Podcaster and History Teacher - Daniel Ayers

Daniel Ayers grew up in a small North Carolina town, and after graduating college, came back to be a history teacher. He happened to meet Quinn Ray at political events, and the two formed a friendship that turned into one of the fastest growing North Carolina centered podcasts, The Hometown Holler.

In this episode, you'll learn about what it looks like to run a podcast, the importance of building relationships, and why coming back to your small town might not be such a bad idea after all.

See more of Daniel on his podcast, The Hometown Holler.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey there, Bill Hayes here, the host of Ocudocs the podcast. And don't forget to watch Oculux, the short videos about what people do, because most people don't know what other people do, and they keep wondering what they could, should, and would be. So please join us again for Ocidocs. And tell your friends and subscribe and hit that like button. Welcome to Oculux. Our guest today is Daniel Ayers. His podcast is The Hometown Holler. It is a brilliant form of local journalism. He wears that and many other hats. He's a great teacher. We're going to learn about teaching. We're going to learn about the history of North Carolina. We're going to learn about podcasting. So welcome, Daniel. Yes, thanks for having me here at Ocidox. Pleasure. You know, thank you so much. So much to talk about. So OcuDox is about what do you want to be when you grow up, essentially? What could you, should you, would you be? And there's so many things, and we feel like with Ocudox, that's what we're trying to do. Give you a little bit of hindsight, insight, foresight. You know, visually look at what you want to be in your life. And it's so hard to figure out what anybody wants to be because how do we know, right? Sure, absolutely. It's just, it's it's it's just a tough thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

I wish we'd had Occupocs when I was coming up. Um if we did, I would probably be a cowboy right now. Right. Cowboy or weatherman.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

I wanted to be a stunt uh guy in the movie business. Oh, right on. I was a pretty good athlete. And you know, I could I was pretty sturdy a farm boy. But you know, I really wanted to, you know, and you know, I jumped into myself. I was handsome enough to be a stunt guy, at least. You know, they could maim me and you'd beat me up. And my dad once had me break a horse for him and threw me off, and I was banged up a little bit, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

So you could really do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

No, I really yeah, no, no, I did some you know, crazy stuff. I could shoot a rival, ride a horse, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

No, I'm excited to be here. I think this is great what you're doing. Um, you know, with with my um educational background, like working with middle school and high school students. Um, I think it's so important to give people a vision of what is possible, right? It's really hard to be something if you don't know what that something is or or what it what it is like to be that thing. You sound like our nonprofit we started called See It to Be It. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

You have to see it to be it. Which we did. We started at 9501c3. We're welcome to uh to help with some part of that as well. Uh, but see it to be it is if you can see it, maybe you can be it. So but Occupy He didn't even pay me for that. I just wove that in organically. So give me a machine gun. Everything you've done in your life starting now. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Um I was born September 6th. No, okay. Yeah, yeah, no, that's good. I like that. Um September what? September 6th. So is my son. Really? Yeah. So it's me, your son, and Roger Waters from Pink Floyd. Oh my gosh. No wonder Gabe is such a character. There you go. So the holy community date. Um and uh born in Alamance County, uh, grew up in Graham, was homeschooled for nine years, went to public school for high school, graduated, went to school. What high school? Uh Halbridge School, a charter school in Saxpaha. Uh went to school in Roanoke College, Virginia, majored in history. On a scholarship. On a scholarship, yep. Um, and and when I came home, well, while I was in college, what kind of history? I j generally uh modern American history. Okay. So uh Civil War to the present. Okay. Kind of the second half of our nation's history. But I love it all. But I love it all. Um, I really do. Okay. And while I was in college, I had a radio station. And I need to mention that because that obviously What kind of music? I I it was called Pass the Biscuits Flower Hour. I was Pass the Biscuits, that was my name. My host. You didn't have any trouble with that name? Isn't there a Biscuits Flower Hour? There so it was stolen from uh from O'Brother Art though. Uh Papio Daniel was actually a real life guy. He was the governor of Louisiana um back when Huey Long was was um operating. But yeah, so Brother Who Art Though, a great movie, one of my favorites, and I just stole that and just was I was past the biscuits flower hour on WRKE 100.3. That helped me get an appreciation for the production side of podcasting. It helped me get a little bit less afraid of a microphone. I, you know, I also was a and still do music, performing, songwriting. Um, and that's helped me kind of hone some skills as an entertainer and a storyteller. And and in college, I was performing a lot. I still perform now mostly at like nursing homes. I'm not really out and about um on the stage. I'm more of just kind of like, let's do a sing-along because that's more fun, you know? And so, yep, graduated college, came home, taught school in Saxpaha Hall back at my high school alma mater for five years. And uh in 2023, there was a uh big scandal in Alamance County that a lot of folks may have heard of. Um toxic mold was found in virtually all of our public schools. We had 36, 38 some public schools, and like the the public school system had turned off the AC. My understanding is they turned off the AC over the summer to save money in electricity because they had so little in funding from the state from and from you know the powers that be. Their funding was so small, they turned off the AC to save money for electricity. North Carolina summers, a lot of heat, a lot of humidity. What is mold love? Heat and humidity. So um this this scandal breaks, this crisis happens, and there's nobody telling the story in Alamance County. Uh the local newspaper is kind of a glorified blog now. Um, you know, and and so we saw an Quinn and I, my co-hosts, saw an opportunity to raise a little bit of hell. And and we started the podcast on New Year's Day 2024, uh at my kitchen table, thinking it would be something that our neighbors could tune into. And we had thought about actually, I thought about running for office. That was the first idea was I'll just run for county commissioner and and that will be my um how how I you know fight back, fight the good fight, and all that. But I realized there were so many ways to help that don't involve putting your name on a ballot. There's so many ways to be a force for good that don't involve the conventional route to I've got to be the guy in the room making the decision. Like, no, like you can be the person raising cane, getting getting making noise, getting people's attention. And a lot of times you can be more effective that way. Um uh you can be more trusted and more credible that way. So, so that was that was my I never trained to be a podcaster. I mean, not formally. I look back and I'm like, man, I actually was training all the time. As a teacher, I was training.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

It does train to be a podcaster, though.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

You know, but I was teaching, I was training without knowing it as a teacher. I was training it without knowing it as a as a radio host in college, I was training without knowing it uh as um as as just a student of history. And and so when push came to shove and it was time to turn the mic on, record that first episode, become a podcaster, I had all these soft skills that kind of came together, right? All these little tributaries came to form the the skill set that you need to be a podcaster. And and the most important of all of them is really partnership. Like I really I cannot say enough good things about my my co-host Quinn, because he's he's like the end of my yang. We're mirror images of of each other in many ways. And I had never run a small business before, but Quinn had. So when it came to the commercial aspect, and it's like, you know, if you're a musician, you can be the most talented musician in the world, but if you don't understand contracts and insurance and marketing, like yeah, you're you're not gonna make it to the Grammys. So let's spend a couple of minutes talking about near Quinn. Yeah. The Mighty Quinn. Yeah, the mighty so I'm saying that you know the Mighty Quinn. Of course I know the Mighty Quinn. Man, uh yeah, because that's don't let me sing it. No, no, no. That's but that but that that is his uh that that's his moniker. That is his moniker. I think it might have been his game, his gamer tag on Xbox or something. I mean, the mighty that yeah, the Mighty Quinn. So Quinn Ray, um, he and I met in 2022. My dad ran for the state legislature for a seat that he was never gonna win, and we knew that. And I was his campaign manager, and Quinn was an elected official. You didn't put that on a list of things you've done. Campo, man, that that that was like a few months of my life. Well, you know, everything counts. And I've compartmentalized that experience. I've done swimming pools for a week. Yes. So I I I I I did I did uh manage a state legislative race from for my dad. Um and Quinn as an elected official in Elon, you know, on the Elon Town Council, he was at all the events, right? I you know, I would run into him, and um he, you know, he's he's a dude about my age. We got a lot of in common in terms of our musical interests, and he likes dirty jokes as much as I do. And it's always nice to go to an event and have somebody you can just run your mouth with. And a lot of times these events would end up with me and Quinn on his back porch and you know, cracking a beer and and just really doing what we do on the podcast. And it got to a point where when the mold thing happened and when we were trying to figure out, okay, how do we solve this problem in our community of getting good information to people and helping to help folks understand that the hometown they're living in, right? Um, Quinn Quinn really, I kind of I got kind of have to credit him with being like, man, I bet some folks would like to be on the porch with us and just listen to this, which, you know, is something that I mean, we're a few beers in, and I'm I'm not sure how true that was for that particular conversation, how interesting it was. But that kind of planted the germ of, yeah, you know, we we do have some interesting conversations. And I'm not saying that we are, we're certainly not the smartest guys in the room, but we could bring in people who are, and we could just, you know, as us being, I mean, let's be honest, like one of the things that I think makes the podcast work is that Quinn and I are trying to learn shit. We're trying to bring in people that we can learn from. And um, and and so that's yeah, so so so Quinn is a buddy of mine. So, you know, and we've been able to really maintain a strong and healthy friendship while building a business, which as I have learned is a challenge. Yeah, yeah. It's almost it's it's like marriage, it's work.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Well, you're competing for time and resources, constantly. We're all competing with everybody, as I found out, having a wife and two kids and all this, you're everybody's competing for everybody's time all the time. Yeah, and it's hard to find time for yourself. It's a really interesting world we live in like that. It is. So back to the task at hand. Occux. Yep. What kind of advice do you have for young people who are thinking about what they want to do with their lives? That's pretty big. Just not just in podcasting, but in general.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Yeah, in general. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think uh one of them I already shared, which which is that I I think there is a narrative that people, when you exit high school, maybe you go to college, whatever you do, whenever, whenever it's time to to to enter the workforce, pick a career, you have to um go out and find your fortune. You have to go somewhere far from home. And and and for me, that was that that would not have been good advice. Um, because the relationships I had, the, the, the, the, the, the people I knew, those were all back home for me. And so it really helped me to go back to a place where I was known and I was accepted and I was valued. And I didn't really have to start from square one. I could come back after four years of college and people would go, oh, welcome home. Um, have you thought about this job? Or so-and-so is looking for this help with this project or something. And and so you you you cut in line that way. You know, you you you're not submitting as many uh um you're you you're not just a a name on a application or an interview form. This is one, and I'm saying this, I'm giving myself advice here because this is advice that it's been given to me and I and I struggle to to take it. Um, but I think it's good advice, and one day I will fully accept it. But just like, don't give a shit. Like, I mean, re really like like like like don't I think at a certain point self-awareness is always important to do that. Let me let me rephrase that one for you.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yeah. Be willing to take chances, be willing to take chances. Don't fear it's I what you're really talking about is this thing called fear and fear of failure, fear of different things, not making enough money, fear of the unknown. And it's really what we most of us human beings fight at one level at some way or shape or form during our lives. Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

And the biggest thing that I struggle with when it comes to fear is is is um, you know, I was a good student. I I was lucky to be good at school. That was, and that's one of the reasons I think I became a teacher was I was good at that game. Yeah. And I thought, well, I'll just go on the other side of the desk now and keep playing that game. And I love learning, I'm a curious person. But, you know, being being good at school, you're conditioned to be afraid of of of getting a B. Yeah. Oh my God, what happens if I get a B on this? Right. And now with um the podcast, I'm especially because I didn't go to school for it. I'm I I can find myself talking myself into a place of insecurity of, oh, well, you know, this, you know, this is not um premier level content. This does not look professional, you know, there what for whatever reason, whether it's the lighting or I flub that that question, whatever it is, there I can find a million reasons to not release an interview. What I found through it, and I would I would imagine it's the same for you. Like at a certain point, um, the the mantra becomes good enough.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

But yeah, it's it's try to get something out there with some content that will be beneficial and keep moving forward. That I hear that lesson a lot about podcasters is don't be afraid to just get out there and start it, but also at the same time, simultaneously keep building your model. Right. You know, you doesn't mean you're not continuing to think about how am I gonna improve this. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's but you don't know what you need to improve in.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Go back to teaching in the classroom, right? I mean, I remember the the very first day I was teaching. I was I was uh my first day as being a teacher, I was 21. And I was teaching um I I I I I I failed. I mean, my first day, I I I did not do well. How so? I was uh it was funny because in it's kind of like before a musical performance or a game, you you kind of run through it in your mind. Oh, yeah, you you scripted it all. Oh, absolutely. And then the first, you know, the whistle blows and it's all gone. Yeah. Right? No, I hear you. And and so I mean, I don't know if you call it stage fright or whatever. I mean, I got through it. Um, but I was standing outside in the parking lot with like that thousand yard stare, and one of my fellow teachers walked up and was like, How'd it go? And I was like, man, I was like, it's gonna be a long time until Christmas break. And he said, Well, just tomorrow, just do something different. And I was like, Oh, yeah, you can't just do that. You know, to I mean, to today was a bad day, but like you can just tomorrow just do something different, and maybe it'll work that time. And if it doesn't, you got the day after that. And podcasting's the same way, and again, like this is advice I'm giving to myself as much as any anybody because it's it's hard for me. I don't know if you experience this doing interviews, but like you'll do the interview, and then afterwards you're like, Man, there was that one question I really should have asked, or should have phrased differently. Oh, or what if I had, you know, could I have gotten the sun the the the the the quote I was looking for if I'd approached it from this angle? So there's a fair amount of acceptance one has to just I have no acceptance of myself.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

I'd rather put somebody else in this chair about half my age.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

You, somebody in the room, you know, but uh weird too, because you know, if you're podcasting, maybe it's just you, maybe it's your friend, but like in this situation, and this is the sit this is the format that I do it, where like you bring in somebody that you maybe don't know that well, and you've done your research, you you've you've you've read about them, but you have to form a rapport, a personal connection with somebody that you maybe have only seen on TV. Yeah. Or maybe you've only read their newsletter, and it has to feel it has to feel comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

And it's hard in the world of work sometimes to have remember to have fun when you're doing contracts or talent or the world that doesn't want to cooperate with you, right? It's hard to have, but you gotta remember. And I watch you guys and you seem to have fun. Yeah, I think we gamify it.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

I think that's another thing that's really important professionally in whatever you do is to kind of turn it into a game of some kind because it is all a game. Um, and I see it like I mean, I'm I'm a I'm I'm not um I'm not a Buddhist. I did just see the Buddhist monks come through and I listened to them give their lunchtime lecture when they were walking through Liberty, North Carolina, and that was really interesting. But like I I mean I I do believe in kind of the the uh the the the idea that you know this is all this is all transient, right? I mean, I see you know and this is all it's important to to to uh remember that this is a ride and you gotta enjoy the ride. And the journey, exactly not the destiny. Because because you know they will there will never be a point, right, when I feel as if I have arrived at anything. In terms of podcasting, I don't ever see a time when I'm like, well, I've done it. I've I'm the I'm the podcaster that I always wanted to be. I just turned 30. Okay. Well, I just turned 30. I'm about 30.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

I started doing this kind of stuff when I was about 33. And uh, but I still And you fell in love with the process. Yeah, but I don't think I've arrived. I mean, 37 years later, I still don't think I've arrived.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Right. And and I think that speaks to the importance of falling in love with the process of doing it and and gamifying it. And and because if if you know if you embark upon this with this idea of, oh, by 40, I'm this is the finish line I will have crossed. Like that's a recipe for burnout.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yeah, it's you know, again with OcuDocs, what we're trying to do is help people find their way in terms of what they mean in their work. And that's such a for me, I just feel like it I've been so fortunate to be able to do what I dreamed of doing.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Another thing I want to mention, something I I don't know what you said that just triggered this, but in in talking about advice I would give to somebody who wants to enter podcasting or media production, I think it's really helpful to have uh it's gonna sound kind of vague, but I'll zoom in on this. I think having a really um specific niche, right? So when when we were first starting out with podcasting, um the advice was you guys should talk about national issues. There's a bigger audience for that, right? If you can reach a bigger audience. I mean, if you're talking about Alamance County or North Carolina, that's that's a small group of people, relatively speaking. Speak to national issues, you'll get a bigger audience, you'll be more successful. I don't think that's true. There are so many players in that space telling those stories. I think it's important, you know. For example, if you want to start a podcast on fitness, do a podcast on leg day.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Being an older guy, I tell you what, there's all these kinds of things about basically anybody my age, the five exercises you've got to do, they pop up all the time. Right. But you're right. If you're very specific.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Pick one of those, right? And become the expert in that one thing, right? Or or instead of a sports podcast or even college sports podcasts. No, pick a high school team near you, follow them like with a microscope, and just make that your become the subject matter expert in that, and and you become distinctive. You stand out because there's nobody else doing it. What about advice for somebody who wants to be a teacher? Well, I mean, that's easy. I think I think teaching is learning. So just be a student and you'll be a teacher, right? And like get so amped up, you know, you know, it's uh I think what what uh makes and I'm not trying to sniff my own roses here, but what what draws me to teaching and what I think makes me um effective as a teacher is I am so blown away by the stuff that I'm constantly learning. I um I mean I I have to share it with somebody. And I'm lucky that I I'm I get to share it with students who again can't they can't leave the classroom. They're they're a captive audience, so they have to sit there and absorb it. I love that. Yeah, yeah. We gotta encourage teachers, people to be teachers. Well, that's the other thing. I mean, you get what you pay for, right? So I think you know, you just you gotta you gotta pay, we gotta pay our teachers more.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

We do. But the motivation to be a teacher, you know, I coach for free. And yeah, you know, it's the most rewarding thing I may do. Yeah. Is taking nine and eleven, your nine, you know, your old, and trying to help them learn how to play baseball.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

And I and I think we maybe we maybe should do a better job of framing the pay our teachers better, not just because it's the right thing to do, but like teachers educate people, educated neighbors are better neighbors, and selfishly, like I want a neighbor who knows things.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Well, we that's better for my community. We want our children to grow up and be successful and secure, right? Well, for me, I always equated education with security and success. I wonder if that's still the case for people sometimes because the cost of education and the debt loads, and there's been so much negative publicity about all that. But I still we're our we're gonna interview Derek Wittenberg this afternoon, another guest on um OcuDocs. And he's all about scholarship and how it made a difference in his life. Yeah, and how important that education is. But you know, we it's you can't deny that there are great advantages to being educator.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Oh, 100%. Yeah. I mean it it is it is the you know, in terms of what whatever whether it's earnings or just longevity in life, you know, it's it's the it's the common denominator, right? What what makes you live longer, what makes you earn more, what makes you happier, it's knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

The thing I found was also to add to that is friends. Um when you were a certain type of person and you seek out yourself and you find other people that are like you, there's a great comfort in that and strength in that to move forward. And when you go to a certain university or college, you'll find friends that are like you and you build that other community for yourself. There's uh I think that's underestimated the value of the friends that you know for sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

I mean, that that that I think more than anything is is is one of the is is the reason to go to college, right? And you do get a great formal education, but you're also thrown into this environment where everybody's kind of on their side quest, on their mission. You know, for example, if you want to record that album, if you want to record that that EP, well, you're gonna meet people who aren't musicians but are sound production gurus or nerds, and they can record you. And you're gonna meet people who are graphic design majors who can make you that album cover. So it is a great place to network and pool together resources.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

And if you're kids like us from small towns in North Carolina, the things that we don't know yet.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Yeah, you'll be for sure. My freshman year roommate was was from Gaza. Was from and and and that was um, you know, sharing a room with somebody who spent the first 18 years of their life in the Gaza Strip, like that was an incredible experience. What's your day to day like? So I I try to be a creature of habit to the extent that that's possible and building a business that's not always possible. I mean, it it's it's You know, you are building something from the ground up. You're the one creating those systems, those workflows. Um, I try to, this is the hard part. I do so much content for social media that I spend way more time on social media than is healthy and is justifiable. So one of the things I'm trying to do all the time, every single day, is stay off my phone. Um, it's really hard to do. I've had to get really creative of ways to limit that.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

You've got to, you know, somehow another carve out time for yourself. And because it's healthy. Yeah. It gives you that space between your ears.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Right. I I need that mental real estate. And uh, and so uh on and on any given day, I'll be either um reading the news, um, reading um there's a wonderful website called NCpedia that the the the governor of North Carolina is created.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

We study that when we put together.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

NCPedia is incredible. Shout out to uh Kevin Cherry, uh um state historian, former state historian in here in North Carolina, who um uh kind of spearheaded that project. It's an incredible, it is an encyclopedia of everything North Carolina is. Oh we know, it's fantastic. And so I I and you know, it's free, right? So I get to read that, I get to study it, I get to use that as a resource when I'm scripting, which is the other thing I'm doing a lot. You know, I'll I'll tell folks if they everybody listens to a podcast now. Listen to your favorite podcast. And if it's one, you know, if it's from the New York Times, for instance, or the Washington Post or NPR, listen to the end of the podcast and hear the credits. And you'll hear all the jobs the production manager, the researcher, the fact checker, the scripter, the graphic designer, the uh I mean the funder. The funder, right? I mean, you will you'll hear 15 or 20 jobs, and those are the jobs I'm doing on any given day, um, in any order, right? I will do all of those things. I I I edit all the episodes. Um, I, you know, we we um do the sound, the video, I script, I have to find the visual assets if we're doing a YouTube video that's kind of a standalone explainer. I'm also responding to emails, reaching out to guests to schedule them to come on the show, trying to get money. I mean, that's the worst part. I hate asking for money.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

I'm I'm I'm just like have you set up a GoFundMe thing? We got a Patreon. And then you've got what was their number one sponsor I see? They've got a funding operation too. You've who's the people that are in front of you for your big sponsor? Uh uh I wrote it down. Carolina Forward? Is it no, it's something else. What's the other one? North Carolina Democracy Network. Oh, oh, Down Home NC. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Yeah, so so we and we do have sponsors, right? They had, I think December was their month of sponsorship. We kind of have a because you know, our podcast comes out every Monday. Well, they were a good sponsor. They're a great sponsor. They so they sponsored us in uh in in December for our December run of shows. And uh, and so that's that's you know another thing that I do is reaching out to businesses and and saying, you know, help, we'd love to help you get the word out. We've got this platform we reach millions of people every month on various, you know, through our through YouTube, through TikTok, so uh Instagram, um, and and so you know, we'd love to help spread your customer base, become a sponsor of the hometown holler. Well out of all those platforms, what do you think is the most effective for you? Well, they're all they're all they're all different, uh effective in different different ways, right? So YouTube is great for super fans, people who want to watch the whole thing, get the full content experience. Um, so I mean YouTube is incredibly important uh for the diehards. I think um uh you you to Instagram is great for just getting um expanding reach. It's tough to get people to start with a 50-minute interview. Yeah, but everybody has time for a 45-second reel or a 90-second reel. So, you know, I think I think all the platforms are different and different for different audiences, you know, younger people and women skew toward more towards Instagram. We do have a majority male following there, which is interesting. We're kind of unique. I shouldn't say unique, but we're we're unusual in that most of our followers on Instagram are male. That's not the case for most Instagram accounts. Facebook skew is a little, little um more mature. Uh we, you know, 50 and up. Um, so you know, I think you you can't afford to not be in all these places. Interesting. Good advice, good advice. Where do you see your future going? So, going forward, you know, we we started this as a hobby, and now we see the value in it as something that can stand the test of time. We we we want the hometown Holler to be here for the long haul. And we want it to be something that is not just associated with North Carolina civics, um, but also North Carolina culture and and is something that is is tied into just state pride, being proud of this state, wanting the state to live up to its founding values. So going forward, you know, we're working to expand uh content you know beyond the podcast, beyond our social media content, to also include explainer videos, oral history interviews, um, to give people a place to just again understand where we've come from as a state, where we are as a state, and how we get to where we want to be as a state. So that's that's that's the long-term goal.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

I'm with you, buddy. Fantastic interview today, uh Daniel Ayers. Thank you so much for being here at you docs. It's just I can't thank you enough. It was just, I'm so proud of what you're doing. I'm very supportive. I hope you continue on with it. Thank you so much. And we hope you come back and see us again. Would love to be my honor. Thank you. Thank you, buddy. Yeah, thanks for doing that.