What If Consistency Is The Secret Curriculum Of A Life Well Lived?

A broken wrist in the Army derails fitness, and a last-minute COVID shutdown unexpectedly unlocks the GI Bill. Griffin’s path isn’t a straight line—it’s a map of detours that somehow lead to the 10 p.m. desk, a microphone, and a second chance to do meaningful work.

We trace the thread from private-school comfort to public-school chaos, where he learns that consistency is the hidden engine of learning. He owns the fallout from that early stumble—skipping classes, scraping by, and taking a hard financial hit after the DUI. The Army brings structure and purpose as a Black Hawk mechanic and crew chief-in-training, but injuries and pressure create a new crisis. Then a timing miracle extends his service just long enough to secure full education benefits, opening the door to the Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting, a broadcast journalism foundation, and a first on-camera role many chase for years.

Inside the newsroom, Griffin walks us through the daily grind of local news: pitching stories, booking sources, gathering b-roll, writing scripts, editing packages, and anchoring with clarity under deadline. He lifts the curtain on teleprompters, why anchors still write, the legal knots of copyright, and how “exclusive” photos tilt the digital battlefield. We explore how stations now compete less with rival channels and more with Facebook-native outlets and fast-moving community pages—and why reliable sources and tight verification still matter. He also shares why local news remains essential: life-saving weather coverage, city decisions that touch your street, and a 30-minute place to catch what counts without scrolling forever.

Along the way we talk authenticity, code switching, and the cost of being yourself on camera and off. Griffin’s advice to aspiring journalists is simple and actionable: test the lane you want with real reps—interviews, scripts, edits—then let the work tell you where you fit. If you’re ready for an honest, behind-the-scenes story about resilience, second chances, and building trust in a digital-first world, you’ll feel at home here. Enjoy the ride—and if this resonated, follow, share with a friend, and leave a quick review to help more listeners find the show.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:21

All right, welcome back to The Clever Angle, the show where we explore the stories behind the people shaping our world. Today I've got my friend Griffin on. He's going to tell us a lot about his career. Griffin, I appreciate you being on the show, man.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Absolutely, Tevin. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Hey, no problem, man. So um if you just want to give us just a little bit of a uh a background on on you, what you do, and then we'll dive into um w how you got there.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Okay, so I am uh originally from South Louisiana. Obviously, we're currently in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Don't think I ever expected to be here, but uh graduated college late, and now I am a uh the late night 10 p.m. anchor at uh our local news station, K A I T, and uh also reporter and kind of jack of all trades. I feel like I uh I definitely get asked to do a whole bunch of different stuff, but um path path to get here wasn't was it wasn't normal, I would say. But uh yeah, that's that's where we're at now, and I'm I'm enjoying it. I mean, people like people like y'all have made it uh uh a nice thing to be here for sure.

Private To Public School Shock

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yeah, man. I I think one of my favorite things about doing podcasting is just getting to sit down with different people from you know all different walks of life. So um tell me just a little bit about like what it was like growing up in Louisiana, like your how are the schools down there? Did your parents like kind of push you academically to do a certain thing? Did you have siblings, that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah, so I grew up with an older sister, she's two years older than me, and she was the academic of our family. My my dad uh was very education heavy. My mom is a teacher, she was a speech and drama teacher and English teacher, so that was kind of uh the the hard part about not being great in school was having a teacher as a as a mom. And uh, but I wasn't that wasn't me. My my sister was always the example that I had to follow, and it didn't it it wasn't great for me in schools in Louisiana. I mean everybody everybody always thinks about and Arkansas is not much different. You know, we're two at the bottom in education, so absolutely it's it's one of those things, but uh we had good school systems, but uh went to private school when I was young, and uh that was so different. My parents got divorced when I was eight, switched to public school in fifth grade, and at a young age, that's just a shock. Private school to public school.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

You're you're what was the biggest difference between private school and public school? I'm curious.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

The size. So um you're you're learning with 15 to 20 other kids in the same class all day, like you're going from class to class to class, even when you don't switch classes that much. Uh then in public school, even in fifth grade, you all have different schedules. You're in you're in a class with maybe three people all day. Like maybe three people have the same classes as you all day. And then in high school, it gets a little bigger because there's honors classes and AP classes and all that. So if you're I s I just call this the dumb kids, if you're part of the dumb kids, you probably have the same classes all day.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

But um, that was probably the biggest difference because it was a shock of like I know everybody in my class, and we're generally friends at a private school, but then when you go to a public school and you have a class with 16 different people each hour, you don't really get to know them. You don't have a great, in my opinion, a great learning environment because you're you're changing your scene every hour, and that's so much harder to think about whenever you're nine, 10, 11 years old.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

So when you were in that private school setting, would you say like most of the kids had like similar personalities, or like you said you were in class with the same kids all day? Were there other classes of kids, or was that just the only class?

SPEAKER_00 4:19

So it was a little bit bigger of a private school. So there was like two classes of of fourth graders, third graders, whatever. And uh I don't think until fourth grade, which was right after fourth grade, my parents got divorced, that was the first time I had ever switched to class. So I had one teacher for almost everything. It was because I mean the the education system in Louisiana is so weird where when you're younger you have one teacher for everything, you get to first grade, is really the first time you go, Okay, I have this teacher for this sub these three subjects and this teacher for these four subjects. But that was so different because you're switching one time from the same group of kids to another teacher. But then whenever I went to public school, it was I'm going from here to here to here to here, and the three friends that I had in the first hour, I don't see again until the sixth hour of the day. So it's one of those things that shocked my system, I think, and it made me not interested in school because like I want to learn with people I want to learn with, and that's how I have always viewed education. The environment you're in has a lot to do with how much and how well you learn and how much you absorb. Because if you're not comfortable, then you're not really gonna learn anything, you're not gonna pay attention, you're not gonna do a whole lot of things. So making you uncomfortable by switching classes and not knowing anybody just was weird to me. So it took me a while.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

So you said there was two classes of fourth graders for you know, just for the example. Did you ever interact with that other class?

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Yeah, I mean, recess. I mean, and we we also it was such a not a small town, but I mean smaller than where we moved whenever uh my parents got divorced, but we all played baseball together, so we knew we knew a bunch of them, and but there were definitely groups of cliques, you know, there were cliques for sure, that uh really hung around each other all the time. And I was kind of the outlier of the the clique that played baseball, and um I was always the one in the other class, so it was weird for me. I mean, I had a lot of weird friends, I had a lot of the the weird kids, quote unquote, you know, it it so I kind of lumped myself into that like I was one of the weird kids and I embraced it pretty much my whole life, and uh, but yeah, we talked a good bit. It was just you didn't see them until recess, and then you didn't see them until baseball practice, so that was pretty much it.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah, so when you you refer to yourself as weird, what what would you say? Why would you say that you were weird? I don't look curious of how people see themselves at you know different states.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

As in like it's hard to to lump weird into one specific category or even a couple of categories. I always looked at weird as like I'm just not one of the what you would call a cool kid. You have a lot of you played baseball. Yeah, but weird kids played baseball. Okay. Weird kids play baseball. Um, I mean, you'd be surprised at how many people are you know DD fans and that are in the major leagues right now. But that that's what you would kind of consider. Uh uh some people would consider a weird kid in elementary school.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Were you a were you a DD kid?

SPEAKER_00 7:46

No, but I was uh I was a uh I I enjoyed Pokemon and all that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Oh, dude, you're just like the rest of us.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

I know, okay, but like it was uh it was uh but there were there were definitely kids that that were not that in private school. Gotcha. So I think being up on the outlier category of the the cool kids, I was always in the middle. And um, I know we'll get into it more when we get into high school. I did the same thing in high school. I kind of knew everybody in every click, but I wasn't really in a clique. Okay, okay. I was always the outlier of every group. I was the one that wasn't a solid member.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Um so do you think that your experience in school is shaping your um what you want to do with your kids in the future as far as schooling goes?

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Yeah, I think I've always and you know, me and me and Jade, my fiance, talk about uh a lot of our future kids and how we want to go about it because she was in honors classes, she was in AP class, not A B. She she hates when I say that, but honors classes and gifted classes, that's what I was thinking of. But I was not. I was I was in regular classes, and if we can't afford it, I would love my kids to go to private school or a charter school.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

So just because the public education system in Louisiana is not the best, but you know, we we've we have avenues to explore outside of public education, and I know a lot of people do. There's charter schools here that you know people explore, and every state's different, so it's tough to say that the charter schools here are the same as Louisiana, but the charter schools in in Lafayette specifically are growing so fast, and I want to see where they go before I decide, yep, that's where I want to put my kids. But private schools kind of the same, they've grown, but they also have the money to grow, they can afford to grow and pay more teachers and build more buildings, and because they're tuition-based. So it's charter schools have the same level of education as a private school in Lafayette, and they just don't have the funding behind to hire those more teachers, hire those or build those buildings and do all those different things in a timely manner that then creates a strain for education.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

No, absolutely, and we're kind of getting to the the age where we're starting to think a little bit more about schools for our own kids. You know, Ellery's eight now, and she's really athletic and she's really into cheer, and she's getting really good at basketball. And, you know, I'm from here, so I always had this dream of my kids going into my alma mater. Uh, so they're currently have they're going to University Heights. That's where I went to when I was uh in elementary school. But I'm kind of starting to take off the rose-colored glasses to the fact that it's not the same school that is when I went there, and it's changed a lot. So um just trying to navigate like, okay, what is the best, what, where is the best school going to be for her academically for sports, and you know, like you said, a good environment for her to be able to learn in because we can already tell that she's one of the um big fish like at her school. And I'm I'm just worried a little bit about her being challenged going on. So it's just something that you know we're thinking about as she ages out of her school. I think this is the last year that she's before she goes to like to the uh intermediate school, which is like third through sixth grade. So it's interesting hearing your your your take on uh private school.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

It's definitely something you don't think about when you're thinking about kids when you're you know 16, 17. It's like, yeah, I want to I want to have three kids and I want to do this and I want to do that with my kids, I want to put them in sports, I want to do that. You don't ever really think about it that age, like what school is gonna be the best for them to go to that they're challenged enough that they get a good education and they're not just coasting by? Because sure, coasting by is great, getting all A's fantastic, but are you really being challenged enough? You don't think about that when you're 17, 18, 19 years old. You think about it when you're 30.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely you do. So you you transitioned from public school, now you're I mean, from uh private school, now you're in public school. What did your junior high to high school um look like? Because you know, that's the time where they're pushing the ACTs, and you know, did you have trouble fitting in in public schools or was it just like a natural fit?

SPEAKER_00 12:32

I feel like um the best way to say was it was super challenging for a 10-year-old kid to just get shocked into a completely different system and a completely different. I mean, every teacher in the school knew who I was because one, my sister had just gone through those grades, and two, my dad went there and half the teachers had been there for 30 years in private school. To I don't know who the hell any of these people are. So not only am I learning teachers, they're learning me, I'm making new friends, living in a new neighborhood. Now my parents are divorced, so I'm getting driven to school for two weeks by my dad, walking to school two weeks from my mom's house. Um, a lot of crazy things just changed in an instant in a summer. And I don't think anybody's ready for that at 10 years old or 12 years old for my sister. I don't think anybody's ready for that ever. And it was definitely a challenge in middle school. I mean, by the time I hit sixth grade, so the middle school I went to was fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth. It was junior high, you know. Um it's funny, they don't call it junior high anywhere in Louisiana or anywhere in South Louisiana, which cracks me up. I was always heard that growing up, and I was like, What when am I going on junior high? And then you get to high school and you're like, Oh, I guess I skipped it. Um but it was it was definitely a challenge. Fifth grade, really, just I knew no one, and it was really a tough atmosphere to go into a school because a lot of these kids went to the same elementary school right down the road from the middle school, and some of them didn't, but they already they also had the other kids that went to the school where they went to because it's all it's not independent school districts down there, so it's all the Lafayette Parish School system, and they're all under the same all under the same school board. So you don't have Nettleton, really, Jonesboro, you don't have any of that. It's just one school board, one county essentially. Yeah, that's it. And it's just levels, so everybody went to the same school district. You just went to different schools. We had one superintendent, so just imagine everybody in Jones.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

What's the size?

SPEAKER_00 14:53

What's the size of uh Lafayette Parish probably about 250,000 people? Are you serious?

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Like total, and one school district.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

So obviously, this was this was you know 15 years ago, 20 years ago, holy moly, 20 years ago. Um so it's probably about 80,000 people less, but I mean still 150,000 people, one school district.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

So obviously this was the the public side though.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Like this this was different from the Yeah, oh, and there there was that's another thing. You you know, we had 30 kids in each class in public school, and then you had twenty kids in each class in private school, less like less amount of classes, like maybe two classes in private school per grade. So you'd have sixty people in a grade. We I graduated with five hundred and thirty-five people. So that was a shock there, too. That's at one high school, and um but yeah, so they had those those friends from the previous school that they were at, and the kids that went to the school down the road had their friends that they were friends with at that school, and I had me and my sister. And I had I made friends with some of the kids that lived in the neighborhood that I walked to school with, so that was a little a nice easy thing, just probably like I would have made friends on the bus. Um, but through middle school was just a a learning curve until really the end of seventh grade, where it was just what am I where am I? What is this? And then getting you and not only that, but getting used to going back and forth from my mom and dad. So I had three, I had two different schedules. It was weird.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Okay, so now you you've kind of settled in a little bit, you've been into the public school system for a while. Um, was there a time did you live primary uh primarily with your mom or your dad, or did you just split time?

SPEAKER_00 16:52

So according to the court, primarily with my mom, but for that was for probably six months. My dad had the the every other Wednesday, every other weekend, or every Wednesday, every other weekend, but then it got too complicated. My dad was offshore all the time. He was in the oil field, he's been in the oil field my whole life, and he had a 14 and 14 schedule. So my mom was just like, screw it. You take him for two weeks, I'll take two weeks off, and then I'll take him back for two weeks. So we went 14 and 14, so it was literally split time of two weeks of this schedule, two weeks of that schedule, back and forth, back and forth all year round. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

So um, was there a time where you started taking school a little bit more serious? Because you said that you know you were just kind of like I wouldn't say average in school, but like you knew you said Jade was kind of like an honor school, or did you ever say, like, hey, I'm I don't want to live here after I graduate, or like what was your plan from junior high to high school?

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Uh simple answer is I didn't have one. My my sister was, like I said earlier, that my sister was the example. And uh was she on the same schedule? Yeah, she was. And and in Louisiana, I I don't know what the exact law is, but most people just when you're 12 years old, you can pick where you live if you want. If you if you have divorced parents, I don't know if it's 13, 14, whatever the actual age is, but that's kind of what we were raised on. Like, hey, when you're 12, you can pick if you want to live with me or your dad. And you come over here, like you you come do things here. Like, it's not like you're you're not gonna see me ever if you go live with your dad, but you can if you want to permanently live with your dad, and then I'll see you every once in a while, whatever. Um we both kind of chose to live with my mom. So my mom was cheated on by my dad, married my stepmom. So we didn't really want to be over there. It's like you tore this up. I don't really want to be around you. Um growing up, learned learned a little different. But um, so we both stayed with my mom, or she stayed with my mom for a while once she got to that age, and then I was still going back and forth, so I didn't even have that same person to be with anymore. Um but I never followed her example, and I think that was part of it. I didn't see her as much whenever she hit 13 years old, and you know, she's just going into high school, so I don't even see her at school anymore. So she was the example, and they would always compare me to her. It's like, well, if you want to compare me to her, I don't ever see her. So what how is that how is that fair? So I just kind of started slacking off. I didn't care, I didn't care about school at all. I hated it. I did not want to go. I was aver like a worse than average in some things. And I mean, I was a a low B C D kid, like uh did not want to be there, did my work, not great, but I did it. I never really decided, hey, the I education is Going to be my thing. I actually decided the opposite. I just was like, screw it. I'm just going to get a trade job or do something. And then once I got to high school, it kind of stayed the same. And then uh think sophomore year, I started AG, which then led me to welding, and I was like, I'm going to go to welding school. I was pretty good at it. Never worked out, just never worked out that way. And then junior year specifically, I was never good at math. Math was my worst subject. Junior year specifically, I had the same algebra 2 teacher that my sister had. I had a B through the first six weeks of school. They broke our school year up into four, nine weeks. I think I had a 92 B. So almost an A, first six weeks of school. They switched my schedule to another teacher. Within three weeks, from the sixth week of school to the end of the first nine weeks where we got report cards, I had a 54. So can you tell me that that's my fault? Probably not. Because I had a 92 with the other teacher, and I'm not good at math. He taught me well. I learned from him well. My sister, I was able to be like, hey, is this what he's talking about? And she's like, Yeah, because she had him. Again, following my sister's example. But they ripped me away from that, and I failed the first nine weeks in three weeks.

Consistency, Teachers, And Falling Grades

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Do you think that um the education system is broken as far as like teaching kids? Because I I I hear about that a lot of like certain kids excelling in certain environments, that environment gets switched up, they don't do as well, and I think that like they have like a cookie-cutter approach of like you should be able to learn this from anybody, and I just don't think that's true.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

That's not true. And how are you gonna rip something from someone, a kid, who's doing well, who you can look historically, you have the access to the documents saying that I'm not great at math. I have C's and D's and geometry, and you have those papers, you can see my grades, and you see my grade right now, but then you still want to switch me to a guy that doesn't have a good success rate with people like me. There are people that were switched at the same time as me that did fine, but they're good at math. I'm not good at math. They have the access to say, that's one that we don't want to move. He's doing well, let's see if he continues to do well. Why would you why would you move that? But they don't care. They just have that, like you said, cookie-cutter approach. It's like, oh, we have to do this because these people have to be in this class. But let's not take one person that's gonna excel in math any way, like maybe just dropped out of honors or just dropped out of gifted. Let's move them to his class instead of Griffin, because she's gonna do well. She's gonna do well no matter where we put her. She may have a 96A instead of a 99A, but Griffin went from a a 92 to a 54. So that's evidently not gonna work ever. And I hope it didn't happen to anybody after me. I know that's a harsh reality that it 100% did, but consistency with children is in is one of the biggest things that I think nobody thinks about in education. You're just changing it up. They're not it's hard enough for them to get used to one schedule. It's hard enough for them to go from a schedule during school and after school, and then uh everybody always says, Oh, you gotta take three weeks to get used to the school schedule again after a summer break, or take a few days to get used to the school schedule after a winter break, but you're gonna change their schedule one day. They have to get used to a schedule and just do the same thing that they were just doing. Kids that aren't good in a certain subject aren't gonna do well in something like that. So consistency has always been my thing because of that situation. It's like don't rip a kid from what they're succeeding in unless they want to rip themselves from it. Like, that's understandable. It's like I don't like this teacher, but you're doing well. I don't I'm I just don't like them. That's one thing, but I I never said that. They but they didn't give me an option. So I I've always been an advocate for consistency in a child's schedule and in school schedule specifically, because I I was completely destroyed with that inconsistency of going for six weeks to the same teacher and finally feeling like I can learn math from this guy, I can learn math from Mr. Barra. And now I can't from Mr. Hamida. That's insane to me that you would do that to a 15-16-year-old kid.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

It's crazy to me because I feel like that we could all look back through our lives at these like key events that kind of set us on the journey of what we're gonna do. And you know, it seems like consistency probably has been one of your your core things like just ever since that moment.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

I from that moment I knew because I was told that so I I failed the first nine weeks with a fifty-four. I need to get at least an eighty-six now each of the next three nine weeks to pass this class. Fill the second nine weeks with like a forty-two. Okay, need a ninety-four to pass this class for the next two, nine weeks, fill the third nine weeks with like a sixty-eight or sixty-six right under the D line. So guess what I did for the next nine weeks?

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Nothing.

Junior Year Collapse And A Pivot

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Didn't go to the class. Why would I? I have no chance. I have I needed a 94 for this nine weeks and this nine weeks. And now I can either make the decision they had common core and core four. So common core is your basic four English, four science, four math, four social studies. Core four is you only need four social studies and four English, and you can find a fourth math, fourth science in some way, and you only need four maths, but it doesn't have to be those core maths, you can just take a random math. So I did financial math and math essentials. And then I made my fourth science up with I already had you did two ag classes, it was a half credit each. So ag science was my full science, fourth. And so the rest of my junior year was just screwing off. I didn't care. I didn't go. That was the fifth hour of my day and right after lunch. So I had a long lunch, and then the sixth hour of my day was chemistry, had the same teacher my sister had, was not good at science and chemistry because it was a lot of math, but I still had a C. I was doing fine because he actually taught me well. I slacked off because I didn't care. Probably would have had a B or an A if I would have stayed in cons in consistent control of my schedule and been aware of everything going on in chemistry. But then after that class, I had U.S. history and I was really good at history. And my he didn't hate me, he hated the fact that I couldn't, I didn't go, and I would still come and take the test and make a 95 or above. And so at the end of the year, I had a 64 in that class because that was one of the ones that was right before the end of the day. So I just would not go to that class and leave and just go home and go hang out with my friends, go do some things that I probably shouldn't be doing. And then at the end of the year, I had that same US history teacher look at me and say, Hey, you have a 64. You need to do this, this, this, and this, and this to pass, whatever. And I was like, I'm probably not gonna be able to do that. And he goes, I'll tell you this. You do three projects that you missed, you do three of your projects, and you get passing grades on them, like genuine passing grades. I'm not just gonna help you out, I will void all of your other zeros. And it was only like six or seven of them. I know it's a lot, but like comparative to like 15, it was half. And so I did those three projects, you voided all my other zeros, and I passed the class with like a 71, a D. So I almost failed my junior year by three points. Because I failed Algebra 2, and if I would have failed US history, I would have been repeating my junior year. And I went from that to a 4.2 in my senior year. I only had four classes, so it wasn't that hard. But I mean, I had AG 3, which was kind of a piece of cake because we had a permanent sub all year, because our teacher uh perma retired and took all of his PTO and didn't show up one day. Uh so we just had a random sub and we learned, but it wasn't like it would have been if he was there. Um, and then I had financial math and math essentials, which teachers loved me because I was always I was sitting right next to him and I really wanted to learn because I was like, I didn't learn math last year, let me try to learn a little bit this year, and then uh had you know English four, which was normal. So went from almost failing my junior year to passing my senior year, flying colors, no big deal, and then it was like definitely not going to college because I dropped out of core four, graduated high school with a 2.3, like bare minimum. And so that's where I my education experience shifted in those years that was just like I could do this, I can go to college, I wanted a I wanted a business degree, stupid, not good at math. Um, but I had those thoughts. I wanted it, I did, I really did, and that shifted everything.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Were you a charismatic kid?

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Yeah. I uh I definitely had a big personality. I uh I think I got that from my dad. My dad's uh my dad was in the oil field, like I said, since he was 20 and um had probably every position in the oil field. He's been a he's been a Derekhand, a company man, he's been uh a salesman, he's been he's developed products, and that's he's VP of a of a product company now. So it's like he's had every position coming up through the oil field and had to have such a big personality. That's always what he had around us, too. It was hard for him to switch that on and off every two weeks. So he just kind of had it all the time. His language would change when he wasn't on a rig and he was around us, but his his personality stayed the same and his big um big attitude towards everything stayed stayed that way. And so I think I kind of it it rubbed off on me and my sister. Um, she didn't like it as much as I did, but I always thought it was funny and I always thought it was entertaining, so I kind of adapted to that. Um, you know, I always my dad's a little vain, and I mean it's it's obvious to say anybody that's gonna be on TV's gotta be a little vain, right? At least a little bit, yeah, yeah. And um, so I get that from him. I feel like it's just like and I'm genuinely like not vain, but I have that attitude because of him, like so I I that always came out in school, and girls didn't like it. They I was they thought I was full of myself, and behind closed doors, I'm like, this guy sucks looking in the mirror, and um so I had a had a charismatic personality in the sense of like probably always had a girlfriend, probably always had was around a group of people. Like I said, I was the outlier of every group. I was always around people that genuine generally liked me, and I generally liked them, but we weren't friends. I just knew everybody. I was the group hopper. I kind of went around and just was like, what's up? How's everybody doing? What's going on? What's going on with y'all? And that was I I built it, built it even more from what rubbed off on me from my dad. So a lot of a lot of uh a lot of I guess self-centered personality traits without being really self-centered. And it took me a while to realize that I wasn't self-centered because I thought I just had to be to be cool, because that's what I felt everybody that was cool was.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

So did you act like you said, you know, you you said earlier you're like someone that's on TV has to be at least a little vain, but you know, you didn't consider yourself like conceited. And so did you act like differently when you were not around those types, like if you weren't trying to entertain, were you a different person?

SPEAKER_00 33:20

100%. And that was that was a tough realization for me. Like, I it's and you know me now. I I don't I'm the same throughout. Like you can you watch me on TV joking with Charles and Ryan, and it's and it's the same thing that I'll joke about at Life Group. So my personality now is is blanket pretty much, but whenever I wasn't in those those groups and hopping from group to group to group, and the thing about that was was I was different with each group. I was that little tiny difference. Like maybe I wouldn't say this type of joke in this group, or maybe I would you know laugh a little different, and it's so subconscious. I didn't know that at the time. I didn't know I was doing that at the time. I thought I was just being me. I thought the differences were me, but I was being fake the whole time, and that was 100% a realization as I grew older of that is not you, kid. Like, you don't need to do that to be liked you can be you. Have you ever heard of the uh term code switching? I do I I still do it. I think everybody does it every once in a while, but I think that was probably the height of it for me in my life because now I'm just like, I'm gonna be me. If you don't like it, I don't care. But then obviously, 15, 16, 17 years old, all you want is to be liked. Be accepted and be liked, yeah. Yeah, and so that's that's what I did. And I didn't I had a good group of friends, sleepovers, parties on the weekends, whatever. Had a good group of friends that I was with all the time and hung out with them.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

And uh what separated your your actual friends from just like the people you would say what's up to?

Charisma, Code Switching, And Identity

SPEAKER_00 35:09

I think them actually wanted to hang out with me. It was uh uh pretty much anybody that wanted to hang out with me, I considered a friend. And I would I would say everyone was my friend, but if you didn't want to hang out with me, I wouldn't tell other people you were my friend. I wasn't that type of person. I wouldn't say, Yeah, those are all my friends, I'm gonna go hang out with them and then not and then not do anything with them ever because I was just the outlier. Um, but if you wanted to hang out with me, I was gonna hang out with you because I'd I was just I wanted to be liked, I just wanted to be accepted. And um it was it was a lot of fighting within myself to say, and this was like right after high school, whenever I'd stopped seeing all those people every day. It was a lot of fighting with myself to say you don't need to be like that, and that was really that was a really tough time because then I really didn't have any friends. So you graduated high school, what what did that chapter of your life look like? After graduation? Mm-hmm. Um, so it's where we get into the fun, Tev. Um we so I worked at Smoothie King for my whole senior year, which was fun. It was I was a shift leader, and they told me I that I couldn't have off for the Friday after my 18th birthday, and I was like, all right, I quit. And then didn't have a job for like a month, used all my graduation money to pay rent. That's where I set up myself for financial uh failure. Um when did you move out? Uh summer right after senior year.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

So um let me back up because I want to tell you this story. Absolutely. Uh midway through my junior year, junior year, senior year, midway through uh it was Christmas break. I live with my mom permanently at this time. And um she had remarried, he had three kids, we all live in the same house. I shared a room with the older older son. He's only a year younger or like five months younger than me. Um, but we're at my great-grandmother's house, and my mom loved to do this thing where you're me and my sister made plans for Christmas. My mom has nothing to do with those plans, she just gets told whenever we're coming to her house, and that's it. Like she but she loved to interject and try to like, nope, do this, nope, let's do how about this? And it's like, well, me and my sister are making these plans, but not you. That's just how it goes. And she kept trying to interject, and I just told her, Mom, we got it. Probably was a little disrespectful in the way I said some things, but I was just like, We got it. Stepdad gets in my face, didn't like that at all. So I kind of cursed at him, he kind of cursed at me, and then had a whole situation. Then I drove home from New Orleans, went to my, you know, packed a bag, went to my dad's house. The that was a Saturday before Christmas, and the Monday I was at work, we're off of school, so I just had work all day, get home at like six, my mom's on the back porch with my dad and have a conversation. She's like, I think it's time for you to come live here permanently. So my mom essentially kicked me out over how you were being towards your stepdad and her? How my stepdad was being towards me, essentially.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Oh, okay. So okay. So she was on your side on that. No. Oh, she wasn't?

SPEAKER_00 38:45

No, she was on his side. She chose to keep the paycheck and the lifestyle that he gave her. He was a machinist, he was a machine shop manager, so he made like 140 a year. So she was like, I think I'd rather this. That scarred me. Was she getting pressure from the stepdad? Probably. Like, I have no idea. We still have not fully talked about what happened after that situation whenever I left and they drove home together. No idea what that conversation was like. Was the stepdad there or was it just your mom and dad when you were having the? Oh no, it was just my mom and dad. I don't think my dad would have let him on the on the on the property at all. It wouldn't have I don't think that would have gone well for him at all.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

Did you have any relationship with your stepmom or your stepdad like during that time, like before that?

SPEAKER_00 39:33

More more my stepmom, because my stepmom had been there since 2008. They got married, well, really 2006, right after my parents got divorced. Like I said, my dad cheated on my mom with her. So uh, but then they got married two years later, and then three years later they had uh their first son. So my little older little brother, he just turned 14 literally Saturday. Um, that's wild to say out loud. Um, and then they had another one two years later who's 12. And so she was. Kind of a she was not a great stepmom before the kids, the boys, but then when she had kids, she kind of got that maternal instinct, and it was like, Oh, you understand a little bit more now, and she's very loving, she's very caring. So at this point, she's like, she treats me like her son. I am her son to her. Like it just that doesn't change the fact that she didn't give birth to me, she just treats me like her son. So at that point, it was kind of starting to get there, to get there, and so she was she was out of it, but after my mom left, it was like uh I don't appreciate this, you know, whatever. But my dad never said anything. Like my dad was just like, Yep, I think it is time for you to come here. So I thought my dad agreed with my mom. That scarred me. Like, like I couldn't even tell you what that did to my brain because it just it screwed me up because I'm sitting here thinking my mom's choosing a paycheck and a lifestyle over her own damn son. And I mean, I when I say paycheck and a lifestyle, he paid for two boob jobs in a car, and like she had her dream car, a Jeep, and still has the dang Jeep, still obviously has the other things too. Um, but like uh that was what you chose over your own son was just insane to me. And so that relationship with my mom became something totally different, and she was almost immediately apologetic. Like the six months later, after I graduated high school, I got a tattoo of a cross on my back that she signed off for. I was 17, I didn't turn 18 till August of aft after graduation.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

But you're living with your dad at this time, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

I got a tattoo, dad hated it. Then I said, I'm gonna move out. Mom co-signed the lease, 17 years old, living on my own. A month and a half later, turned 18, and just went wild.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

So your reason for moving out was it the situation that happened with your mom and your stepdad, or was it just like you were ready to be on your own?

SPEAKER_00 42:05

I didn't necessarily like living with my dad. It wasn't a it it really was what I needed, but I didn't like it. It was too strict. I was 18. I didn't I had a job. That was just my mentality. I was like, I'm not going to college, I have a job, I can afford it, I'm gonna go move out. I don't want to live here. I wanna make my own rules. It's normal 17-year-old common thought process of just I want to live on my own. Yeah, I want to do my own thing. And so my mom co-signed and I live with a buddy.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

And um So you're 17, 18 at this point. Do at this point you said your sister's two years older than you. Is she in college? Did your parents ever like push you to pursue college or did they did they not force the issue?

SPEAKER_00 42:51

They tried, and I looked into uh community college, I looked into other options, trade school, like I said, for a little while, senior year. Yeah, you're gonna be a welder. Wanted to go to welding school, just didn't work out. Um, I looked into a bunch of that and I just nothing ever came to fruition. But then after I quit Smoothie King because he wouldn't let me off because I wanted to go to go out for my 18th birthday, and they wouldn't let me off, and so I quit, and then a month and a half later found this job. My dad's fraternity brother from college was the HR director at the and this is where we get a little familiar as the beer distribution company.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

And so I did that for a year, almost a year. And I mean, I'm just going out and I'm doing a lot of other stuff. What's the age right now? Still 18. Still 18, okay. So I I after I turned 18, my 18th birthday, I quit Smoothie King, started working at this the beer distribution company. It was Budweiser.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

Month and a half later.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

So this is all just like it's all quite like Yeah, this is like a year that you're just you got the the tattoo, you got the job, you've moved out, co-signed on the lease, all of that.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Yeah, yeah. So then I'll uh I'll bring you bring you full circle in in the year April of 2015 after I graduated high school, not even a year after I graduated high school, I got a DUI. And that I wasn't let me preface it. I got a I got a DUI. I was 18. I blew 0.071. 21, not a DUI.

Moving Out And The DUI

SPEAKER_01 44:35

You know uh the crazy thing about that that incident, that exact same thing happened to me when I was 18, summer after I graduated. I blew a 0.03. 0.02 is the 18 legal limit. Exactly.03. And uh like I had like had maybe one beer, and I was like, I was parked, but I was like behind the wheel, and I, you know, I was with this girl and you know, and some of my friends, and we were at the Burger King off a windover, and you know, things were just like we we just looked like suspicious kids out there. So like the Burger King workers called the the cops on us or whatever, the officer showed up, made me blow, and I got a DUI. Like that honestly changed the whole my my whole life right there. But pretty much the exact same situation, the exact time in my life. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

So it definitely will change your life at 18 years old. You get a DUI. Um I mean a shock to the system, sitting and booking for 12 hours waiting for my dad to pick me up. Thankfully they didn't put me in a holding cell. I kind of wish they would have at this point because it would have at least been able to lay down. Yeah. But sitting in those uncomfortable chairs and booking for 12 hours, waiting for somebody to come pick you up, and you've called them four times already.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

Um Yeah, my the my incident happened, it was Saturday night going into Sunday morning on Father's Day. So my dad was thrilled about that.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

Yeah, I'm sure. My uh mine was we had this crazy international festival every year in Lafayette, and it was the first day of it. I remember remember leaving and going to a friend's apartment, and we were just having a couple beers, and we bring one of them home on the way back, got pulled over.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

My lights weren't on. Yeah, the the crazy thing about that was like, you know, I ended up going to ASU, which is obviously here in Jones Rough. That wasn't my plan. Like, I had already been enrolled in Conway at UCA, and the buddy that I was with uh that night, he was going to he had already been uh going to UCA, he was two years older. So my parents deemed me too irresponsible to go off to college, so I had to go to ASU.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

So and you look back on it and you're like, well, I kind of understand, it sucks, but I get their thought process, you know. Um my dad, yeah. I it was an insane time in my life, you know. That that'll put you in a financial hole for a long time. Yeah. Um, I was I went to court, got it put in pretrial intervention, which is a whole year-long program where you gotta do everything. You gotta go get a psych evaluation, you gotta have the uh interlock system in your car. You have to uh I had to be on 10 days of house rest as part of this program.

SPEAKER_01 47:27

Yeah, I don't think I had to do that. I didn't have to have the the interlock, but I had to take like a driving safety class thing, and then I had to like get driven to work. I was working at the grocery store at the time, you know, how to find, had to go to court, all of that. My uh my aunt was an attorney, so she like walked me through everything, and it sucked. Like, I don't think I took a sip of alcohol for like five years after that. Uh, I was just like, this basically ruined my life, you know. So when I finally did get my license and stuff back, I was just the DD for all my friends pretty much through most of uh undergrad. Like I didn't it was after my 21st birthday before I had another sip of alcohol because I was like, I'm never underage drinking again.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

So yeah. I I definitely didn't follow that specific path. Being from Louisiana, it's a little it's a little different for me, but I I didn't drink for a long time. I mean, it was probably a year and a half through definitely through the program. I I drank a couple times and I got in trouble with the pretrial intervention. It was essentially like a parole officer. She was keeping track of everything you were doing. You had to go through the program, go to the classes, the mothers against drunk driving classes, the defensive driving classes. Um, had to have the interlock system in my truck for a full year, and there was a time where and I had to call every every day to ask if I had to take a drug test. Um, it was like the code I typed in. I had to do the whole system, and that was like a a shock to my system. It was uh it made me grow up a lot through that year, and uh I I didn't grow up enough still, but um that taught me a lot about my life, and then I mean I was financially just screwed at that point. I had debt, I had to take out a loan to pay for some of that stuff, most of that stuff, and um so I'm still going through that, and I have job after job after job. I I I quit. They kept me on there, it was like in their policy at the at Budweiser like you drink and drive, you're done. They didn't fire me, they just demoted me, which is the first time that had ever happened in the history of that company, and I still quit on them dudes two months later. I'm an idiot, I was an idiot. I I was like, I I don't want to do this. I was still making the same amount of money, I just couldn't drive, which I was only a merchandiser, so I turned I turned into a helper and was making more money than the merchandisers. And somebody that I that came on as a merchandiser, I was the trainer for the merchandisers as a helper, so technically lower on the totem pole, and he asked me, he's like, Who's the best merchandiser we got? And I was like, me. So, and you know, you know a little bit about that business. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That I was really I didn't want to be a helper. I was like, I'm not doing this. This is I want to be on my own, I don't want to be driven around training people, so I quit. Stupid. I was making good money, had a career after, even after I was done with the the pretrial intervention stuff, I would have had a career. And um, because they gave me a shot and I blew it up in their faces, then grocery store, grocery store, grocery store for you know, sold life insurance for a while. Like did whatever I could to make any type of money, and it wasn't was never enough.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

Uh Did you ever have a job that made more than the Budweiser job after that, during that time?

SPEAKER_00 51:11

The next time I worked there. Oh, you went back. Well, I mean, outside of the army. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um because I'm not one of those people that's gonna tell you I made crap money in the army. Yeah, my paycheck was crap, but I got free housing, free food, free medical care. I know how I know how much that costs. So I've never been that person that's gonna tell you that I made crap money in the army. My paycheck was crap, but I didn't have to pay for all this other stuff. So yeah, I uh I went from a grocery store right after that to another grocery store to the insurance place and then another grocery store because the insurance wasn't cutting it, and then um started dating this girl in 2016 and got a job at Great American Cookie slash Hershey's. So you can imagine how much weight I gained. Um and then I was I didn't have a place to live, so I lived with her, and uh we decided like we had conversation after conversation. It's like I don't this is only five months into our our relationship. Like we decided after conversations with you know my sister, her, my dad, like my grandpa, my best friend who grandpa and best friend were also in the military, that I was gonna enlist. And that was January 2017, and I did I did the delayed entry program um and left April 2nd and signed a contract for a$20,000 bonus because I was like, ooh, money, stupid. But uh signed a contract for$20,000 bonus, left on April 2nd, 2017 to go to basic training right a little north of us in Fort Leonardwood, Missouri, and got out of basic training in June, went to uh Fort Eustace in Virginia, right off Virginia Beach, Newport News, and was there for four months doing my training. I was a Black Hawk mechanic and crew chief, so that was really cool. Um but the army the army was insane, man. Um that's something that I never expected that I would do, even despite my best friend and my grandpa being in the army. Um but that was a time in my life where I really learned a lot about myself. It was uh it was one of those scenarios where you're either gonna fall or learn just how deep you really need to go to figure out who who the hell you are. And that was what I did. I went and I messed up again during that time. Oh you did um got arrested again and I kind of told y'all about this and and my testimony that was the time I got arrested, and I was uh I was thankful enough that um the person who's affected um let it go and um still had to go through a um a process, but um it was let go and everything was everything was dropped and but that was just a shock and that was uh alright, what are you doing? I thought the army was doing good for me, and then it just this was only a year and a year in really. This was April of 2018. So I thought I was doing good, you know, seven months in Hawaii.

SPEAKER_01 55:03

So you graduated in 15, this is 18, graduated in 14. 14, okay. So I graduated in 14, this is 18, so you're about what 22? 21, 22, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:13

About to be 22.

SPEAKER_01 55:14

About to be 22.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

Yeah. Um, turned 21 while I was in AIT in Virginia. Okay. So I was about to be 22 in 2018. And then late 2018 broke my wrist and couldn't do anything. Couldn't run, couldn't exercise because I broke my wrist, couldn't work on helicopters. I was a computer guy. I was the guy that did all the logbook or econs, is what we called them. So we essentially go through the hours in the book from the helicopter and make sure the computer matched, and we went through all the maintenance in a past month and looked and make sure everything was correct and make sure it was all signed off on correctly. We didn't miss anything because there's a whole process. I mean, you're flying in a brick in the sky trying to rip itself apart with five, six, seven people on it that could die if something's wrong. So a lot of processes to go through to make sure everything's ready to fly. And so I was that guy. I learned how to do those things left, right, backwards, and forwards. I could do those in like a day. Usually took somebody like three or four days to do the whole thing because it would go. So I could do two in a day sometimes. I'd be working on two at a time. I'd finish one in the morning and have them another one by the end of the afternoon, and the technical inspectors would have to go do the same thing that I just did to make sure I did everything right. And they'd sign off on it, and then it would be good until the next month. So that was my thing for four months. That was my thing. That's all I did.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

How did you get into that? Like, did is that something that you wanted to pursue when you got into the army, or did they just kind of I don't I don't know how any of that works.

SPEAKER_00 56:49

So they get you, they really do. Like the and I it's it's hard to say, like, it's not like the Marines, where they're just like, you're gonna do this. That's how the Marines is. And unless you have a super high ASVAB score, you don't get a choice in the Marines. It's like you're gonna be gunnery, you're gonna be a grunt, you're gonna be infantry, you're gonna fly helicopters, you're gonna do this, blah, blah, blah, whatever. But the army is like, hey, here's the jobs you qualify for. What do you want to do? So I qualified for a decent amount. I got a 59 on the ASVAB, which is not great, but it's higher than average, and average is probably like a 34, and that's like you can do some low-level stuff, you can be a mechanic, you can do this type of that type of thing, I guess. You can you can be a uh an HR guy, you can do paperwork, you can be a supply guy, you can be a Humvee mechanic. Um, anything above like a 55 usually was like the higher thing, like UAV mechanic, blackhawk mechanic, Apache mechanic, Chinook mechanic, or crew chief. That was part of the job, too, was crew chief, which is essentially the mechanic on board that said let's land, or you're looking out the window and saying, clear back right, clear back right, clear back left, clear front left. That's pretty much all you're doing while you're flying. But there's a lot more that goes into it, but that's what it looks like. So they told me that I qualified that, and I was like, Absolutely, I want to work on Blackhawks, that's cool. Oh, and you get a$20,000 bonus. You'll get$10,000, let's go. You'll get$10,000 after you graduate AIT and you'll get the next$10,000 broken up over your next five years because it was a six-year contract. Mind you, that was 2017. I got out of the army in 2020. Didn't finish a six-year contract, so I owed the other part of the$10,000 that I received, so it was like$4,000 back to the Department of Defense.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

So why did you get out of the army early? Oh, you were early. Told you I broke my wrist. Okay, you were easy. Couldn't run, couldn't work out, couldn't do anything.

SPEAKER_00 59:03

Okay. I got fat.

unknown 59:04

Yeah.

Odd Jobs And Enlisting

SPEAKER_00 59:05

There's no other way to put it. I got fat. Yeah. And it was uh late 2018. We got uh my platoon got sent to uh on this thing, it's an alliance building training mission called Pacific Pathways. Every year, uh Indo Paycom, which is Indo-Pacific, Indonesian Pacific Um Command, Indo PayCom was Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, some in California, Guam, all those Indo-Paycom in the Pacific Ocean. And um, we got sent on on a rotational basis, a different unit every year was sent sometimes twice a year on a mission called Pacific Pathways, where you would go to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Korea, all these other places, and build alliances with you you'd build on those alliances that you already had so we're we are partners we're all we're allies with Thailand and the Filipino army and and uh the Indonesian you know all those places the Australian army and South Korea we already have a base there um Tokyo some we already have you know military operations in these places but a larger um presence of just people from different units across the Pacific would build relationships and alliances with those people so essentially we brought four three Medevac helicopters and four assault helicopters and said this is how we do our job every day this is how we do this we showed them what to do and that was essentially across every job you went over there and taught them how to do that. So we were there from January 2019 to a lot of us June 2019 so not a not an official combat deployment but you're still away from everybody for six months. So um I came back like May 27th I think and we left January 19th so just about five months and um they pretty much were trying to get me the reason they wanted me to go was they were like you'll have less of an option to eat whatever you want there. You'll have less of an option to work out there and I had just been cleared when they decided that I was going to go to start working out again. So I had like three weeks of working out before we left and so I went home for Christmas came back two weeks later we left and that was the exact opposite of what happened I went to a different country with a cool platoon sergeant and a cool platoon leader um and they said hey we're gonna work we're gonna do our things we're gonna have fun we're in a different country often just a lot of you have never been to another country let's let's have fun like let's do our thing but have fun so I ate like crap I did I didn't work out when I should have been working out and I'm not blaming him at all because he was still on my ass about that type of stuff but I of course I'm not gonna do it I'm I'm in this mode of not doing anything at this point because of my wrist. Yeah so just got bigger and then I lost I then I was like crap I have two months left I gotta try I gotta do something. How how big were you at your biggest? So I hadn't ever gotten back to what I was before I joined when I was working at Great American Cookie. I was I was two 215 right now is my biggest oh really but I hold it differently um I was five pounds lighter when I joined the army but it was all neck and gut now it's like legs and a little bit of a gut and that was because of this moment I lost all of my gut weight most of it not all of it but in the process destroyed my knees because I was heavier and because I said okay two months two months now I have to lose weight I have to pass a PT test whenever I get back to stay in the army I have to I have to so I went hard and just destroyed my body my back my knees and it just it was it was a complete breakdown of the cartilage in my knees because I was just destroying it running more than I should have probably not like I should have running wrong which is runners know you know you run wrong you could destroy your body over time and that's exactly what I did. I just did a lot of running and a lot of push-ups and a lot of sit ups because that's what you gotta do for a PT test. Used to now you don't it's different but um so I got back didn't couldn't run. Push up sit ups no problem would get like 85% on those barely trying no issue but I had to run a I had to run two miles in 16 minutes and I couldn't even do that. Just because my knees would my knees would start hurting and I would just like ugh this sucks and I and I never developed the the brain power again to to do that and that's something I'm still working at I still don't have you know great motivational brain power for myself because I'm always scared to go I'm gonna destroy my body again. Yeah how are your knees now uh I get disability for them really yeah yeah I have uh OCR arthritis in both my knees still and uh and they pay me for my wrist and I was getting disability for my back but um when I lost a little bit of weight it got better and the next x-ray they saw they they took that off which I'm a mad at sucks that I don't get the the bigger paycheck but I don't I don't care about the money. I'm glad I'm healthier now but my knees I don't think I'll ever get better. They they I like I get up and I sound like I'm 60 years old it's it pops every time I stand up and like they get stiff especially right now with it being 30 degrees like my knees are killing me whenever I got out of got out of the car earlier just because I hadn't warmed them up and I've been I know you've been seeing me do this every once in a while like swinging my leg just to yeah kind of get my uh get the juices flowing yeah I do what happened I guess I pulled it a little bit I don't know I don't hear anything I still hear you okay yeah um so it was uh it was one of those things that was just um I destroyed my knees and it's uh it's been one of those things that I um I don't think I'll ever get back I don't think I'll ever like the the art uh the arthritis in my knees is it's destroying them and it's funny to think about it that happened to me at 26 years old 27 years old well I mean you said you're older than that oh really okay because I was about to say it's still not that long ago like yeah if you're 29 now this is all still pretty fresh 24 now that I'm thinking about okay yeah I lose track of time I got out of the army in 2020 so that was that was that was another fun thing to talk about too because I got I got out of the army in the middle of COVID. Yeah so you wow um so so how was that um to fast forward so I've I got back and took that PT test couldn't run and so I met with my commander and they were like Bruceard do you do you want to be in the army? And I was like no and he was like why I was like I feel like the time that I was down for the the specific thing um and my wrist it was it ruined it for me I feel like I was just like I'm not into this anymore. I had fun I flew a couple of times but never really got deep into being a crew chief and being one that flew and cool with pilots and like I never got into that which is what I saw other people doing and was just like no I don't I'm just kind of I'm kind of over it at this point and and that was who I was I was over it three different grocery stores a great American cook like that's just who I was at that point and I still have that personality trait unfortunately where I find the thing that's wrong and I'm like you fixate on it. I fixate on it um but that process started right there he was like alright cool signing off on you again now honorable discharge didn't do anything wrong I just couldn't pass a PC test so that's an honorable discharge and this was September of 2019 and don't know what happened it just I didn't hit three years yet and that's what you need to get all your benefits three years so I was like I'm just I just kind of did this for nothing and I'm gonna owe this money back. So this kind of sucks um don't know what happened something got held up so you you so sat there oh really until January and I stayed there until January 2020 and they said all right you need to schedule this this and this and this so I had to do the what they call uh soldier for life transition assistance program SFL tap and you have to go through all the classes the the job search classes the resume building classes the everything because they want they want you to succeed they do those classes suck to help you do that but they do want you to they're at least giving you something and then after those classes my it was a four-day thing you went to this the building where they have all the stuff which is literally the building where you go to uh schedule like schedule your car inspection to get your car shipped back to the states book your plane tickets that the army's gonna pay for when you're leaving the island whether you're changing stations or getting out uh that's where you went to do all that type of stuff and uh Monday through Thursday I'll give you see if you remember the date my last day of the Soldier for Life transition assistance program was Thursday March 12th 2020 the next day the island shut down the next day the governor of Hawaii said we're done wear a mask everywhere nothing's gonna be open barely any flights are coming here unless you live here and then the next week the contiguous night United States shut down except for Lorda and Texas so the next day after I finished my Soldier for Life transition assistance program stuff and was about to start clearing base the next week would have been out right before my three years so I wouldn't have gotten all the benefits. You had to stay I had to stay because everything closed I couldn't go clear I didn't get my clearing papers for another month.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:09

Was that another month was were you at a year or I mean were you at three years at that point?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:14

Two weeks after that two and a half weeks after that I had I had three years wow I would have been out I mean that is my biggest look at God moment in my life I hate to say that about an event that killed so many people and so many people didn't make it through but for me it put a pause on a thing that would have taken a lot of the things that I have now and that's weird to look back on and say the reason that I was able to hit three years get a hundred percent disability or a hundred percent of the disability that I'm owed which is thirty percent of uh ten for each of my knees and ten for my wrist um and I wouldn't have gotten a hundred percent uh GI Bill which gave me a broadcast journalism degree and is giving me eight months of a master's degree which I'll have to pay for the other four months myself but that's I get a degree and a half essentially with with the GI bill which I wouldn't have had a hundred percent of um it probably would it wouldn't have gotten me through it would have paid for some of uh my bachelor's degree but it wouldn't have paid for I I'd say I think it would have paid for a year and a half out of the two and a half years it took for me to get that so I would have had to figure out a way to pay for the other half which means I probably never would have gone to school so you're getting this paid for what made you choose journalism that you had done so many so many things different from that up until this point army you know on all your jobs previous and you're like I want to pick this um so my dad had started a business uh that cleaned deep fryers he he didn't start the business he bought a franchise in Lafayette that we went to restaurants hospitals universities um and filtered their oil and either we either got rid of the oil or filtered it and put it back and cleaned the fryer while it was filtering we had this big mobile filter machine literally called filta and he bought that franchise and we went to Orlando and did the orientation and drove the van back and had all this equipment got another van got another piece got another driver to do it instead of me I was the operations manager then we got another driver for the second van and had two routes going one at night one during the day and we were doing real well and my stepmom just looks at me and goes Griffin what's your passion randomly in the kitchen one day and I was like not cleaning fryers and she was like you're fired like just as a joke and but that literally just sparked just I don't know what I mean just imagine you have a bonfire ready to be lit and you throw a match when it's full of gas full of lighter fluid and it just blows up. That's literally what my brain did in that moment. What the hell is my passion? So I said sports I love talking about sports. That's what I want to do that's what I still want to do. But I was like how do I do that? Started a podcast with my best friend.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:51

See I honestly didn't really know you were that big of a sports guy. Oh yeah. What's your favorite sport?

Black Hawks, Setbacks, And Injury

SPEAKER_00 1:14:58

Baseball but I'm I mean I am uh if we're if we're talking like at all levels baseball if we're talking at a specific level college football like I am I have like I had to turn this off because I knew I'm on do not disturb right now because I have Shea Dixon the LSU beat uh recruiter recruit coverer for on three sports because it's early national signing day and we just got Lane Kiffin at LSU so I turned that off because I guarantee you I probably have just uh just to look at this is all uh this is all my my group chat of doing all that stuff like 40 texts and all of the uh all of the recruit stuff I am yeah Houston Astros fan LSU sports fan unfortunately a Saints fan but um yeah I'm a I'm a massive sports guy so you said college football do you just follow one team or you just like the the I love I mean obviously I'm an LSU fan yeah but I I I just I like college football like I I I got the four bucks going on on ESPN or U2 TV depending on who's playing on TV uh but yeah I'm I'm a I'm a massive sports guy so when she asked that I was like well that's how I gotta do it I just gotta start a podcast so I just did all the research did exactly what you did just got a couple mics would do zooms I would literally put the computer in front of us on a table like this we're both sitting on the side of the table in his garage with a ESPN on and we're just kind of like talking about it we we called it Tete de Sports which is hardhead and Cajun French so hardhead sports and we covered we talked about the Saints the Pelicans the Astros LSU and UL which is raging Cajuns um so South Louisiana Sports Clock is what what we that's awesome dude so we got like 40 episodes in got like 70 subscribers on Spotify or or YouTube I think it was maybe combined uh across all the platforms and and then come like that was in April and we were just in the middle of it and so come July I started thinking it's like how do I further this how do I how do I take it and go even more than what I'm doing now and so I started searching just did a normal internet search and um found the Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting. Everybody knows who Dan Patrick is absolutely so I was like why the why okay let me look into this and it and it's at Full Cell University out of Orlando really Winter Park Florida but Orlando for one of my um best friends lives in Winter Park. Yep and that was ironically exactly where the headquarters of Filta was that's where we just were doing our orientation in Winter Park Florida right down the road seriously seriously right down the road from Foles University. And that was my second what are you telling me? What are you telling me right now God? Like because as soon as I saw the address I was like that's where we just were literally six seven months ago it was insane to me that I was I was seeing that address and was like well that's where I need to go that's where I'm gonna go so I filled out the thing for interesting interested in uh applying and they sent me a whole bunch of information and um you know put that I was a veteran so they were like okay well you need all this so I got the letter of eligibility from the VA and did all that stuff in August of 2021 I started school and then didn't graduate until February of 2024 and a month later got this job. And I worked for my dad pretty much that whole time. So you went to school for sports? Sports broadcasting sports broadcasting it's essentially broadcast journalism with a focus in sports. Yeah yeah okay yeah and then when you were looking for jobs you got the region age sports is so insanely hard to get into yeah I mean so insanely hard you'd be shocked at how many people graduate just from that school and don't have a sports job but they have a job in in media they have a MMJ uh multimedia journalist job reporter or a producer or something like that but they're not in sports it's insane to me how many people but yeah that was uh worked for my dad pretty much until December of twenty twenty three because we just didn't have a great relationship because Because of the business. Um, but then when I got this job, I was like, this is it on camera immediately. First job. And I've learned so much since I've been here. You still want to get into sports? Yeah. If I can. I mean, I I I don't I don't know that it's so tough to sit here and say that I absolutely want to do sports no matter what, because I know that schedule sucks. I see what Charles is doing at at uh you know uh he's gonna if he ever listens to this, he'll hate me for saying his age. But I see what Charles is doing at his age with a newborn, essentially, and a 14-year-old son. They have a newborn daughter and a 14-year-old son, and I'm like, Charles, how are you doing this on the weekends and during the week and everything? And like, I don't get it, I don't want to do that. I can have off every weekend. Yeah, it's it kind of sucks that I work until 11 o'clock at night, but I have off every weekend. It's like a good trade-off.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:05

And especially for my first job being older, it's like this was hard to pass up just because I was 27 at that time, and I didn't know where else to go. You ever been to Arkansas before this? Yeah, yeah. I had uh we had been to ironically, we had come to we had come up to Hot Springs uh before, and I had been to I forget where it was. I think it was I think it was Conway for something. I can't remember what it was when I was little. But that was it. I'd never really never really been up to Jonesboro, never really knew what was around here. I knew that Arkansas State was here, but that was about as far as I knew what was here. When did your story uh intersect with Jade? That was um 2022. I was living and um with a friend in their spare room and didn't didn't know what to do, and I'll show you this picture just just so you can get a a reference of what my life was. Literally had three suitcases in a box stacked up with my computer and a light kit with my mic, lapel mic, attached to my shirt in a spare room of my friend's house with a year left to go in school recording uh uh an assignment in my in my room with a computer stacked up on two suitcases in a box. That's insane to me to look back on that. And um, it was around that time, like literally, I um I was there from June until November of 2022 at my friend's house because the apartment that I had was going up on rent, and I was like, this is not worth what you're trying to charge me. So my buddy was like, Hey, come live with me and Megan. We got a spare room, just pay me 500 bucks a month. I was like, All right, cool. So I lived in their spare room, only had a one-bedroom apartment anyway. So I lived in their spare room until uh his brother was looking for a place to move to. He lived with his mom, their mom. And so I started looking, found a townhouse, and was like, cool, let's move out. And literally that Sunday before we moved out, one of my good friends, which is Jade's best friend, said, Hey, y'all are both uh annoying me with your loneliness talk. How about you talk to each other about it? And that was it. That was literally it. She literally sent me, Jade was actually moving back from DC that day and had just gotten off the phone with Sammy and her friend, and uh I was texting with Sammy, just uh, I think we may have been doing a friendsgiving or something, and uh so that's why we were talking. And she was like, Hey, I'm really tired of you, and I'm really tired of her. So, how about you uh y'all just talk to each other about your problems? I don't want to hear it anymore. And um, I did the classic. Jade sent me this whole thing, um, and it was like, you know, I'm Jade, blah blah blah, this is whatever, and I pulled it and I it I still talk about it. I literally texted her, I was like, Well, my name's Griffin, but she can call me anytime. I was like, that's insane that I said that that I said that in a text to a girl I had never talked to. Um, but yeah, I guess it worked. Yeah, so we uh we talked for a couple of weeks and then she tried to she tried to cut it off actually. And then um she's like, I'm just not ready. She had just gotten out of a five-year relationship. She's like, I'm just not ready. I can't I'm completely understandable. And I didn't think she un I don't think she expected me to be like, okay, I respect that. I didn't think she expected that. I don't think she expected me to just be cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:05

And so uh that was the week of Thanksgiving. Our first date was the day before Thanksgiving in 2022, and I was moving out that week. And um then a week and a half later, yesterday, actually, was my sister's wedding three years ago. And she had we had stopped talking at this point for like four or five days, and she was like, I'm not, I'm not ready for this. And she called me uh the night of my sister's wedding. One, I had called her because she has a diabetic sister, and my grandmother, my grandmother didn't take her glucose pill and hadn't eaten very much that day, the day of my sister's wedding. Yeah, so she's throwing up and about to pass out of my sister's wedding reception. So we're all freaking out. I had never dealt with we don't have anybody except her that's diabetic in our family. Yeah. So I just called Jade. I freaked out. I knew her sister was diabetic. So I was like, what what? What do I do? What's happening? Is she gonna be okay? And she just literally, I still smoke cigarettes at this time. I I think I smoked four cigarettes in like the eight-minute conversation we had on the phone. I was so scared, and she just calmed me down. And I she was the first person I thought of to call. And uh later that night she called me and needed a ride home. So I brought her home. I dropped her off at her grandmother's house, which is where she was living at the time, and we just never stopped talking. We started dating in January 2023. And that was uh yeah, that was a long time ago. Almost three years now. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:50

That's awesome, man. That's awesome. So you said you were a an evening anchor. What does a typical day look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:59

So a typical day. I mean, I don't I'll start you on a on a on a Monday, just so it's not weird. Uh on a Monday, I'll wake up eight, eight thirty, maybe nine o'clock. Um and go downstairs, drink a cup of coffee, drink a Red Bull, eat a yogurt or something, whatever. Hang out with Jade all day. She works from home. So hanging out with her, watching TV, we'll make lunch, we'll go do whatever we have to do in the morning. That's what my appointments usually are in the morning, whether it's doctor or whatever it is. And then I go into work at two. I usually leave my house about 1.45 because it's only like 11 minutes from our house. Um, get into work at 2, and um at that point, I've already texted or called people from the city or sheriffs or whoever I would need to get in contact with to try to find stories. What's going on today, what's going on this week, what do we need to look ahead to, what do we need to talk about that what's important, or uh whoever it may be. If there's an event happening.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:10

So is that on just you solely to try to find those stories?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:13

Uh no. They'll they'll I'll I'll pitch them three stories sometimes and they're like, all right, cool, go do this though. So they they find stuff, they have stuff, so um, it's not so stressful to 100% find everything. Seeing the issue that I the issue that we run into with me a lot is um there's three reporters that do stories are the schedules are weird. One reporter works Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the other reporter works Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then another reporter works Monday through Friday. Um the other two reporters that work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday overlap on the weekends. One of them's the weekend anchor and producer, and the other one's the weekend reporter. So um they all have their beats, whether it's Sharp, Randolph, Lawrence Counties, Mississippi, Cross, Pointset, or the other side, whatever. You know, they all have their beats, but they all also do Jonesboro. My beat is just Jonesboro and the consumer report, which is like everything that they do. So if it's if it's available to be done at 11 a.m., they're gonna do it at 11 a.m. And if that's the only thing going on at Jonesboro that day, then I don't really have anything. So it's just like we gotta kind of just pull stuff out of thin air sometimes about certain stories, so it's tough. Um, but getting it to 2:30 is our uh afternoon pitch meeting, which is where we go over like all of our pitches. We we've already emailed them to our news director and assistant news director, and they say, Hey, tell me a little bit more about this story, what's going on with this? When is this? Does it need to be done today, or can it be done tomorrow? You know, all the details about about what's going on with the story pitches that we've had, or hey, here's something we can talk about about you doing, or let's collaborate on some things. We'll do that 15-20 minutes. Um, and then we disperse and they have a morning meeting too. So the reporters in the mornings that are there all day from they work from 9 to 6 or 9.30 to 6.30. Um, they have a morning meeting doing the same thing. So they've already gotten their stories, they're working on their stories. We have an afternoon meeting essentially to have another look at the weather, usually with Ryan or Micah, and then um pretty much decide where I'm going, what I'm doing, what's going on that night that we need to try to get. Um, and then I'll make calls if I haven't already. If they go with my story, I've already planned that and made those calls. If they don't, I've got to call the people that I tried to schedule stories with and say, hey, we'll have to do this another day, and then call the people that I've been assigned a story for, whether whatever it is. But then I'll I'll literally set up a meeting, set up an interview wherever it may be, city hall or at hospital or anything like that. And I'll go meet them, I'll interview them, I'll get some b-roll, go try to find another person interview for that story, depending on what the story is. Some things only require one person, but a lot of things require two or three even interviews. But a lot of those, a lot of those are easy to get, and they're just like, yeah, because it's four. I mean, literally, I'll set it takes me longer to set up the camera than it is for the actual interview. And um then I'll come back depending on what time it is, whether it be you know four, four thirty, five o'clock, and I'll work on the story. I'll put it together, whether it's uh a short one at five or six that I hurry up and need to do, or if it's the long one, what we call a package at ten.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:59

So is there any so do you read off like a teleprompter? Like, is there any leeway to just say things that aren't on that? Like, do you get to show your personality any as far as like going off script?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:12

Yeah, so um that's one of the things that cracks me up. Um I actually get a lot of a lot of people, I do a TikTok live every night when I when I when I'm on the news, and because people have never seen the way that a news studio looks, and so and a lot of people do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:30

Really? So you you have a so is this like your own personal TikTok account and you do news content on there, or yeah, so um I do um I have almost wow, I'm I didn't realize how many followers I had.

Pacific Pathways And Breaking Down

SPEAKER_00 1:32:47

I had 9300, and people there they're anywhere from 100 to I mean 50 to 100 to 200 people in there sometimes that just sit and watch me do the newscast, and I show them the studio and show them around and everything like that, and turn the camera and put it on the desk facing towards the green screen wall while Ryan or whoever's doing weather is doing weather. Um and they a lot of people enjoy, they're like, I've never seen behind the scenes like this. This is cool. And um, I'm just trying to grow the awareness of what actually goes into local news. A lot of most people know that there's a green screen there, they know we're reading off a teleprompter, they make fun of it, but it's like, okay, cool. Yeah, we're reading off a teleprompter, but guess what? We just spent four hours writing all that stuff. We're not getting it from somewhere. We just wrote it, we just pulled it out of our butts. Like, I don't understand why people don't understand that. The content has to come from somewhere. There are some things that are a national package, whether it be ABC or NBC, which are our stations, they write it. But someone is writing that content, it doesn't just get pulled out of thin air. So I want to show, I want to bring awareness to people just like, hey, this is how a local newscast looks. Because you are gonna have some national stuff because there are there's national news every day. There's stuff that happens in the country that people want to know about, but that's not our focus. That is not our primary focus. Our primary focus is what's happening in northeast Arkansas, and if there's anything new that we can do and show you at 10 o'clock, we're gonna. But a lot of it's gonna be national stuff because I'm the only reporter. So it's um so you're the only evening anchor?

SPEAKER_01 1:34:32

Yeah, yeah. Um so what do they do when you're off?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:36

The weekend uh they overlap, they overlap. Yeah, the weekend girl will come and do it. Gotcha. Uh, we're actually training one of the one of the reporters right now as an anchor just to have another person to replace either the weekend girl or me. So um, but we work together with our schedule too. But yeah, the the TikTok is is really just to bring awareness of like how a local newscast, because most people think news and they immediately think the network. They think David Muir or Lester Holt or uh Brett Bear, all those people on NBC Fox ABC, or they think of that one newscast during prime time that they see on their TV because it comes on before or after something they watch, after they get off of work, and that's all they know about news. But local news is so such a a niche thing that a lot of people and it's I say niche, but it's all over the country, but people just don't care to know how it is, how it works, what happens. So I I saw people doing it on TikTok, and I was like, well, I'm gonna do it. Because like I'm not doing it for me. I don't have half the time I'm not talking to the I'm not talking to the comments replying to them. They're just sitting there watching me do whatever I'm doing, whether it go to a different spot and read something, or I'm flipping the camera around and doing doing weather, or uh sometimes I'll go live while I'm doing the story, like putting it together. And it's just a lot of stuff that goes into this that a lot of people aren't aware of. But it's not that's not to say that people want to know, but a lot of people think it's cool, so I just kept doing it and kept doing it, kept doing it. When I started this, I probably had like 1,500 followers, and I started this maybe a year ago, and I'm already at 9,000. Yeah, that's insane.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:32

So um, do you think that just news as a whole has changed since the like the growth of like people getting their their news from other sources, like you know, quick sound bites from like TikTok or like YouTube or things like that? Because personally, I'm not someone that watches the local news a lot. I mean it comes on after uh like a lot of ball games and stuff. I'm like, hey, there's griffin, you know what I mean? But like I know my parents and some people of the older generation still faithfully watch the news, but you know, younger generations are getting their information from uh a lot of uh different sources. So is there has there been like a change in that?

SPEAKER_00 1:37:12

Yeah, we've definitely uh and that's one of the reasons I do it, and that's one of the reasons I don't think I've been told to stop, is because the younger generation doesn't understand what actually is happening because they don't they don't care because they got their they get their stuff from other places, like you said. But um as you grow as you get a little older, you you see your stuff. You may not watch the news, but you probably follow Ryan or Region 8 or uh some of us on Facebook. Yeah, so you get your news that way. That's the the space that everyone's trying to take over, digital. Yeah, everything on digital. So we do like do you have the K News app on your phone? Yeah, you have the notifications turned on, yeah. So you get breaking news notifications all the time, you get weather notifications all the time. That's why we're trying to push that stuff. You get a notification whenever I go live on the app and you can see me on digital on your phone. That's why. That's why we're trying to do that. We're trying to branch everybody. It's not just it's not just gray media which owns KIT, it's Scripps, Hearst, um everybody. I mean, every every media company, every media conglomerate that owns a local Navy local TV news station in the country is trying to break into that digital space first. But it's nobody's ever gonna be first. Everybody's just gonna be, in my opinion. I don't think you can be first. There's people that were first, like Joe Rogan in podcasting, that just are first and just have that success, not because they're first, but because they were first and who they were. So no media station's gonna be able to say, or media conglomerate is gonna be able to say, I was first and we're better. It's like because in this market we are the only real news station. That's not me trying to take a shot at KJNB. That's just I don't even know who that is. Exactly. They're they're locally owned and they're they're good at what they do and um they have great reporters and anchors, but um KIT is just so much bigger because it's not locally owned. That's that's all I'm saying. Um so it's just different, but in this market, that's it. That's why. Because KGMB is locally owned, they don't put a whole lot of money in the local news. Um so we do. And in certain markets, you have different stations that are a part of different uh companies. In Memphis, you got four stations, five, I think. Um and you WMC is owned by the same company that owns us. And it's it may it may be the number one station one year or one month, but it may be the number three the next month. It just depends on what's happening, what's going on, and what what how How it works. Um, most of the time somebody stays number one for a while, but markets change, and markets are grown differently for different companies. So everybody's gonna try to break into that digital space, and that's one of the reasons that I do. Um, it's one of the reasons Ryan is so good on Facebook.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:22

I was just about to say that he's like a local celebrity. Like, I'm telling you, if the weather sprinkles outside, my wife is like, we need to see what Ryan Vaughn's doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:30

Yeah, it's um could be a better person, too, honestly. Like, that's not he's good at it, he really is good at it, but it's a thing that he's good at, it's not who he is, which I appreciate about him because he can be literally probably the most recognizable face in northeast Arkansas. 100%. I don't think anybody will argue with me on that. No, so and I'm not from here, but like it's hard not to be. He's he's I mean, uh literally saving people's lives in some instances. So that's where you build that trust, and that's where you build that notoriety, and that's why he continues to do what he does because people listen, and he does it in the right way. It's fantastic the way he engages with everything, and everybody engages with him because that's growing the digital space. And you look at our competition is not KJ and B when it comes to TV, and that's not a shot of them again. That's just they don't have the resources that we do for TV news. Our competition is Jones Borough right now and NEA report because if they get 85 shares and we get 30, we hate that. It's gonna happen. They're gonna be first on some things, but we want we don't want them to be. Why would we be? Why would we want them to be? Absolutely. Like in the news business, that's just how it is. You don't want it you want to be first, but you also want to be right. On that digital space is where everything's gonna be first because it's so quick. I don't have to sit here and edit something, I don't have to break down a a story. I can type, fact check, proofread, post. That's it. That's all you have to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:23

Yeah, so when new when new news comes out, how do you determine like what is what is fact?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:33

Reliable sources. Reliable sources. I mean, you just have to be. Um, and we've been we've been bitten before. Um you know, a report will come out and it might have uh not not intentionally, but it might have something that's wrong, and that's what we went off of. Um so we've gone off of the reliable source, and it's been I won't say wrong, but like a detail is different, and somebody, whoever that's about, will will bring it up. So we wanna we have sources that we trust, and you have sources that you trust, and um you don't necessarily fact check those because those are the fact checks, the reliable sources. So if it's coming from a reliable source, you know, you don't necessarily have a way to fact check that unless you're calling the person, did you do this? I mean, that's it's literally the only way to do it, but um it's tough sometimes because we get stuff in and it's like well this could be true, but there's no way to verify it. So if somebody else can verify it before us, it stinks, but they're gonna be first.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:40

Yeah. You know, I I think I saw a story uh concerning like the Parks and Recks the other day. Is that something y'all are gonna be covering too? Like I I think it was on like Jonesboro Right Now or something, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:43:54

It was yesterday and we are covering it, and I won't I can't go into it.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:57

Yeah, yeah. I I figured I figured that much.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:59

But um it's it's that's literally a perfect example. Any A Report got pictures that they were sent in anonymously through to NEA report and we didn't get those pictures. Yeah. So any A report has them, we don't have them. So that was an instance where they would have been first, but they got that not only first, but only exclusive. Yeah. That's a big the word exclusive is massive in in the world of news. Yeah. Because if it's exclusive, then that's great. There's certain things that you can and can't use exclusive for. Um exclusive is you're the only one that has something like it.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:35

Um so what stops like so what stops uh especially digitally, y'all from using those same pictures? Copyright.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:43

Okay, so they okay. I didn't know every time you send a picture and to like you know, see it, snap it, send it. Yeah, our little photo submission thing, the form you fill out gives us the right to use those. Gotcha. So you don't have the right to use We don't have the right to use anybody else's stuff unless we send them a copyright form. So like I could text you a copyright form right now if I took a picture or you took a picture and sent it to me, I can send you a copyright form and I have the right to use that. Or you just don't care that I do and you won't report me or you know, anything. But that to cover your base is copyright. And there's different kinds of copyright. We have social media copyright, something that somebody posted and you want to use it. You just say, Hey, you posted this on Facebook. Can I use this? Gotcha. Hey, you emailed me these photos and videos. Do you give me permission to use them?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:32

So that's kind of like when you see on Instagram somebody's um like video, like sports center were reposted or something, like they had to send them something and be like, Hey, can I use this video?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:43

Social media is a little weird. Okay. If they're reposting and it gives them credit on a social media platform, you can do that, yes. But like actual reposting or like they have the video and they're posting it on their account. So let's say Sports Center sees a video. And they send you you ever gotten one of those messages? Hey, can we use your video? No, I've never I've seen those videos though. That's what they that's what they do. Okay, that's what I'm doing. And they you a lot of like somebody'll DM DM you, it's usually a an assistant producer or something for somebody. Yeah, and they'll say, Hey, do you give us permission to use this video? A lot of social media, that's the way that's that's their coverage because it's a it's a it's a weird thing because it's like social media is public anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:30

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:31

It's weird, but they still want to cover their base and say, Hey, do you give us permission to use this? And I as soon as you say yes, I promise you that's a screenshot somewhere in a folder.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:42

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:43

Yeah, yeah. So because we have every copyright agreement that we have, we literally call it the morgue. It's it's dead somewhere in a folder, but it's still there. It's sitting waiting. If something happens, boom, there it is. We can pull it up.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:58

Do you know the uh the girl that got famous on uh online, the Haley Welch? Yeah. Uh did you hear this that whole story about like the original people that had the video got upset with Haley Welch because she was in their video but didn't credit them, and then obviously she got notoriety off the video. I don't think anything ever came of it, but I just thought that was interesting. That's what it would make me.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:21

Well, the thing about that is she didn't use the video. She used what happened in the video, and if we're being honest, she happened in the video. Yeah. So you're gonna tell somebody they can't do what they do? That's that's where you know a couple of lines and fair use and all this other stuff comes in. Right, a lot of legal mumbo jumbo that comes out, and you're just like, What? What are you talking about? I did something in a in your video. I did something. Yes, you have the rights to your video, I have the rights to what I did. You can't. That would be a fun court battle if they really tried to go to court over something that she did in their video. Because I would love to hear what a ruling would be about uh a copyright lawsuit for something that she got famous for doing in their video.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:09

Because obviously the video blew up, but like their account really didn't. She did, she started getting all of that, and uh I think she asked she was asked about it in an like in her interview, and she was just like, you know, forget those guys or whatever, and that's where it kind of all stemmed though. So that's funny. Um that was very funny to think about though.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:31

It's like I did something in your video and you're mad that I'm talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:36

Yeah, yeah. It's weird. So do you think why do you think that there is such a a need for local news in 2025?

COVID Delay And GI Bill Lifeline

SPEAKER_00 1:48:49

It's a loaded question. And I've been a big advocate since I've started here for local news because in in communities like these there are there will always be people that don't pay attention. Even in our generation, there are people that don't have social media. There are people that don't have a Facebook or Twitter or X. Um and that's where they get their information. It's whenever you turn the TV on and you have somebody like Diana Davis sitting there telling you, hey, here's what happened today, and here's what's happening tomorrow. There's something about that that just that is very necessary in today's society because you don't have to have a phone in your hand all the time. And I think I don't like I don't like thinking of everybody being WALL-I in the future, in WALL-I in the future, on that space cruise ship sitting in a chair with everything happening in front of their eyes. You get it in one spot for 30 minutes and then you go. You go about your business. Um and we don't cover everything every night, obviously. We can't, it's impossible. But um local news is really the it's hard to it's hard to put it into words because I think it's necessary because the way you get information doesn't have to be the same every time. It can be on the news, it can be uh on Facebook, it can be uh through a friend. Uh I mean if we're talking about specifically being necessary, you could argue that anything's not. Social media's not necessary. Um but we do it and it works. And I think local news is still effective because one weather, that's the biggest driver. Um, and most people will wait until that main weather segment comes on and then they turn it off.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:24

And um is our local news uh judged off of uh viewers, viewership ratings or anything?

SPEAKER_00 1:51:32

Yeah, I mean everybody's got ratings. Um regular TV shows have ratings, and that's how they judge how how they're successful. Um but and I mean ours are good. Ours are some of the good um English is hard, some of the best uh some of the best in the country when it comes to market size. We're have some of the best ratings and viewers uh because Northeast Arkansans are are very passionate about their local news, and oh a big driver of that is obviously Ryan Vaughn and Weather and Christina and Micah, and uh obviously what used to be Cass, who's now our news director, but uh Aaron, but um local news is to the point where you either you either really enjoy it or you don't, you're gonna get your news elsewhere. But um we also have those digital avenues, which are still local news. Jonesboro right now, still local news. NEA report, still local news. Just because they don't just because they're not on TV doesn't mean they're not local news. So um I think a lot of people don't like to read too. Like they don't like to read that type of stuff. Tell me the tell me what tell me what's going on, that's it. I don't need to read a four four thousand-word article about what what's happening in Jonesboro tomorrow. I just just tell me the the hits. And that's why I think a lot of people watch it still. They want to know the hits of each thing, and it's it's essentially the clip era. It's like, hey, just tell me the snippets and tell me the most important facts.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:06

That is so true, too, because I can't really remember the last time I saw someone in a newspaper, you know, reading. And I just remember as a kid, my dad would get the Jonesboro Sun like every day. Every day he would read the Jonesboro Sun with a cup of coffee, and you know, you could go in there and you could look at the local uh high school sports scores and things like that that have the crosswords in there, and I definitely think that's something that's that people are are going away from for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:37

Yeah, and I mean you think about like what the articles are, they're just newspaper articles, it's the same thing, it's just online.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:44

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:45

Still a lot of people don't want to read that stuff, so that's why video is necessary, in my opinion. See, we on every one of our articles you go on, almost every one of our articles, every story we do, the clip from the newscast is at the top. It's like, hey, here's the article if you want to read it, and probably has a little more information in there. But here's the clip if you just want to watch it. So we give you both options, but um again, digital. It's it's all driven towards that. We you listen to how many times we say it every newscast. It's like to find more information, go to KAIT8.com. Or uh after big stories, it's like, hey, download the KA News app and turn on your notifications. We'll send breaking news alerts right to your phone as they happen. So it's all pushed towards that because that's where the money is coming from nowadays. A lot of people want to put their ad in an article versus on TV. They want to go, hey, put me in 20,000 articles, put me on your website for in this spot for three months instead of a commercial because they see it more, they get more traffic that way. And that's everywhere, that's for everything. I mean, what do you see on ESPN when you put on commercials? Whenever they play commercials, sports centers, just infomercials, nobody wants to advertise on that anymore. And it's tough because it's not local, they can't be local. So you do get some sometimes, but very rarely do you see something different than an infomercial on Twitch Center, yeah. Unless there's a game on. That's when their ads come on. Their pointed ads. And that's the big stuff, the big ads. But like everything everything's driven through the digital space because that's what they that's what people want to do now.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:39

Yeah, we talked about this a little bit, so I'll ask you this question. I've been just kind of floating around in my in my group chats, and so I'll ask you this. Do you think that there is a price to pay to being authentic? Like online, like, you know, we're sharing this conversation, and do you think there is a price for being authentic? Because I I think that like when people know things are being recorded or going to be on video, or you know, they it it kind of tends to change what they really are gonna say about it. You know what I mean? Like, so do you think there's a price for authenticity?

Finding Passion: Sports And School

SPEAKER_00 1:56:16

Well, I think um there's two different ways you can look at uh a price for authenticity. Um the price for authenticity could be I could get fired. If somebody doesn't like something I said in the past hour and a half, they could let me go. That's the price. That's one of the prices. Another price is if people don't like your truth or your authenticity, you're not gonna be successful. That's another almost monetary price to pay. Um that's something I've I feel like I I've prided myself on in my life is I'm gonna be I don't care. I don't care what happens. You're asking me to talk and be honest with you, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't care. What uh what happens to me is what happens to me. And I have learned that over my life. It's like I can control a whole lot of my life, but there are some things that I'm never gonna be able to control. So I can sit here and be fake and have a fake conversation with you, or and I'm only using our conversation as an example. Right. I I uh I can sit here and be fake or and be worried about oh, everything I say is gonna be listened to by somebody and they're not gonna like it, and I'm gonna get fired, or I'm gonna get some backlash for something I said about KJ and B. I'm not taking a shot at them. I told you, like, I'm not. That's just the reality of the world. I'm I'm trying to be as authentic as I can be, and everybody should be. And I sit there and I, you know, I read some of the TikTok comments that I get while I'm live, and everybody's like um, you know, sitting there telling me I'm a liar and I'm the you know, fake news and all this other stuff, and it cracks me up. It's like, yeah, I'm telling you when the Jones Boro Pool's gonna be up, and I'm totally fake, totally lying. I'm telling you about Joy Fest coming Saturday at three o'clock, and yep, that's a lie. Yeah. It's it cracks me up because local news is one of the most authentic things in the media space in the world. Obviously, you you can't and I'm not the people can say a lot of stuff about the broad the network broadcasting stuff. Oh, that's fake news. You say what you want about it, but local news how are you gonna tell me that I'm lying about one, either a police report, like you can't tell me a lot about a police report. I'm telling you what the facts are. That's it. So I didn't lie, I just went off of reliable sources. Um, and two, am I lying about what time the pool's gonna open, what time Joy Fest is happening, what time the tree's gonna be lit, what time the parade is? Um that's hey, they have this thing at the parade Friday, it's a sensory area. So Heather Talley's done a fantastic job of building this up in her second year and it's finally back on Maine, thank goodness. Um, but they have a sensory area, so kids, I don't know if it's in one of the businesses, I don't know what it is, but so you can, you know, kids that are autistic or have sensory issues can go and be and watch the parade and see the parade and maybe not listen to it, but see it, or maybe listen to it and not have to hear it, however they need to be. Am I lying about that? That's what that's what cracks me up about um and it can it goes with with the authenticity thing of vocal news is one of the most authentic things in on TV because TV shows aren't authentic, that's fake. It's all fake. I mean it's based on real stuff, but like great Anatomy. I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad show. I love I love fiction. I love TV shows. Stranger Things is fantastic. But like that's fake. So you look at what local news is, it's literally telling you what's going on in your community, regardless of what it is, whether it's an arrest that's been made, whether somebody's uh you know, whether somebody's having an event that people need to go to or know about, or a v an event that's happened for the last 20 years that, hey, this is the date that it's happening, or whatever. We're just trying to tell you what's happening in your community. So that's one of the most authentic things you can be. We're talking about East Day Giving Tuesday, and they benefited the uh the student food pantry or something like that, I think, and you got tickets to the game last night if you donated. Like things, stories like that that just talk about I'm doing a story series right now on the history of things in northeast Arkansas. I'm not from here. You think I want to do this? I've learned to love it and I do want to do it now. But like at the at first, it's like I'm gonna have to do stories about the history of Arkansas, and I'm not even from here. But then I started learning about the history of Arkansas, and I'm like, it's pretty cool. Again, history is one of my best episodes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so like I get into it. I wrote a uh story about the history of Blyville Air Force Base. I had to cut like 70% of it out because it was gonna be nine minutes on TV. I can't do that, so I had to cut it. I have to say it's 70%, it was probably like 40% because I think it wound up being like five and a half. But like I'm not lying about that. I'm not that's authentic, it's the real history. It's yeah, it's I'm being me, learning about this and telling you about it. And that's all we're doing with every story we do. We're learning about it, putting it in a way that we can tell you and you learn about it. That's the that's the best way I can put why local news is important and the importance of being authentic in what you're saying. Because I I try to be authentic in everything I say, and I think it only helps that local news is one of the most authentic things in the media world today.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:22

Um, one of the last questions I got for you is what would you tell somebody that has an interest in pursuing the field that you've decided to go into? Like what path would you recommend if you could do it all over again, straight line path? What does that look like for somebody?

SPEAKER_00 2:02:43

Know exactly what you want to get into in the journalism world. There are writers, there are broadcasters, there are producers, there are a lot of different ways to be involved in not just local news, but uh do you want to be a staff writer somewhere for an online blog or newspaper type thing? Um do you want to be an anchor or reporter? Uh f figure that specific thing out first, and you can do that by doing it. You have a camera, you have your phone, buy a$20 mic, buy a$20 lapel mic, go walk around, get you a tripod, and go walk around and do literal interviews with random people at Target. If you don't like doing that, you don't want to be a reporter. And then you look at it, find something that's happening in your area, go to it, take notes, little tidbits of notes, what's happening? What what are what's going on? Little things. Go home, write a 400-word article on it. You don't want to do that, you don't want to be a reporter. There's a lot of people that look at me and say, Ah, you're just on you're just an anchor. I don't get a story almost every day. I write articles almost every day. And it's not easy, but I think figuring out specifically what you want to do, if you like typing stories, like if you like writing broadcast stories specifically, you might want to be a producer. It's still journalism, you're still learning about journalism and and you're still putting out news or whatever type of thing is. But if you like that on-air writing versus article writing, you might want to be a producer.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:42

Um is college the best way to get into it, or is there like another way?

SPEAKER_00 2:04:50

It doesn't have to be. Listen, obviously, I'm I'm not a person that's gonna tell you to go to college. Uh I I feel like there are a lot of people uh in today's world that have found a way to be successful in this industry without having a degree. Um it's probably gonna be a little easier. Especially this generation. I think we're two generations away. Like, and I I really feel like it could be this next generation, like our kids that may not have to have be forced into that stigma of a college degree is gonna help you no matter what. But right now I think we're still in there, still in that mode, so it'll probably make it easier. I don't think it's necessary, but uh it it would probably make it easier. Um, and I'm getting my master's in new media journalism right now. It just has it's a little bit of broadcasting focus and a little bit of writing focus and a little bit of public relations and crisis management that's more of a you know media relations community engagement communications director style degree, master's degree. So it's not just broadcast. So I've seen a lot more stuff.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:11

So is that going to open up more doors for from an employment standpoint for you just by having that?

SPEAKER_00 2:06:18

Probably, because people we're still in that stigma. For for our generation, I think uh people just look at you and say, What do you have? All right, cool. You have you have the qualifications, and it they look at that paper as a qualification, but I've seen people with the same degree as me. Not. Yeah, they're not that nope. And it's uh and I've seen people that with the same degree as me who were better than me in school. One of my good buddies from school, still talk to him regularly, in a fantasy league together. He was our salutatorian. February of twenty twenty-four, we graduated. Does not have a job. Makes no sense. What do you think that is? Well, why do you think that is? I think it's because of a stigma, because he has a stutter. But there's so many other things that he can do and he would be good at producer, digital content producer, even a director, master control, pressing the buttons in the control room. He'd be fantastic at either one of those. He may not he understands he may not be a good reporter because he's got a stutter. And it g it it gets better whenever he gets comfortable. But people look at it and they're like, nah, you're not qualified. You have a stutter. But there's 17 other jobs he could do. It really annoys me because he's we're talking to dude that knows what he's doing. And now he has to do freelance YouTube editing. Like which he enjoys, but somebody wants. And he's a salutatorian. And I was probably in the middle of the pack with my class, and most everybody was like a weekend sports anchor where they did one day a week, and they were just the grunt that was running from game to game to game to game to game to game. And now they're a weekday anchor. Or I got lucky. I have no doubt in that. I got lucky. But the one who gave me my shot isn't there anymore. She uh she was like, oh. And but I I'm forever grateful to her. She saw me and was like, this dude's got potential. Assistant news director, who's now at the assistant news director at WMC in Memphis, was like, yeah, let's give him a shot. And I'm forever grateful for that because I don't know where I'd be. The other job, the other job offer I had was uh not offer, but uh interview, which probably would have offered me was a weekend weekend producer for WAFB and Baton Rouge. Same company, same parent company, but I would have been producing Jacques Duset's uh sports show, who was the Louisiana Sportscaster of the Year, been at the same station since right before Nick Saban came to LSU, like covered that. That's where I knew him from when Saban got to LSU from Michigan State in 2001. Jacques Duset had just gotten there and we kind of saw him and he's been there ever since. And I would have produced his show on Fridays, sports high school football show on Fridays, and I probably would have been able to go to LSU games a lot. And I turned that down to be on air. Because it's so rare. To be on air consistently, especially as a first job. I mean that's the that's the thing that I forget sometimes. This is my first job out of college. It's insane to think about. But I'm 29 years old. And I was in the army for three years, and I worked for my dad as an operations manager for three years, and I also had job hopping for three years. I've been there's been so many phases in my life that are like most people are like, What? You did all that? And it's like, yeah, it's not really a lot to me. Because I've just done it, I've already done it. It doesn't seem like a lot now, seemed like a lot then. But when I look back on everything that I put myself through, and I won't say been through, because I put myself through it, I wouldn't take anything back. Because getting that DUI would have I would have never I'd probably be a salesman making$35,000 a year,$40,000 a year in Lafayette, Louisiana selling beer. Probably more than that, but still. And if I never would have had that second thing happen to me in the army, probably still be in the army. Yeah. And I I mean, same with Jade, you know? My diabetic grandmother doesn't eat and doesn't take her glucose pill the day of my sister's wedding, and the first person I think of is the person who cut me off a week ago. Only because her sister's diabetic. And then that night she's like, I need to ride home, and we just never were separated again. And a month later we were dead. Everything happens for a reason, and I have never been my stepmom to just say, What's your passion? randomly in the kitchen one day. Which kicked off everything happening now.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:53

I don't yeah, yeah, it's a it's a great story, man. I've really enjoyed listening to it, truly. It's uh been one of my favorite interviews I've done so far. You ever think about starting your podcast again?

SPEAKER_00 2:12:11

If if I were to, I would have to be not employed at a news station. One I can't officially. I mean, I can since it wouldn't be talking about like Arkansas State or Arkansas, anything we talk about, I can't talk about on another media source. So couldn't do like anything like local. But if I wanted to do the the Louisiana sports podcast again, I and the only reason I'd stopped doing it, I tried to do it a little bit by myself after the reason he did it was he stopped because he had another kid and it was just tough. And so I completely understood whenever you you said that.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:12:54

Um, but he couldn't do it, he just couldn't do it anymore. Now he's a state trooper, so um now he really can't do it. And so it's like I need somebody to bounce off of. I can't talk into a mic by myself for an hour and a half. I can't, especially about sports, that's so tough, yeah. Like the only reason sports are so fun to talk about is because you have somebody to talk crap to or absolutely talk back and forth with yeah about whatever it is you're talking about. So I definitely have thought about it. I've definitely thought about starting other podcasts. Um, like I mean, the family dynamic thing. Like I've done that for school, and I was like, that would be awesome, in my opinion. Yeah. To just talk to random people about their dynamic in their family, specifically.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:13:41

Like the way you do it, just random people just about their career path and their life and how it got them to where they are now. Same thing with their families. Like, how did your family, how do you shape your family? What do you want to do when you're raising your kids? Like that type of thing. Yeah. I thought that would be cool because I have pretty crazy family story. So I feel like I don't have a lot of experience in every type of family, but I got a my mom kicked me out, and my sister is my best friend. My dad cheated on my mom and they got divorced, and it's crazy to think about all that stuff happened to me when I was nine and seventeen, like less than 10 years apart, all that stuff happened to me. Yeah, so it'd be a cool podcast, but like I've I've thought about a bunch of different stuff, things like that. It's just like time. Time.

Landing The Anchor Chair

SPEAKER_01 2:14:33

No, I I I absolutely agree with that. Like, I did another podcast because like um when I was like in the middle of it, like really doing it, I was doing this podcast. Me and my buddy that told you he moved to Winter Park, Florida, we did like a movie and uh entertainment podcast. It was called Watchless Wednesday, so we would just talk about all the stuff we were watching, movies and stuff that were coming out, like whatever. And then Patrick's wife and Destiny did a podcast. Like they did like a um a uh true crime podcast where they would talk about serial killers, but they would they would um identify their personality types, so it's called killer personality, and they would talk about like hey, this uh, you know, Israel Keys, like they would go over his story, what he did, what Enneagram type they think he was, and they actually got like a lot of traction. So like I love podcasting, I love all different types of audio media. Like, you know, if you ever see me with my headphone, then I'm probably listening to some type of podcast. So um I think they're great. I mean, you know, like I said, if you ever do get time back again and you want to go back into something, you let me know because uh I'm always down and support a fellow podcaster.

SPEAKER_00 2:15:57

Well, I appreciate you, man. I this has been great.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:01

Is there uh anything else you want to say before we wrap up? What do you got to say to the people out there?

SPEAKER_00 2:16:11

This is kind of gonna go on um on your your authenticity track. I spent so long not being myself, high school and the army, spent so long of my life not being myself. The best advice that I can give you is to find out who that is early and never let him go or her go. Because you're gonna be so much happier, you're gonna be so much more content with your life if you find out who you are earlier and never let them go. And it's hard to do, but whatever you need to do to explore and find out who you are, do it, don't hesitate, find out who you are and never let them go.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:04

Griffin, I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down uh with me, sharing your story. The K8 team is lucky to have you, and uh I'm excited to see what happens with you in the future. And um, yeah, I'm just I'm just grateful that you that we got to catch up, man.

SPEAKER_00 2:17:28

Yeah, me too. I appreciate you, Devin. I'm I'm thankful to be able to tell a little bit of my story.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:33

Yeah, absolutely. We're gonna have to do a part two because I I really feel like, you know, we could probably talk another two hours probably uh and you know not really not really even try. So uh I appreciate everybody for taking the time to listen and uh until next time, peace.