's the reason my first marriage failed. I got to be a very not a not very nice person to be around. Um I was in a really black place. And um that was my fault. Um fortunately God got back hold of me. Brought me out of that. Um and the older that I've gotten the more I want to bring my faith into the profession instead of trying to separate the two because my job is to enforce the law, right? But I feel like it's my job to love on people. I feel like it's my job to at least let somebody know that they're cared for, that they're loved and they and that they mean something, that they matter.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:55

And I've got to imagine that in a way that's also hard because a lot of times your interactions with somebody is when they're at a very low. So it's their worst. It's at one of their worst moments, yeah, but that's also when they need the most loving. Yep. So but trying to be the gotta take you to jail, I gotta charge you with this, not everybody's seeing that as a loving, but it it can be as well. You're trying you you're trying to help them, and and so it's I think that's a tough one.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:28

I think that balance has come only because of my age. I'm getting older and a little bit wiser, you know, not much, but um I think what I've figured out is that there's a time and place. Um hey, this is what's fixing to happen. You know, screw you, no, it ain't. Okay, you know, let's go. That's not the time, right? Yeah. But once they're safe, once I'm safe, man, what's going on with you? They talk to me. They may want to talk to me, they may not. And I think that's I think that's where that comes in, is is uh, you know, I'm not standing out in front of the police department trying to proselytize and and not holding up the sign, the end is near, you know, uh receive Jesus now, you know, uh, but I do feel like it's my job to to um try to. I guess what I want is I guess somebody I guess I want somebody to ask me that qu or to to say to themselves, I want what he has. I want to to to give somebody that smile, that that that side hug, that hey, I love you, whatever it is, because I want them to say, I want what he's got. Because if I can, if they can, if if they say that to themselves, that gives me the chance to tell them what I've got, which is Christ.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:23

And so a lot of that you're hoping it just comes across by the way you carry yourself, that the way you're dealing with them, deal with them in a respectful, yeah, kind manner, even though it's a really difficult part. I I didn't expect that you were out reading Bible verses to people when they're in the back of the squad car or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:41

But yeah, it it is one of those that when I when I see people that have a tremendous amount of faith, and that was one of the first when I first met you at the open house our conversation, you could tell that you're a person of very deep faith. Yes. And it it it imp it impresses me and amazes me with that faith when you're but that but that's also kind of what the scriptures say, you know, you're you're going to the people that are the sinners, and you're trying to show them God's love and and and that aspect of it. Um, but man, it's got to be challenging at times too.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:18

It is.

SPEAKER_00 2:09:19

Because you're good, like you were saying back in Tennessee, you got a lot of repeat defenders, you got a lot of repeat customers back there, and trying to figure out how where where is it at what point that I how do I reach this person to help them through this to get to a better place.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:39

I can I can I can do things and I can say things. And if they're ready to hear it, we can have that conversation. Right? My daddy told me, you know, you could you could outpreach Billy Graham. And if somebody's not ready to hear your message, they're not gonna hear it. But what I can do is I can leave a memory, right, by not treating somebody like trash, by not um cussing them up one side and down the other. Although I mean I'm a sinner, and I I have to ask for forgiveness every single day. Every single day. Um but uh I learned a l I learned, gosh, Doug, I was 53-ish, and I finally learned what grace was. I finally had something happen to me in my life, and I learned what Grace was. And without going into the whole story.

SPEAKER_00 2:11:01

Did you feel that immediately? Or was it something that later when when that when you felt that grace when you first went in? Was that something that just hit you?

Faith, Policing, And Understanding Grace

SPEAKER_01 2:11:09

Oh, like a truck. I mean, yeah. Listen, bro, I'd been raised in the church, right? I mean, I got saved when I was nine. My mom and dad had me in church all the time. We had a great youth group, blah, blah, blah, you know. And I didn't know what grace was. And and I'll tell you without going into the whole story, because we'd probably be here for another three hours. But um, I had a guy, I had one of my bosses, say, I know what you did. This is not this is not quotes, but I know what you did, and I'll never forget it. Say that to you? Yeah. I had I had uh I had I'd lied to him. I lied to him about something. I can't remember what it was. And when it came out of my mouth, I was like, you better fix that. And immediately I corrected it. And he went off on me.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:23

Just ah you lied.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:30

And I was just like, this is crazy, right? Anyway, three years later, I said I got passed over for a promotion or something. And I called him. I said, hey, you know, whatever you decided, that's your choice. Right? Um I just need to know what I need what I need to do to make up for this. You know, I need or to line myself up for this job or this promotion, whatever it was. I need to know what I need to do. I'm not arguing about your choice. That's your decision. He said, three years. Three years later. He said, you lied to me, and I'm never gonna forget it. I said, okay, thank you, sir. I appreciate it. I hung up. I was sitting out on my screen and board. I just cried. I cried for two hours. I wasn't angry at him. I was still angry that it came out, even though I corrected it immediately. I came out, and I was still mad at myself for that. There was no point in it. But I cried and I cried and I cried just because it hit me that I was never gonna hear my God say that to me.

SPEAKER_00 2:13:56

And you did it to yourself.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:58

I did it to myself. But I was never gonna hear God say to me, I'm never gonna forgive you for that. Just I was like, that what happened with me and him has nothing to do with this. What have what this has to do with is that this is grace, and I don't deserve it, but God gives that to me. So why, when I'm doing this job, when I have a chance to show somebody grace, why do I not do that? What makes me I have no right. And I'm sure I've offended somebody in this town. I'm sure somebody has heard me get mad and maybe throw out some swear words, whatever. If I have done that and it is it has caused you to stumble in your faith, I apologize. I do. Please forgive me. But there's no reason why in my job I shouldn't try to show grace at every opportunity. And again, it's timing. In the middle of the fight's probably not the time, but there's no reason why that person it's still a person. That's still one of God's children. It's harder sometimes with others, but you know, that's that's just kind of where my faith comes in in this job.

SPEAKER_02 2:15:24

That was big for you. That was big for you.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:28

Huge.

SPEAKER_02 2:15:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:29

I mean, I'm a church kid. Mm-hmm. You'd think at 52 years old I knew what grace was. Right? We talk about it all the time. We think about it. I have no idea why it hit me that way, but it did. I mean, it hit me dead square in the face. This is what grace is.

SPEAKER_00 2:15:55

Looking back, it's it's I don't know if it's because I'm not very self-aware, but looking back and seeing different things that have happened through life. And it's like, oh now I understand why I knew that person for this period of time. Or now I you know, there's kind of for the longest time just not knowing purpose or anything like that, and you know, having a lot of friends talk about God guiding them and God's guiding their life. And like Yeah, I don't never never really felt that. Yeah. But then when it did happen, it's like, okay, this is this is so this is something. And then the just laying awake at night day after day after that, and just all this stream of conscience coming through, and it's kind of like this somebody took this highlighter through my life and put all these things together, right? And I'm like, wow, there's quite the connection through there.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:16:56

And you I mean, I could talk, I could go from when I was like 10 to that moment, yeah. And all these things that I think were connecting. A lot of people say, Oh, that's just coincidence.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:17:08

Maybe it was. But I I I don't think that it was coincidence that shortly after that moment all of these things came and just kind of just every single night, just rolling, rolling, rolling through this chronology of people saying things being in these certain places and all these experiences like wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:30

Yeah. And you know, it's it's and I think I think one of the biggest things that kept me from understanding that grace was it took me a long time to figure out what my purpose was. Right? I mean, is that not the question we always ask ourselves?

SPEAKER_00 2:17:57

I'm still trying to figure out my purpose.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:58

What's my purpose? What am I supposed to be on? What's God's will for me? And this uh a very smart old man told me one time, we were talking about this. I was like, I just can't believe I don't know what my purpose is and what's God's will for my life. And he said, You're thick-headed, ain't you? I said, what? He said, he said, you're not real smart. I said, I said, thanks. What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 2:18:32

He said I thought I was, but apparently not.

SPEAKER_01 2:18:35

I'm educated, I went to college. He said, what's wrong with all that stuff that you just told me? I didn't know searching for God's will for me is wrong, right? You know? Yeah. He said, uh, think about what you said. I'm thinking, I'm thinking. I said, I I couldn't get it. I wasn't figuring it out. I was thick-headed. Yeah. Um he said, everything that you just talked about is I, I, I, and me, me, me. I said, Well, what am I supposed to be asking? He said, that's the question. He said, how about this? He said, Do you believe God's in control? I said, yes, sir. He said, Do you think that he works all things together for you know his good? Yes, sir. You think that he's he knows exactly what he's doing? I said, yes, sir. He said, why don't you get up in the morning and look around and see what he's doing around you and how you might be able to help him? Because it ain't you. Let me tell you something. He's good enough that he can fix, he can, he can make a uh, he can straighten out the messes you make, right? And I was like, what there's you know, what is God doing around me that he wants me to take place, you know, take part in. You know, is it is it that person I can give a hug to, or I can give a hello to, or hey, hey Doug, love you today, you know. Uh, you know, that's the question that we should be asking. But I can't explain that to somebody if I don't know, if I don't know what grace is.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:30

Right? If I don't know what grace is, that that type of love means nothing to you. If I can't explain that as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:20:41

And man, when I heard that guy say that. That's a good way of putting that. I haven't heard that before in that way.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:52

Waiting off that phone. Yeah. Been in church all my life. Even been a even been a uh a youth minister and didn't know what grace was.

SPEAKER_00 2:21:07

And not necessarily with grace, but when you're talking about being in church and being a youth minister all your life and you didn't know that. One of the people that I had a conversation recently with Marty, and she was talking about, you know, you can hear a message, but you don't always hear it until you're ready.

SPEAKER_01 2:21:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:21:25

There's a time in your life when you're prepared to hear that message and can actually do something with it. You heard that message numerous times before that.

unknown 2:21:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 2:21:33

That's the first time it sunk in, and there's a reason that that was the first time it sunk in.

SPEAKER_01 2:21:38

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 2:21:38

And I know with me, there's a lot of messages I heard when I was younger that didn't really resonate with me at all. Yep. But later in life, that same thing. That's that's that connection that you were talking about. Yeah, and there and the times like, and then you say a number of people are like, yeah, I've been telling you that for the last 20 years. Like, right, you know, that we got a thick skull too. Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:01

Sometimes it takes a lot of a lot of times before it seeps through there. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think that just back to the original question. I I just think that it's when when the time is right, I'm safe, they're safe. I have got no excuse. Um, even though I fail at it every day, I've got no excuse but to try to do something. Do, not say, because nobody really cares how much you know. They want to know how much you care.

SPEAKER_00 2:22:41

And and I'm gonna push back on you on this.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:22:44

You just said that every day you fail. But it goes back to what we were just saying that we're not always in a position to hear the message. You're delivering a message, whether it's through deeds or actions, because the other person doesn't receive it. I don't think that's a failure on you. They're not that thought about that way. They're they're not ready just because they might not be ready to receive it, because you don't know that in 30 days, in three years, five years, something else adds to that and it comes through, you don't know what that long-term consequence is going to be because it's not right in front of you.

SPEAKER_01 2:23:23

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 2:23:24

But that doesn't mean that you failed in that moment because you did what your heart was telling you to do in that moment to show them that kindness, to show them that. And even though they're not able to receive it in that moment or show that they received it, right, doesn't mean that it wasn't successful at some point.

SPEAKER_01 2:23:43

That's true. I've not thought about it that way. I really haven't.

SPEAKER_00 2:23:47

I wouldn't have thought of that until some of the conversation about having since doing this podcast, and people throwing different thought processes at me. It's it's it's open. It's I had my reasons for doing this, but the one that has been the most impactful is the things that I've learned off of this. Is not what I I knew I'd learned some stuff.

SPEAKER_01 2:24:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:24:06

But there's a lot of things that on the way people think and about different situations, and it's and it's like, wow. I I'm learning so much from each person that I'm talking to, right? And the way they handle different situations, they wait, they just like this is my life. I'm gonna live my life. Because I've for me so much has been trying to be in control all the time. It's like I gotta control my emotions, I gotta control this. I don't, I it and and being uncomfortable at church sometimes because I know the sins that I have. It's like, man, I lightning bolt come down and strike me as soon as I go through those doors.

SPEAKER_03 2:24:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:24:41

Because you're you're being judged by other sinners, the people that in the church, they're all sinners just like you. Yeah, but it's God that has the grace that's gonna forgive us, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:24:52

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 2:24:52

But that's hard, that's hard to wrap your head around sometimes. It is, and that and that's because we're being judged by the people around us right now, and they're hold a lot of times they can hold you to really high standards. I hold myself to a really high standard, yeah. But somebody else is forgiven all of that. Yeah, and that's so that's the only judge that matters, and and and it's and it's gone, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:25:13

It's as far as the East is from the West, as far as he's concerned. But we we have a tendency to I remember what you did, Doug Alderood, you know. You know, I knew that to myself. I know what I did, right? That's worse than anybody else knowing. Yeah, and and and this is where too I've kind of you know I I still believe in church. I feel like in in the book of Acts lays the fellowship that's needed out pretty well for us, you know. But it's just it it's people have been burned by that, you know, especially in this modern day. There's been a lot of people that have been hurt by church, and they don't want nothing to do with it, not even modern day.

SPEAKER_00 2:26:03

You go back through time and the amount of sin that's been committed by the church, yeah. And that was something based on a previous conversation that I had. I had a a friend of mine approach me last week, and because I was talking about trying to figure out religion, and and and she said, Doug, stop worrying about religion, stop worrying about church, worry about a relationship with God.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:23

There it is.

SPEAKER_00 2:26:25

Yeah, that's what I've that's what I'm searching for.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:28

Yes, yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 2:26:30

And the a lot of times the the religion aspect, the church aspect of it can in some ways can interfere with that because there's things that you see churches doing, it's like that's not very godly.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:26:46

That's not how I don't from my limited reading of the Bible, that doesn't seem like how we're supposed to be treating other people that are different than us. Some's not line up, some of it doesn't really line up and trying to comprehend that. And so it's so that it's like, okay, yeah, that nailed the search that I'm on, is trying to find a how do I get that relationship with God. And you're right, part of it is being in that that communal atmosphere, being in a church, singing hymns, just being together and having that shared fellowship is a huge component of that. Um, but but for me, it's I'm I'm not always comfortable in that environment.

SPEAKER_01 2:27:24

Right, right. Yeah. With that is and I and I tell you, I gotta give props. I mean, uh the two uh the two pastors that I have met, you know, Dana from the Presbyterian Church, and Matt, who I go, I go to Fort Chilcoot. Um, I'm I Dana just had one conversation with him since I've been here. He was interested in young life, right? Um open to helping out any way he can. Starting Young Life here. And of course, Matt, just as down-to-earth as anybody. So I that was really nice to see that uh it seems like the folks that I have met that are in charge of the official religion, you know, whatever you want to call it, the churches, that just seem like really good down-to-earth dudes. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 2:28:16

Those are two there there are a lot of people in Haynes that are amazing individuals, yeah. That are leaders of our churches, that are some very upstanding individuals. Yeah. I would agree with that 100%. Yeah, and those two you named, Dana and Matt, are are with them. Uh I I really appreciate both of them and and what they bring to the community.

SPEAKER_01 2:28:39

Yeah, yeah. So then going back to what you said though, is the most important thing is that we've just got to try to remember. Just plant a seed, man. Whether it's a a word, a smile, a touch, uh even in my job, you know, there's something I can do that's gonna plant a seed. It may not be heard, but it may just be, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 2:29:08

But I don't I I I do know what you're saying, because I I don't know if I don't know if it's just the stuff that I read, but the number of stories, movies, TV, whatever of people's life stories that they'll trace it back to they were having a really hard time with something. Sometimes they're talking about suicide, sometimes they're talking about these these other things, and just a person holding the door and smiling at them, these just these small little triggers changed the whole direction of their life.

SPEAKER_01 2:29:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:29:39

I and I don't know if this is something that I was supposed to learn earlier because it kept coming up in front of me that maybe I should do this more, but it it was they kept pointing out that these small little things that you do, it might seem inconsequential to you at the moment, but you don't know what that other person is going through at that time. And that was one of the big learning points for me from the slide incident was talking to the mental health professionals, and they're talking about dealing with trauma, and it and this light bulb turned off in my mind or turned on in my mind, not off. Um, so many times I I used to have a terrible temper when I was younger. I mean, there's there's some people that were in the school district that I spent a lot that are still in town that I spent a lot of time in their office, and they can tell you that I was a complete jerk for many, many years trying to figure that out. Right. Um, but it and and there's some people tell you in my adult life that that happened as well. Um but there's a a couple things happen. One of our employees at one point mentioned, like, do you know what when you lose your temper, what that does to the whole staff? I was like, Well, I'm not mad at them, I'm mad at myself that's broke or whatever. They're like, Yeah, but when when you lose a temper like that, that affects all of us for like wait, what? And so it's like, okay, I got I can't lose my temper. I gotta always I always gotta be it's just like everybody in the store takes their cue off of you. That's stupid. Why would anybody why would anybody want to take no if you're having a zero problem? Exactly. It's just like if if you're having a bad day, everybody's gonna have a bad day, right? Like, shut up. And that but I was looking at that, I was like, Yeah, and so it's like, okay, I gotta be the happy guy every day. Yeah, it doesn't matter what's going on, I've got to figure out a way to be happy. Yeah, but then also the the the other part of it was um understanding that when I usually when I would lose my temper, it wasn't over what was happening right in front of me, it wasn't that moment, that was the trigger, but my my reaction was usually very disproportionate to what just happened, right? It was because there's all these other things that I let build up. Made them made them mountain in the mole. And so when that trigger flipped, yeah, all of a sudden, and everyone's like, holy cow, that's kind of crazy. Yes, yeah, because it wasn't and so and so then I I after the slide when they were talking about this of not knowing what somebody's going through, there'd be instances where somebody would come into the store, bro, office, assembly meeting, whatever, and just unload on something, and I'd be like, what the heck? Yeah, that seems to and and that's when it triggered in my mind, it's like they're not just mad at this. There's other things going on in their life, and you and you never know what those are. Right.

unknown 2:32:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:32:45

Did they just find out that uh a family member passed away or has cancer or broke their leg or they've got somebody's in an accident and they're they're waiting at their financial difficulties, their their marriage is breaking down, or relationship breaking down. You have no idea what these other stressors are. Yeah, and when I started, so now I I catch myself a lot that okay, a lot of stressors going on in your life. You need to go, and my thing is exercise, try and exercise, and and that usually helps. Um, but then when I I see other people, it's like, okay, I'm just gonna take this because there's other stuff going on. What can I do for them? What how can I def either diffuse the situation or show them love, show them kindness, show them some understanding, grace, help show them that grace, that it's not gonna solve everything else that's going on. But if there can be one thing in their life that would well for them today, yeah, I want I want to be able to provide if I can provide that one thing for them, right? Why and I think that's what you're looking at too, yeah, is finding that grace for somebody that's in a bad situation. That's probably and they're not gonna thank you, they're not gonna tell you anything.

SPEAKER_01 2:33:53

But I think the effort But they don't have to walk out of jail going, man, those guys were jerks. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:34:00

know no they might say that anyway they could but in their in their heart they're no they know it's they know that they were treated well they know they're under the circumstances that you guys showed them as much kindness as you well and the the you know and I think as a I think that's what we do as a community what we need to do more of as a community as well is show that grace to everybody.

Trauma Healing Retreat Dream

SPEAKER_01 2:34:19

Yeah. And you brought up the mental health aspect of it you know that about how that's so important. Man I'm fixing to get on a soapbox.

SPEAKER_00 2:34:28

Go ahead jump on it. You want to jump up on our cooler here?

SPEAKER_01 2:34:32

We can use that as a soapbox if you want um you know when I started in 95 right you didn't talk about it you shoved it you just stuffed it because it made you look weak. Nobody could trust you if they can't trust you that it wouldn't work with you. So man I when we we were we were going through mental health at the academy and two officers came in and shared with us you know one is doing a uh a uh technique that's called MDR and another one is doing brain spotting and they've just been really really super pleased with how those those have come out um or how their therapy is going based on some trauma that they've experienced in the past you know bad trauma which all of us have had whether it's police fire EMS veterans it could be I mean it could be civilians too right everybody's got it everybody's got it and so I started ramping back up on my on my uh project 2005 when I was doing Young Life right uh we're branding cattle and we've done 250 head that morning we've got another 250 head uh calves to brand in the afternoon this is like a three-day thing they these are big mountain these big cattle ranches and I'm tired I'm dirty I've been stepped on and kicked and headbutted by about every calf in the pen right it's lunchtime and I'm sitting there and just being an orphan being adopted right being in that even though I had a great life great mom and dad it's still I'm still that that's what I am and for some reason I was sitting by the post I got cow poop all over me and dirt and eating a sandwich and I just felt God kind of nudging me to start a Christian based orphanage okay like a boys ranch like a boys' ranch and a girls ranch right because I was like man it's it's needed right and I have thought about that every day since 2005 every single day really it's evolved now right it's evolved now into especially when I started learning about natural horsemanship and uh the healing power that horses have and after being a canine officer just being able to sit with my dog after a really bad deal and just just pat his head you know just or just hold on to him right it's evolved into this I want to start right a retreat for veterans and first responders and their families initially right using equine assisted therapy and canine therapy to to break down those walls to break down those traumatic events because I've been tell you I ain't talking about them right that was my philosophy for years. And those things that you're talking about that are building up that are causing people to to explode that are killing their families that are tearing their families apart that are driving their kids away from them how do we keep the kids you know from being so apathetic in school well you know what we can maybe make some better family situations right anyway so it's my dream here in Alaska to be able to start a place initially that we can send our veterans and our first responders for trauma based therapy using dogs and horses obviously you can't be with a dog or a horse the entire day so I mean let's take them out fishing. Let's take them out hunting let's take them out do some archery just let them walk you know um but there's a lot of restorative properties in nature 100% 100% my dad my daddy always said if you want to really feel better go outside and work with your hands and I'm telling you right now Doug I am convinced that God made the horse the best therapist in this world when he made the horse he made the best therapist ever.

SPEAKER_00 2:39:28

See I don't know if I can go along with that it could be 100% true but my first time on a horse my sister ran up she's gonna be mad at me about this but my cousin she ran up behind it I got bucked off and it landed on my foot and my foot hurt like crazy shortly there a few years after that I'm at a different relative's horse and my horse ride you want to go sure let's go so we go to the we get to this field and she's like I want to I want to gallop this horse a little bit the horse your mind's gonna want to run with me hold back on the reins really tight so it doesn't run.

SPEAKER_03 2:40:08

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 2:40:09

Alright I got this I was like 16 17 years old there's not a problem I felt that was pretty strong. Jump on reins this horse it didn't matter I'm like doing everything I can to hold on to this horse and it was hurting because I was not riding that horse correctly across the field I blow past my aunt I finally get this horse stopped and she comes up I thought you I thought that's what I was doing. Yes I've had a couple I went on a trail ride and a girlfriend used to have horses and her horse treated me very well but I've had a couple bad experiences with horses I don't know if the horse is really my spirit animal that's gonna be all that comforting me that I probably I can change your mind.

SPEAKER_01 2:40:58

I can do that because I've had horses that didn't turn out that well I mean to tell the story you're talking about You're talking about a prey animal who whoever gets on whatever gets on a horse's back in the nature a mountain or a bear or something right when it's where you are you're on his back they thought it yeah they just thought you were trying to eat them I don't know get down on the ground level yeah get on the ground level and you gotta start getting with them I'll have to try this again but that's what makes the therapeutic aspect of the horse so what so so cool is that you're talking about a prey animal which we're what we're predators right we've got our eyes in the front of our supposed to be used to be on the top of the you were except for the horse's opinion but I'm sure they had grace um but that prey-predator relationship I mean what do we do we walk right up hey Doug how you doing yeah right you try that on a horse what that's a that's a mountain lion coming at them yeah right the whole point is that they see right through you it's their job to run it's their job to be nervous it's your job their job to be cautious around you and if you go into a round pin with a horse and you've got ill at ill intent or if you're pissed or if you are just frustrated everything else I can promise you that horse ain't gonna come nowhere near you. But if you go in and you you relax into that and you just kind of flush everything you're eventually going to connect with that horse. And to do that when you connect with a horse is so special because you just they have just given you kind of like the golden ticket because they don't trust unless you earn it. Right? Well what do we have trouble with in our relationship?

SPEAKER_00 2:43:01

Trust trust anger this that and the other the social skills that make us in what today's terms would call successful you know I was I was adamant I was forceful I was strong I was you know all those things that the kids you know bullying you know being a bully might makes right bigger the better right all those all those social skills that we learn cannot be used to connect with a horse we've got to learn to soften we've got to learn to become the the lesser entity in that ring you know about eight eight ten years ago a friend clued me into Brene Brown and her books Bren A Brene Brown Brene Brown yeah I can't remember the name of the book I've read a f I've read a few of hers but she's she has a really great TED talk on vulnerability about leader best leaders show vulnerability and so I've going through that and I'm like I don't want to be vulnerable that sounds terrible somebody'll take advantage of me who would want to do that right but she was right yes yeah and just that that connection that but it's scary it is it's scary to be vulnerable around people because you're you're worried that they're gonna take it like you said earlier they're gonna take advantage of you're gonna use it against you whatever but but yeah the people that can be vulnerable they've got to leg up on others but when you can't be vulnerable with your wife or your significant other or your kids yeah it's not gonna if you don't have that that's but a horse will teach you that a horse will teach you that I've learned that without the horse because I didn't want to get beat up again a horse will teach you that and it just the the the breakthroughs it's actually it is actually a certified um or it is a uh it is a professional certification equine a therapy equine therapist and the the the science and everything is our has gone to backing it up but see you know there's there's the that's for the folks that are really tense right well I've heard people using that like for autistic kids and stuff too kids on a lot of kids on the spectrum and stuff that that equine therapy is amazingly helpful. Even equine physical therapy so like kid uh kids are or people with MS right they have a lot of problems with their core yeah um but the horse riding the actual physical act of horse riding strengthens their core it helps them to to walk better it helps kids with um physical disabilities involving balance it helps them to balance better so where are you gonna build this where are you gonna get these horses out are you gonna like try and last you some moose no throw people up on the moose near no moose I'm sorry suckers are huge um so how what's so here's what's the what's the game plan how do we how do we make that happen so here's the deal since 2005 I've thought about every day yeah right what I tell people is I just want to get a group of people around the table and talk about if we can do this I'm wanting a little bit of time and I'll provide the coffee.

SPEAKER_01 2:46:39

And what I get this is what I've gotten I'm not mad about it.

SPEAKER_00 2:46:43

It is what it is first of all nobody wants to I mean nonprofit oh they're coming around for money again you know blah blah you know nobody wants to go out and and and and uh uh fundraise right I mean I get it I do I do but I get hey Jimmy that's a great idea let me know how it turns out you know I mean instead of me telling you hey Jimmy let me know how that turns out what if you what if you change the parameters of it a little bit okay because if you're gonna be in Haynes horses are really really expensive it raises your cost tremendously yes what if you dialed that back and started off with um just nature relaxing that we're going to some get get people out because like we're talking about there's a lot of therapy to nature there's a lot of quiet places in haines and do the the that and dogs 100% start with that and dogs and then kind of figure out and there are some people in town that are doing something similar to that not not here in Han's but they have connections that well I'll I'll mention it after we're done recording. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:47:57

I don't know if it'll go anywhere but I I I think there's some connections and well and and here's the and you know I get and I guess you know when I was younger man I was like no this is what I want this is the way it needs to be right now I'm like I mean I even had I even had a conversation when I was in Fairbanks with a guy who's doing this in Utah or somewhere out west and he said he said Jade you don't have to start with 500 acres and 75 horses he said you can start with two acres and one horse and to your point whether it's in Haynes whether it's in whether it's up more towards the the middle of the state or you know somewhere in the southeast I don't care where it started all I know is that we need to get the numbers down and the numbers are 18 first responders commit suicide every day in this country.

SPEAKER_00 2:49:04

In 22 conservative conservative number 22 veterans commit suicide every day in this country we have no earthly idea how many people's families are being ruined aside from suicide oh drug use alcohol use whatever yeah but if we can if we can start somewhere and that's why I'm excited I I like the idea I'm excited about and and and that's exactly my idea how do we start somewhere yes and I don't care where it is yes because so many of the issues that I see us having as a community statewide nationwide with your uh abuse your whether it's substance abuse domestic violence physical emotional abuse PTSD the the with our first responders with our veterans with just people going through traumatic experiences in their life that's such a a drag on everything yes holding us back from and there's so many people that aren't reaching their full potential because of that 100% how do we reach out to them in a non-clinical manner and a and that helps them become a better version of them the best version of themselves and helps them deal with these things that right now are causing them a lot of pain. Yes how do we ease that pain off of them yes 100% you know and I'm all for ideas that help do that.

SPEAKER_01 2:50:36

And there's plenty to model after I mean Samaritan's purse right uh Franklin Graham has got a lodge in Alaska um southwest of Anchorage somewhere up there and they do um what's the program called oh my gosh it's it's about healing veterans and their families they take them up there to do retreats um they'll take them camping you know I mean not camping they'll take them kayaking they'll let them fish they'll take them on walks they'll let them be together they give them you know whether it's a faith based program is not concerning to me. And I'll tell you why in just a minute but um they get the the the couples together for marriage counseling and classes and you know it just gives them a chance to decompress a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 2:51:38

But then there's the follow-up right they the the follow-up is key keeping that squad of people that come to that retreat up the highway after that first week it's important to follow up with them and keep that squad together for at least the next year so they can rely on each other and have an accountability partner or two you know etc um and whether that looks like just doing some hiking and some some kayaking or some eagle watching or whatever it looks like here in Haynes or anywhere else that somebody might want to put this thing together but like we were talking about getting outside being in the outdoors and doing some things with your hands and eventually those people are going to say I want what you've got I say well my best friend names Jesus right and they may not hear it then but that'll plant that seed so I mean faith based or not faith based the love that we show to the people that come to that retreat for the weekend if that's what it starts out as or the week that's that's that's not us that's Christ showing that love that grace that forgiveness that's you don't you don't have to bring up scripture at all right but just just showing them that kindness that they're that they're recognized that they're appreciated that they're loved that people care for them that they're not being judged it's a huge part of it right 100% 100% but you've got to get you've got to get a vehicle in place where they've got a chance to disconnect you know and and I would say I would say for trauma response therapy it does I would say it does need to be at least a week you need to have some good knowledgeable folks uh I mean gosh these uh these uh ladies at search behavioral health man they're they're on it with trauma based counseling you know we had a meeting with them the other day there's there's other private practices in the community there's the private practices in there's we've got some amazing resources and things for that there's private practices in the community as well there's the telehealth but as far as like you know hypothetically ominous dominus we decided to start a weekend retreat you know those folks that are here that are are practiced in trauma based therapy they actually need to get their hands on those folks you know telehealth is fine there's nothing wrong with that yeah no it's it's but what what you're talking about is a is a different level it's that telehealth or in-person appointments or whatever meets one need but I think that being in nature with our therapy whether it's equine therapy whether it's canine therapy nature therapy it's it's a it's at a different level and it meets a different need.

SPEAKER_01 2:54:50

Yeah and and you know those canines that's a different type of therapy that's a different type of person.

SPEAKER_00 2:54:56

You know you and I need what we're trying to find what everybody's been asking me that they said Doug you need a dog everybody's been telling me for for the last 30 some years since I moved home that I need a dog. I have my ideal dog down but nobody can find one I want one that's gonna be that's gonna sense when my Seahawks are losing and I need some comfort the huskies are having a bad game they can just sense that discomfort when things just aren't going my way and come up and hop in my lap and just give me that look that Doug I still love you even though you're even though you're horrible even though your football team can let me down today I'm here for you. And I'm training provider and they're like yeah I don't think that exists. I don't think that's what we train the dogs for I was like well that's that's what I need a dog for you I can cross the street by myself and stuff like that but that's where I need a I promise you know my therapy can find you an emotional support dog. I promise I had one for the he he said he could find one but it'd be sixty thousand dollars. No and I can I can I can I can deal with my trauma from my football team's letting me down for without spending$60,000. Throwing stuff at the TV. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 2:56:07

But you can buy a lot of TVs for$60,000.

SPEAKER_00 2:56:09

You can buy a lot of TVs for$60,000.

SPEAKER_01 2:56:11

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 2:56:11

So it doesn't matter. Yeah, and I've learned to throw soft stuff at the TV so it doesn't hurt them.

SPEAKER_01 2:56:16

We'll find you your therapy dog. We'll find you your therapy dog. Yeah, it's uh, you know, the like the dog thing. I mean, first of all, it's been scientifically proven. You pet a dog, you pet an animal, right? Your blood pressure goes down.

SPEAKER_02 2:56:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 2:56:32

There are people that deal with trauma response though, most of the time they need the horse. They need that 1,200-pound animal in the same ring as them because you can't bully or make that horse do anything. He's either gonna kill you or he's gonna run from you. But then there's people that that feel just unbelievable guilt for things that have happened to them, right? And they've got no self-esteem, they've got no self-respect, they've got no confidence. But guess what they have to have to be able to be the alpha dog in the pack. Yeah. They have to be that alpha dog, they have to get that confidence, that self-respect, that that that ability to lead that dog, because that's what that dog's looking for. Right? So the whole nature of that therapy, you know, and like you said, it starts with you can start with canines. Just if nothing else to have them there to be with. As long as you're outside doing something, as long as you've got that that that mechanism. I just man, I'm just I'm fired up about it. I and I have been since 2005. You can tell.

SPEAKER_00 2:57:44

You can tell that coming out of you.

SPEAKER_01 2:57:46

Um since that's good, since 05. But again, like I said, no luck so far. And and you know what, it's all good. It's guy's never early. God's never early and he's never late.

SPEAKER_00 2:57:58

But the thing is, too, is you keep putting it out there.

SPEAKER_01 2:58:01

True. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:58:02

You never know when you're gonna get that response, but you're putting that out there in the universe, and and you don't you you maybe you know, maybe you don't, but I'm guessing you don't. There could be somebody that heard that conversation that's doing something like that.

SPEAKER_01 2:58:17

Yes, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 2:58:19

Somebody could be done, it's like, man, that's a great idea. And they didn't they didn't bring you on it, but there could be somebody in New Mexico that's doing that because they heard a conversation, or you told somebody and they told somebody else and they went or doing it.

SPEAKER_01 2:58:32

And let's not reinvent the wheel if we don't have to. Yeah, you know. Um and again, like I said, guys never early, never late. If this is something that he wants to put in place, it'll happen when it's supposed to. But, you know, just so far, no luck. But again, I'm just I'm looking for a table, I'm looking for some coffee. Just let's just let's get a group of people. Who possibly could become like the the board of directors for that for that project? But initially, let's just see, let's just talk about can we can we do it? So anyway, that's why I was happy when you started getting in on uh trauma response and trauma and and and being able, you know, you never know what somebody's going through. I was happy when you brought it up.

Closing Thoughts And Coffee Plans

SPEAKER_00 2:59:20

I was like, yes! We didn't even plan that. No, it happened naturally. Yep. What else we got, Chief? That's about it. That's been it. Yeah. What do you got? I got I got nothing. That was it. That's we could we could probably ask questions for another three or four hours, but yeah, Marty's probably gonna want to go home at some point. But no, I we still gotta do coffee though. We st is it right if I have a hot chocolate I don't drink coffee? Sure. Is that alright? Yeah, okay. Yeah, we will do fruit.

SPEAKER_01 2:59:53

As long as if I do get a caramel latte, you don't make fun of my fruit fruit drink.

SPEAKER_00 2:59:57

I I will not make fun of your fruit fruit drink in front of you. All right. I might do it later. You're not if you're not making fun of me as a 56-year-old still having hot chocolate, then I'm not gonna make fun of your fruit fruit drink. How's that sound? Deal. All right, deal. Yeah, but I appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you for having me. Sharing as much as you did.

SPEAKER_01 3:00:22

Yeah, thank you for having me. I loved it. This was great. It really was.

SPEAKER_00 3:00:25

Great to get to know you better, and I I think you've got some really cool ideas, and let's uh hopefully there's people out there that are listening that have heard that and maybe have some people approach you and see if we can't make that happen. See what happens. And I've some people that I might put you in touch with too to see if we can't make that happen.

SPEAKER_01 3:00:42

Sounds good. Just remember everybody, love love somebody somehow. Love somebody.

SPEAKER_00 3:00:47

Yep, yep. Thank you. Thanks, Chief. Appreciate it. Yep, thank you. Alrighty. Thanks for watching this episode of Doug Had's Questions. Just a reminder: if you've enjoyed the conversation today, please like, subscribe, and we're available on YouTube if you want to watch us, if you just want to listen. Uh it's on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and you have new uh episodes being launched every Thursday. So thanks again for watching or listening and following us. We appreciate your support.