Hey, LaGrange!

This week’s interview is something new. I interview fellow media mogul, Ms. BeeTV April Ross. My interview with April extends from her time at The University of Alabama at Montgomery to finding an unexpected opportunity along the side of the road and a career spiraling out of that happenstance opportunity. We also discuss what April loves about her hometown of LaGrange, Georgia. I hope you’ll join us as we venture on through the diverse community here in LaGrange.

This week’s interview is straight from the heart. This week I interview Anthony Talley, Mr. $1 Thursday, Mr. Get Fed with his partner and 1/4 of the United Leaders of Georgia. He stays busy. He just finished handing out 1,400 pre-loaded backpacks full of school supplies, for free, with the AGAOC at Hope Academy over the weekend. The backpacks went in a little over 2 hours! We sat down and talked for about an hour. Our conversation went from what $1 Thursday is, his time working at Charlie Joseph’s, his concept of #LevelUp that he’s popularized, and a variety of other topics. The man’s story is truly inspirational. I know I was moved and I hope that you will be

This week’s interview is Al Brannon, co-owner and manager of The Marketplace on the corner of Bull and Vernon st’s. My interview with Al is about 30 minutes in length and covers his time with antiques, his history with LaGrange and what he does in the community outside of running his store. It was great to finally sit down with Al, as I’ve been looking forward to it since talking to him about it in March. I hope that you enjoy the interview!

This week’s interview is Chris Hagebak of 809 Gallery of Art and also is an internationally known artist. The interview stretches from his childhood in northern Michigan, where he lost a finger in a lawnmower accident, to learning ping pong from President Jimmy Carter when he was 10. Chris’ stories border on being too big to be true but he is legit and the real deal. And just when you think the stories can’t get any better he drops another one that is even bigger than the one prior. It’s uncanny.

My guest this week is Daniel Evans, writer, editor-in-Chief, publisher and general guy in charge at The LaGrange Daily News, here in LaGrange, and the Valley Times News, over in Valley, Alabama. Daniel sat down and talked with me over the phone for about 35 minutes this Father’s Day weekend about the newspaper business, and more importantly the LaGrange paper’s recent articles about COVID-19 and Troup county’s meteoric rise to the top of multiple New York Times lists for COVID-19 ‘hot spots.’ We also discuss the efficacy of mask wearing, if you’re still on the fence about that issue.

I then take a lighter note and, after the break, take a note of how he came to LaGrange, GA from Selma, AL 3 years ago with a wife who was 8 months pregnant. That created some stories I’m sure you’ll want to hear.

My guest this week is Dr. John A. Tures, political science professor at LaGrange College. He sat down and chatted with me for about an hour on the efficacy of protests, the proposed removal of the confederate monument in LaGrange and a variety of other topics. We even chatted about the weather in my hometown of Binghamton, NY!

This week’s interview is candidate for Troup County Sheriff, Jeremy Bolt. Jeremy sat down with me for about 45 minutes and chatted about the odds and ends of the office of Sheriff, including commenting on the lack of driver’s education at Troup High and Black Lives Matter. I won’t sensationalize the interview, but he gives his thoughts on each and much more.

I was surprised by this interview. Jeremy Bolt sought me out for this interview and I’m glad that he did. Had he not I don’t think I’d have given him the second thought I now am giving him. I’m glad for this interview and I think you’ll enjoy listening to it. At least that’s my hope.

This week’s interview is lawyer, assistant solicitor and candidate for state judge, Kyle Lovejoy. Kyle was kind enough to sit down with me in person for a second time after our first attempt to do the interview flopped. We chatted for about 40 minutes about his time as assistant solicitor, his love of LaGrange and how he would be the superhero Captain Average.

It was a fun interview and I was honestly glad to do it twice just because I got to spend more time talking with Kyle. He’s a good guy and I hope that comes through in the interview.

This week I decided to get political. For the next few weeks we will be interviewing political candidates for public office in and around LaGrange. Each week the podcast will focus on a different candidate and do a bit of a deep dive into what “makes them tick.”

To that end, I invited Ferrell Blair to speak with me for this week’s interview. He sat down and spoke with me for about 30 minutes. Our conversation went through the usual topics you’d expect of someone running for public office but we also spent time talking about his farming and real estate ventures, advice for future farmers and real estate developers, as well as the best cut of steak. You have to listen to the whole interview if you want to know the answer we agree upon.

Overall, and I feel like I say this every week, the interview was a lot of fun and it seemed like it was over as soon as it had just begun!

So I’ll get to the interview so you can hear more about Ferrell Blair, candidate for School Board in District 2 of Troup County.

So Florrie and I have purchased 2 cars in the 10+ years we’ve lived in LaGrange. A Kia Soul from the local Toyota dealership and, because that car was so reliable, we went to the local KIA dealership for our second car when we decided that driving with a car seat in my pickup truck wasn’t a wise idea.

In the purchasing process, we met AJ King. He was very friendly and helped put us into a KIA sorento that we’ve been very happy with since we purchased it. But since then I’ve kinda kept an eye on AJ’s social media profiles. Not in a stalker way, just in a curious way. To see what he’s doing now. I’ve even recommended to my nephew that sells cars in Florida to check out AJ and watch what he does because he’s a master at breaking down the wall that people approach car buying with.

So, I had to have AJ on my podcast about interesting people of LaGrange....

Ok, though I do have an axe to grind....

At the close of the interview, I ask AJ “Beatles or Rolling Stones?” because you can really tell a lot about a person by how they answer that question. If they say “Beatles,” with informed confidence and lean toward the later stuff it tells you that they have hippie sympathies. If they say the same but lean towards the earlier works they have a bit more of a conservative bend to their musical tastes. If they answer “Rolling Stones,” they like a more aggressive sound and therefore like more blues and, dare I say sexual undertone in their music. If they don’t have a strong opinion either way, then that tells you something about the person too. The question is deceptively telling for its simplicity.

That’s what made AJ’s answer and subsequent explanation so frustrating. It was so hard not to hijack the conversation and make it about how I used to teach the History of Rock & Roll. I chose to not even bring it up because it would’ve been shoehorning it into the conversation unnaturally.

I agree completely with him about the Beatles role in the history of rock, though I think one could trace it even further back had they wanted to. There’s a case to be made that African American blues artists such as Robert Johnson are responsible for all music that came after. But, if you’re looking for one seminal event, the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1963 changed the musical landscape forever.

This will all make sense once you listen to the interview.

AJ and I had a lot of fun. He’s a fun guy tho, so that was no surprise. I was surprised to hear about his side hustles though. I thought he was just a car salesman with a good social media presence.

...and his Wild Safari stories cracked me up. I think those were my favorite part of the interview.

Overall, though, this was a good interview. We had a lot of fun and I got to learn a lot of things that I didn’t know about both AJ and KIA of LaGrange. So win/win.