Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Where are they?
[00:00:04] Speaker B: They're probably upstairs.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: They never answer the door. Oh, wait, it's Monday night.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: They're on the second floor.
[00:00:25] Speaker C: Hey, guys. Welcome back to Second Floor Sessions. Today is a special episode for me and Matt both. We've got Bobby Ambren on here, who is a.
He was actually our school teacher. So you can imagine we probably don't know too much about him. So I'm very interested in figuring out exactly what he's got to say to us today and figure out about his life. So, Bobby, thanks for joining us.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Absolutely. Hope I don't look old enough to be your teacher.
[00:00:51] Speaker C: You've been saving that one since he knew he's coming.
Well, just tell us. Tell us about Bobby. What's. Some things we don't know. Start out at childhood and go on. How'd you end up where you're at?
[00:01:04] Speaker A: So mom and dad were both Loudoun county residents growing up. Mom was from Lenora City, dad was from Loudoun. But I was born in 1979. We lived in South Knoxville off of Chapman Highway.
Mom told dad she wasn't gonna teach her children how to drive on Chapman highway, and she wanted to go home.
And so we moved to loudoun.
January of 79, I was a year old.
And so I was the youngest. Older brother, Older sister.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Okay, so now we're in 79. Did you move on?
[00:01:45] Speaker A: We moved out into Piney.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Out in the Piney.
[00:01:47] Speaker C: Okay. All right. Wow.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Yep. And we've been there. Mom and dad have been there for.
It'll be 48 years in January.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: It's the best thing they ever done.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it sure is.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Same spot, though.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Same spot.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: My granddaddy, Amber lived off of Bishop Road. And then my mom's parents lived in Lenore City. So we were just right in between there.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: He was right? Yeah.
[00:02:08] Speaker C: So whatever took him up to Chapman highway, was that like work?
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Dad's work.
Dad was working at Benco Plastics.
Then he would come home. They were living in a subdivision. And I'm going to tell this basically. I know I'm going to miss a little bit here and there, but he started building a house across the street.
And so they had a 30 year note on their house in this subdivision. Dad was working at Benco Plastics. Mom did nothing other than stay at home with the kids. She was not working regularly. And so once this house was built across the street, they'd move over there, put this one up for sale.
They sold this one and he went over across the street again. This time he was on a 15 year note.
And he did this two to three times to where the last time he was on a five year note. He had this house on a five year note.
And he took that money and came and bought 18 acres in Piney for $45,000.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: And he was able to put about 25 or 30 down on it. And this was because of what he had done for these last four or five years, working all day and then building these houses of the evening.
And so I asked him, I said, why did you quit?
He said, well, as long as you own two houses, you don't own anything.
He said, you could always lose everything.
He said, so his goal was to make enough money to buy a piece of property.
And so they moved down here.
And then mom went to work when I was in kindergarten.
And for as long as we're going to talk tonight about any stories, any avenues that we go, you're going to hear me talk about how God's blessed my family and just the real presence that God has had in our lives.
And so my mom had been unemployed for close to 10 years, 11 years, something like that. She goes to work. This is when they start building. It was A.E. staley then, but it was.
She went and worked over there as a secretary when the construction process started.
And she had been working for two weeks.
And at this time, when they moved back to Loudon, dad was a carpenter. He was building some apartments and doing things like that.
And mom picked up insurance. We never had it. I was born on the MasterCard. Mom said that when I was born, she swiped a credit card and they made payments on me.
But she went to work. She'd been working for two weeks. My dad was diagnosed with diabetes and we had had family coverage for two weeks.
And he was 35 years old and diagnosed with diabetes.
And that, that was the good Lord watching over because we would have never gotten out of all kinds of government assistance.
[00:04:58] Speaker C: Now he's an insulin dependent diabetic, isn't he?
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Yes, I think. Is that type one?
Probably so. So it's like the juvenile diabetes, except that he was diagnosed at 35.
He was building apartments back behind the post office and his boss told him, he said, clyde, you need to go to the house.
Dad said, okay. He wasn't wanting to leave work early, but he said, okay. He said, I went to get in the truck and I missed the door handle. He said, so I made a lap. He said, I caught it the second time.
So he gets in the truck and drives home, passes out on the couch.
Mom has A feeling, she said.
And mom has these occasionally.
You need to go to the house. She's at work. She's at. She goes home, finds him passed out on the couch.
She calls my papa Floyd, her daddy.
They take him up to Baptist Hospital.
The nurse tells them, Mr. Amber, the good Lord wasn't in need of a carpenter today because you were available. Your blood sugar was 1200.
He had driven home from work out of 1200. 1200.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: I don't think I've ever hurt anybody at a 12.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: And mom came home, found him on the couch.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: If she hadn't left work, he'd been a dead man.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: He would have been a dead man.
And so, you know, God has always taken care of our family and blessed us that way. And that's.
That's the synopsis of that.
Now, an interesting aside that'll really trigger something for you, so I'll never forget.
So I went to Loudoun elementary, which is where the central office is now, near the health department, because I rode bus 5, and those of us that were beyond the split went to town.
You know, bus five would come down, and then they would take a left and go up to Sticky.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: And then they would come back and pick us up.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: Who was the driver of bus 5?
[00:06:57] Speaker A: Well, we had Ed. We had Dobie, and we had Brenda gonna say, Franks. Yeah, Dobie, Franks and Brenda.
But I will never forget riding that bus.
And we looked off at Highway 72, and somebody said, that's the new road you'll be able to go to all the way to town without passing the hospital.
You know, we had no idea that
[00:07:22] Speaker C: would have been in the 80s.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: That was prop. Yeah.
Probably 81 or 82.
And then I got. I went to Loudoun elementary for first grade at the new school, when they opened it up.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: Okay. At the. Where it's at.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
That is neat.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: So now, in jumping a little bit forward. Sure.
When I remember you telling this in class, you went to Loudoun High School, right?
[00:07:53] Speaker A: Yes, sir.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: Okay. And graduated. And then after Loudoun High School, what did you do?
[00:07:59] Speaker A: I went to University of Tennessee. And so I'll back up just a little bit.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: So my senior year, my freshman year in high school, you know, I had decided I had gotten involved in 4H and FFA. And so I thought, I'm going to study AG. That's what I want to do. I. I don't know what. But I want to study ag. I want to do something in ag.
And that was always leaning towards the animal side of it, the production, agriculture, beef, swine, those things. I didn't care about the plants and animals. I was not nearly as trained in the mechanics side of it, the welding. I had to learn that later on. But I always liked the animal science side of it. And I thought, I want to do something in ag.
My senior year, we were at state FFA convention, and I felt just as strong a calling as any preacher that fills the pulpit.
I remember the state officers coming across the stage and saying, you know, this is my farewell address. You know, I'm no longer a state officer. I just want to thank Mr. Such and Such or Ms. Such and Such, my advisor. They really made a difference in my life.
And it was a very real moment where I felt God say, I want you to teach.
You know, ag. You know, we've been talking ag this whole time. I want you to teach.
And so I never hesitated, and I went straight to ut. I said, I'm going to teach ag.
And, you know, I got involved in all of the ag programs and all of those clubs and things like that, did my student teaching, loved every second of it, Got a job teaching ag and loved every second of it. And it was. I never was one of these people that thought, man, I wish I'd have done something else. I really, you know, I felt like God said, this is what I want you to do. And then he gave me a real love for it. And so it just. It was that way the whole time.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: I was very fortunate that way.
[00:09:53] Speaker C: Now, how long did you teach at Loudoun?
[00:09:56] Speaker A: I taught at Loudoun.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: Did you start at Loudoun, teacher?
[00:09:59] Speaker C: No.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: So I graduated UT in December of 1999, and there are no teaching positions at that point.
My advisor told me, he said, hey, there's a spot in Wynn, Arkansas.
And he said, if you're interested, you can go out there and apply. But he said, and so when I went out there.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: Oh, so you went, okay.
[00:10:22] Speaker C: He drove that old red Chevrolet out there and back. I remember the story. I remember the story.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: But I went out there and I interviewed and wound up meeting just one of the most influential men I'd ever known. He was the principal of that school. But he, the lady that was the current ag teacher had been offered a job with the state of Arkansas in agriculture.
And he told her, he said, if I can't find somebody that suits me, I'm gonna hold you to your contract and you won't be able to take that job and a mantit.
And that's the way he did his business. You know, you're not going to leave me in a lurch. I will hold you to your contract.
But he was fair, you know, but he was, I'm gonna make the best decisions for these kids, and I'm not going to hire somebody just to fill a spot so that you can better yourself.
And so I interviewed with him, and that all went well.
And I'll never forget he and I walking around the building, and he said, robert. He said, another aside there, My.
My resume said Robert. And I was way too intimidated to tell him, you know, call me Bobby.
So Wynn, Arkansas is the only place on this globe that refers to me as Robert. Everybody in town, he'd introduce me as Robert. And I said, hey, I'm Robert.
But I was way too intimidated to say, no, my name's Bobby. So anyway, he said, robert, he said, everybody has to have their shot, and I'm giving you yours. Don't screw it up, you know. And that's how he hired me. And so I worked there from December until January. I'm sorry, December until June.
And he told me at the end of that year, he said, I want you to let me know. He said, I know you want to get back to East Tennessee. He said, just please let me know as soon as you know something. I said, yes, sir.
That was the most miserable time in my life living out there, because now, as far as ag goes, it was wonderful. As far as an animal scientist goes, it was terrible.
I learned a lot about riding horses and things like that. But it. We recovered in rice fields. That other ag teacher told me, he said, now when the mosquitoes come, he said, don't smack them. He said, that just ticks them off. He said, you let him finish because. And it was. It was awful. But there was.
It was me and my students and their parents.
Anybody that was young, anybody that was my age and had any ambition left town.
And so there was just nobody there.
Me, my students and their parents.
[00:12:54] Speaker C: How big of a town was that?
[00:12:58] Speaker A: I don't think it was very.
So rural.
Like, a lot of it was cropland. Yeah.
You know. Did you all. Did you go to the farm machinery show with us?
[00:13:09] Speaker C: I've been to the farm machinery show.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Yeah. So my dad and I were at the farm machinery show, and he said, son, he said, what size gate would you have to. Have to get one of these things through it? I said, dad, I said, you remember out in Arkansas? I said, they didn't have fences. I said, they planted those beans 18 inches off the highway. I said I didn't have gates, I didn't have to worry about no gates, but it was all crops. But I was so miserable and so wanted to get back to East Tennessee. And so I told myself, you know, this guy's hired me and this is something that I've learned, and you guys being in management of your own businesses and things, and I know you guys well, so I know that you feel the same way as I do about a certain type of loyalty to the guy that's hired you, you know, and so I told myself, if I can't get a job by the end of June, I'm staying. I'm not gonna have him looking for an ag teacher in July.
[00:14:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: And so it was getting close and I was getting miserable, but I was not going to leave. I owed him that.
I wish more people still felt that.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's. Yeah, a lot of people just let that stuff go.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: Yeah. But I felt him that. And so right at the end of June, I found out that they were hiring in Washington county, which is, you know, Johnson City.
[00:14:28] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: And so I called them and said, you know, I'd like to set up an interview. And she said, just be prepared. She said, if Mr. Rowland likes you, he's liable to offer you a job on the spot.
Yes, ma'. Am.
So I set it up for as soon as I possibly could. I wasn't going to let somebody interview in front of me. And so I drove overnight for the next day. I drove overnight so that I could be there. I said, you got anything open tomorrow? She said, he's got a spot at noon or 1 o'. Clock.
And so I knew it was gonna be. The interview was going really well.
And he said, Mr. Amber, this is my 28th year. So that was year two. So it tells you how long ago this was. This was in 2000.
He said, Mr. Amber? And he said, I need a cigarette.
This is the director of schools I'm meeting with. This is not a principal I'm interviewing with the director of schools. He said, I need a cigarette. And so we go out onto the front steps of the Washington County Board of Education. I put a pinch of skull in. He gets a cigarette. We finish our interview. He said, you want this job? And I said I'd jump all over it. And he said, we'll get to jumping. The job's yours.
And so.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: Wow. Okay. That's awesome.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: I had had an opportunity about that same time I'd interviewed with Monterey, as Monterey was in Loudoun and I had a degree in agriculture. And so they were needing a position filled.
And so I decided I'd rather teach agriculture in Washington county than raise mushrooms in Loudoun.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Three hours from home.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I never was the plant guy.
[00:15:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: So I thought, at least I'm in East Tennessee.
When I was.
Freshman, sophomore, college, they shut the ag program down loud in high school.
And so I'd always had a goal. I want to reinstate it.
And so when I finished up.
[00:16:18] Speaker B: I do believe.
Not to interrupt you, but I believe you're leading into the story that I heard you tell about how that was.
Ag was something that was dying and that you wouldn't accept. I remember vaguely of. I'm hoping that's what we're going.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: Well, we'll see. I'm trying to remember that. But anyway, so they called and said, hey, we're going to reinstate the program. Would you like to come down and interview?
And so I came down, I interviewed, and it was. They brought John Harrison in on the interview because they hadn't.
They didn't know what ag was. John was one of the few people in the community that had had experience taking ag in high school, taking ag in college, you know. And so they sat him in on the interview. Had Chad Udi's mother, because she was on the school board at that time.
Then I had, I think, the deputy director of schools.
[00:17:18] Speaker C: I figured they brought Randy Davis in there. No, he was a school teacher.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: John Harrison.
[00:17:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: And a farmer. Roger Eichelberger was principal, and Sherry may have been assistant. She may have been in the interview as well.
But I did something in that interview.
Look, hindsight being 20 20, I shouldn't have done it. Didn't kill me, though, so. But it was one of those things where you feel I was almost offended.
And So I said, Mr. E. Did you all know Mr. Eichelberger?
[00:17:54] Speaker C: I did not.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: Mr. E looked at my resume, and he said, robert, Bobby. You know, at this time, I'm like, my name is Bobby. So he said, bobby said, this is your third job in three years.
I'd been at Wynn High School. I'd been at Daniel Boone High School. Now I'm. Aloud.
He said, what's your problem?
And I said, this is the job that I want. I said, this is the only job that I would leave Daniel Boone High School for.
I said, if you all don't hire me, I'll go back there and they will love me. I said, what's to say that I don't quit my job and come down here and you don't jerk the program out from under me like you did the last guy.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: Mm.
[00:18:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: And as soon as that came out of my mouth, I thought I probably should have said that.
But I was very loyal to my. To my agriculture teacher. Good guy, and taught me a lot. And I felt like, you know, that offended me a little bit. Absolutely. We wound up having a wonderful relationship. Roger Eichelberger was wonderful to work for. John Harrison was very supportive. And everything that we did, it was. It was. It was what needed to happen.
[00:19:00] Speaker C: Right. Yeah.
[00:19:01] Speaker B: I did not know that's exactly how it went.
[00:19:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: I was young and needed to have my own time tamed a little bit.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: Well, sometimes you got to speak what you think, though, too.
[00:19:11] Speaker C: I mean, it. That might have helped you.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. You know, that's where I met. This is home.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: Right.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: This is where I want to be, you know, to see it.
[00:19:19] Speaker C: So how long did. How long was you teaching it loud in there?
[00:19:23] Speaker A: So I taught.
[00:19:24] Speaker C: What year was that?
[00:19:24] Speaker A: That was your initial question. So I came 2001.
So here's something interesting.
So Roger hires me in June.
And I told him, I said, Mr. Reedy, I said, just so that you know, I said, I've scheduled a mission trip. I'm going to Nairobi, Kenya for two weeks.
The first two weeks that I'm supposed to be employed by Loudoun County Schools because I was a 12 month employee. So I was expected to start in July.
He said, I totally understand. Go to Kenya, have a good time.
We get off the plane in Kenya, as we're driving. We stayed at African Azerim University. As we're driving through there, the guy driving the bus said, right there is the Kenyan Embassy, the American embassy in Kenya. He said, al Qaeda blew that up. And we all said who?
This was in. This was in July of 2001. Who? He said, al Qaeda. And like, whatever.
[00:20:26] Speaker C: Yeah, whoever that is.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: And so September 2001, I'm sitting down in the basement. I was in Mr. Phillips's room. Did y' all have Mr. Phillips? I'm trying to think who talk wood shop? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:20:42] Speaker C: That's my. He's my uncle.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: That's right. So I was in, you know, his room.
That's when I first came to Loudoun High School.
Mr. Fritz and everybody else was still at the vocational school for one year.
[00:20:52] Speaker C: Okay. So the vocational building wasn't built correct.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: I was floating.
And so a couple times today, I was in Kent's room. And a couple times, I think I had to teach one in the library and teach one Somewhere else. I mean, I didn't have a shop. I didn't have any tools. We didn't have anything. Yeah, we wound up building a little lean to greenhouse just to just have something to do. But we didn't have anything. But I was down there on my planning period when those planes hit, you know, and that's so us said. When was that? It was 2001 is when I started at Loudoun High School.
[00:21:26] Speaker C: Yeah. That makes it easy to remember.
[00:21:27] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:21:28] Speaker C: I was in sixth grade.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: Ma or Sally? Sally Richie, seventh grade. Yeah, Sally Richie's class I was in.
She was sixth grade.
[00:21:39] Speaker C: Yeah, I was in sixth grade. So you would have had to be sixth grade.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: Yeah, Sally was in sixth grade.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: I think I had her for seventh. I knew I had Marianne for.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: I know exactly what room I was in and everything. It was pretty wild.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:21:50] Speaker C: I'm a Philly boy, so I can't relay it, but.
But yeah, that's.
That's easy to remember. I think everybody remembers.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:21:58] Speaker C: Where they were the moment that happened.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: I don't think it's wild to me to think that there's people even that
[00:22:05] Speaker C: don't even know what that is that you.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: That you guys have in school and stuff that's like.
[00:22:09] Speaker C: That you'd be teaching that too. That blows my mind. Is that in the curriculum nowadays?
[00:22:14] Speaker A: I'm sure it is, but I don't know if you guys have done this math either. But this is my 28th year.
28 years ago, I taught 18 year olds.
[00:22:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: I have former students that are 45 and 46 years old now.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Grandparents themselves.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Golly, that is crazy. Wow.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it's.
[00:22:35] Speaker C: Well, that. That ain't what gets it for me.
Craig sent me a picture the other day of Ethan.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: Oh, sure.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: You know, graduated, going, whatever. I was picking him up at Eaton. Oh, yeah. You know, that's insane.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: Yeah. My little girl's driving me around.
[00:22:49] Speaker C: Yeah, it's crazy.
Time flies, but.
[00:22:54] Speaker A: So agriculture has always been big for our family, you know, And I don't know how much Craig's told you about our grandfather, but my granddad was.
He was the manager for the Bacon farm, you know, and Colonel Bacon owned everything in Loudoun, you know, Bacon Hosiery Mill, Bacon Creamery, you know, Bacon Hospital.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: And that was your who?
[00:23:15] Speaker A: Well, my grandfather managed his farm.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Okay, okay, okay, okay.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: Do you know where Ace Hardware is in the village?
So right behind it there's a little island that popped up.
You know, you'll see it the next time you go. But Right out in the middle of the lake, there's a little island pops up right behind Ace Hardware, and that's where Colonel Bacon's house stood.
And so my granddaddy Amber managed that farm that basically went from there all the way down to Maple Hill.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: So that's a trip.
He never owned his own place because he wouldn't go into debt.
You know, I had a guy tell me once, he said, he said, we tried and tried and tried to get your grandfather to take out a loan to buy his own place. He said he was the kind of farmer that could have made it and paid for it, but he just would not go into debt. So Granddaddy always worked for someone else.
Well, Colonel Bacon didn't have any children, and I think this is correct, but it's not way off. I think his wife had a niece and she wound up connected with the Moorefields and everybody else, but she had. She. The niece was married. And so they wound up basically inheriting bulk of the estate was this niece and her husband. He had played football for ut.
And so when TVA came in and said, you know, we're going to condemn all this. My grandfather was 60 something. I think he was in his 60s.
He'd always worked for someone else, didn't have his own place, didn't have anything.
You know, I mean, he had money that was put up, but he'd always lived on the farm.
And so the gentleman that was over everything gave Granddaddy a tractor. My dad still has that 20, 20 John Deere that's out in the barn. He gave him a tractor. Granddaddy bought a piece of property out on Bishop Road right next to Brian Curtis's house.
Brian Curtis actually bought property from Granddaddy, built that house, and then the gentleman sent him a crew out there to build him a house.
So Granddaddy would have somewhere to go when the farm went under.
But, you know, agriculture's always meant a lot to our family. And so that was where I really got my first taste of it. But Granddaddy was like. Most of the guys around here were really jaded.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. By village. Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: The way that they.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: So it went all the way from there to Maple Hill.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: They had the upper farm and lower farm.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: Wow, that's a. That's a good travel.
[00:25:47] Speaker C: Yeah, it's big.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it was a lot.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: It's a bunch.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: It was a lot. And they managed, you know, they managed all kinds of, you know, so I asked my dad. We bought mom and dad these books. I don't know if you guys have seen them, but you need to do this. It's a. It's called, like, the story of my life. You sit down with the parents and you interview them, kind of like you all are. And so it says, like, who was your first grade teacher?
Those type of things. And so one of the things I asked my dad was, I said, what's one of the most vivid memories you have from when you were a certain age, like 10 or whatever? He said, now, I do remember. He said, I was in my grandmother's house, and she said, look down there. Your granddaddy's on fire.
And he said, he said, I look down there, and it was a gas tractor and something happened. But, I mean, he was.
He was rolling. And dad said, she told me to run up, run up to the house and get somebody, come down there and get him, take him to the hospital. You know, at 10 years old, dad sees his grandfather just flopping in a
[00:26:47] Speaker B: hay field on fire.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: On fire. And he's, you know, kicking his shoes off and running through these pastures to get somebody else with a car that can come down here and get him taken to the hospital.
That would be one of the most vivid.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: That would be vivid for sure.
[00:27:00] Speaker C: Yeah. You probably wouldn't forget that.
See grandfire Grandfather catch on fire.
So where. So how long. How long did you teach at Loud?
[00:27:10] Speaker A: I taught it, loudon, for approximately 12 years.
[00:27:15] Speaker C: And then we were. We were long gone.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: Four or five years after we left,
[00:27:19] Speaker C: we were long gone. And then.
And what are you doing now?
[00:27:23] Speaker A: 2012, 2013 is. I think it's 12.
I am.
Went into administration at this, at the building level.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: I thought that was so cool when you went into that.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate that.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: I thought that was awesome.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: You know, I sat down with the director of schools and was talking to him, and he said, Mr. Emery said, I thought you liked teaching shop.
He said, why do you want to pursue administration?
And I said, I love teaching shop. I said, there's nothing in this world I love more than teaching shop, and I'm not trying to escape my classroom.
I said, I want my classroom to be the entire building.
[00:28:00] Speaker C: Because you had a good classroom, too. That was nice over there, what they had for you.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: I said, what I do works on 25 kids at a time, and I'm confident that it will work on an entire building the way that I do and the way that I manage and the way that I do these things.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: I like that.
[00:28:15] Speaker A: I said, furthermore, I said, it's tough to inherit 15 and 16 year old kids that have made decisions that can always potentially negatively impact their life and you're inheriting them as freshmen. You know, I said I'd like to have a shot at them when they're 10 or 11.
[00:28:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: I said I'm not trying to escape that. I said, I'm trying to catch it early if I can.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: So that's your whole goal, basically.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:28:44] Speaker A: And so that's all. So I still try to do my job the same way I did when I was teaching you all, which is get out, get around them, get to know them, invest in them. You know, definitely draw that line between, you know, being a friend and being authority. But be fair and honest.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: And see, in my mind, I've always just thought like, okay, yeah, you're a teacher now. You want to be a little bit more and a little bit more for what I would assume just the worldly thoughts of a little more money, a little more this, a little more power, a little more that.
[00:29:19] Speaker A: I initially took a cut and pay.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:29:21] Speaker B: And I told him that's some powerful stuff.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: I told him that. Mayor at that time I was going from a 12 month employee down to an 11 month employee. I said, I said, I'm losing $50 a month.
[00:29:33] Speaker C: Right. Yeah.
[00:29:34] Speaker A: Applying for this job. But I said, I said it's not about the money.
Said it's about the opportunity to make an impact, you know, so I'm trying to teach, Teach adults now. You know, this is how we do. This is, this is how we instruct, this is how we interact with kids. This is how we do these things. So I'm still teaching. And that's my, that's what I, I had a little girl once that said he was, or you guys today said he was my teacher. You know, that is, that's the greatest thing they could ever call me, other than a good dad, you know?
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: He was my teacher.
[00:30:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: And that's what I hope that the kids at North Middle School think too.
[00:30:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: That's awesome. I just never ever looked at it like that.
[00:30:18] Speaker C: Now what are you doing at North Middle?
[00:30:20] Speaker A: Well, I'm the hired jerk.
Not really. But I, I do, I'm assistant principal.
[00:30:26] Speaker C: Assistant. Okay.
[00:30:27] Speaker A: But I, I do a lot of the discipline.
[00:30:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: And then I do work with a lot of the facility management.
Then we share responsibilities with different types of students, manage our 504 caseloads, and then I share the instructional load with observations and teacher observations and things like that.
[00:30:51] Speaker C: So do you get more out of what you're Doing now than you did at the high school habitation shop class.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: I get different.
I love it. I love it different. That's what somebody said, do you like what you do? And I said, I love it. They said, you like it more than you did before. And I said, no, I just love it different.
It's my day, so I try my very best to get to North Middle School no later than 6:30, because you don't have enough time today to finish yesterday's and do today's.
So I always wanted to start my day with all my things done fresh. I also can't do my job effectively from my office.
So once I walk out of my office at 7:15 to start bus duty, I try my best not to go back in there if I can help it.
You know, I like to be out the building. I want to be in classrooms. I want to be with these kids, I want to do those things.
But I mean, my typical day starts, you know, at 7:15. We unlock the doors, kids start coming in.
I am, for the last 12 years, I've been in charge of finding substitute teachers and managing that part of the day, which is a challenge, you know, trying to make sure that classes are all outfitted by eight.
[00:32:06] Speaker C: How many teachers are in that school?
[00:32:08] Speaker A: Between all the classes, we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 to 50 teachers, but we have almost 80 staff total.
[00:32:21] Speaker C: I guess classrooms is what I was meaning.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: We have fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth.
[00:32:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:27] Speaker A: And we have, you know, so is
[00:32:31] Speaker B: that considered middle now? Fifth.
[00:32:33] Speaker A: Fifth grade is not so here. So if your kids came to North Middle School in the fifth grade, they can participate in cross country because that is not a TSAA sport.
Sixth grade, they can do basketball, football, everything else.
Six, seven and eight is middle school. Okay, okay, but fifth graders can do cross country. Okay, but we have to answer your question, Bo. It fluctuates and I'm trying to do the math.
We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30, 32 classes, something like that.
[00:33:11] Speaker C: Yeah. So there's probably never a time there's not a substitute needed.
[00:33:14] Speaker A: I'd say, oh, I'm generally finding about six or seven a day.
[00:33:17] Speaker C: Yeah, true. Yeah.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: And. And so that's that the day starts. You know, I also do all of our maintenance requests. You know, teachers will say whether it's why. I'd say I've got a flickering bulb. I have to. I don't go change. I mean, I do sometimes, but we have people do that, but I have to fill out the work orders and do those things and make sure that all that gets choreographed. You know, she gets her planning period here, let's see if we can do it then, those type of things.
I handle attendance, which is its own difficult thing.
And then.
And the discipline thing. And so we are a trauma informed school.
[00:33:56] Speaker C: What does that mean?
[00:33:57] Speaker A: What that means is, hypothetically, let's just put you in that situation. Let's say hypothetically that.
Both your parents are deceased and you're being raised by your grandparents.
[00:34:13] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: What I tell parents all the time is that, you know, so I try to invest in these kids, I try to learn who they are.
It doesn't change the consequences.
You know, you're still not allowed to flip your teacher off, right?
[00:34:28] Speaker B: Yeah, right, absolutely.
[00:34:29] Speaker A: But it certainly changes the conversation that we have, you know, Matthew here that lives in Avalon with his parents.
You know, me and you about to have come to Jesus meeting, right?
[00:34:41] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: You, you're getting a consequence.
But I also, and this is something that I don't know if I told you this the other day, Matthew, sympathize
[00:34:50] Speaker C: with him a little more.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: Well, it's never personal.
They're mad at their circumstances.
They're mad because dad was out drunk all night. They're mad because mom didn't come home. They're mad because everybody in the class has got new shoes except them. They're mad because they didn't eat breakfast.
And so that conversation is more of a.
I hate it, what you're going through, but it's not our fault and you can't point it towards us. When you come into this building, you've got to let us help you. You're gonna get some consequences. Cause you're not allowed to treat your teacher that way.
In the meantime, I'm also gonna have a guidance counselor talk to you. Cause I think you're not normally this way, but you've had a pretty tough three days in a row here. You know, I don't know what's going on with you.
When you're done with her, you're going to in school, right? Yeah, but you know, that's what trauma informed kind of looks like is.
We're trying to solve the problem, good discipline.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: So you're trying to build a relationship to where if they get to this point in their life, they can come to you and talk things out instead of flipping the teacher off or getting mad and getting in a fight or whatever.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: I've told them plenty of times, I said, you can come into my office, you can shut the doors and you can scream and cuss and Say whatever you want to and you're going to be fine. I'll listen it. You're not gonna do it to my teachers.
[00:36:12] Speaker C: Right?
[00:36:13] Speaker A: I said I know you're having. You have bad days. Come in here before you lose your mind.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: Come in here and shut the doors. You can holler at me all you want. I'll just sit here and listen to you.
[00:36:22] Speaker C: Right.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: I won't take it personal.
[00:36:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: But good discipline changes behavior. Yeah. And so that's why. That's why, you know, all this stuff that you've gone through in your life, you don't need one. I mean, me belittling you isn't going to solve anything.
You know what I mean?
[00:36:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: That's not. I'm not trying to just throw out consequences. I'm trying to.
[00:36:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: Cure behavior.
[00:36:44] Speaker C: You're like Mr. Clark, lean on me.
[00:36:47] Speaker A: Well, we're just. We're just trying to. You know what's causing it? Is it because you're spoiled and you get everything that you want, or is it because you're mad at the world?
[00:36:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: And so you have to keep those things in mind when you're handling.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: You have. And you have to have Draw a line between the two and figure them out.
[00:37:01] Speaker C: Well. And you need to. And you need to get that ahead instead of waiting till high school.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: Well, you guys. You guys both do mechanics. I mean, when you're diagnosing that problem, you don't do the same thing to every rattle.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:13] Speaker C: No, right.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:37:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: You got to find out what's causing it.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah. That's. That's good. I just never seen it like that. So. So I guess what's.
Since it sounds like you do a lot, I'm just curious. What does the. What does the principal do?
[00:37:31] Speaker A: So.
A lot. Okay. So what I tell people often is that. So there's two assistant principals and a principal.
I tell them, I said, my job is to handle the 45 minute issues.
Her job is to handle the five minute issues.
Yes. No, approved.
You know, those. I mean, she gets hundreds of those things a day.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: Mm.
[00:37:57] Speaker A: She doesn't have 45 minutes at a spot to sit down with this kid and work with him. And then to call that parent back and to call this parent back and do those things. And so, you know, she's keeping everything up in the air. And we're trying to handle those time sponges.
[00:38:12] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: You know.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: We do a lot of things, but, I mean, I work with a great team.
I work with a wonderful team. We all have different strengths. And I have never had so much fun working this hard my entire life.
[00:38:28] Speaker C: Right. Yeah.
[00:38:29] Speaker A: Just thoroughly enjoy it.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: Yeah. I just. I just think about going back to like sticky, where Ms. Boone would wear the kids out in front of us. Or, you know, because if you knew you. Nobody, I guess. I guess even when we were in high school, you went to the principal's office. I never even heard about going to the assistant principal's office.
[00:38:50] Speaker C: We were still talking about Ms. Boone in high school.
[00:38:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:38:54] Speaker C: About getting those paddling.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: So one of the things I tried to do, if you brought your kids tomorrow and said, hey, I'm gonna bring these kids to North Middle.
I take you into my office and I tell those kids, I said, I want your first experience in here to be positive so that you know that this is a place you can come. I don't want you to be terrified to come in here.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:39:14] Speaker A: I said, if you've made a mistake, we're going to talk about it. But I said, this is, this is a place you get questions answered. This is not a place where you just get chewed on.
And so. Yeah. I mean, because they're still kids.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:39:27] Speaker A: That's at the end of the day, they're kids.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:29] Speaker C: There's kids in a weird time of their life too.
[00:39:31] Speaker B: But he said it perfect the other day when, when you come to my store. How did you say that? It's not the kids fault.
[00:39:38] Speaker A: So the Coke man came in. He was delivering a Coke machine and he said, I don't envy you. I said, what do you mean?
[00:39:44] Speaker B: I kind of said the same thing.
[00:39:46] Speaker A: He said, kids aren't the same as they were when I was in school. He said, I couldn't do this job. I said, well, I said, that's where I disagree with you. I said, they're exactly the same. He said, what do you mean? I said, since the beginning of time, kids have entered this world knowing nothing.
And I said, it's the responsibility of the adults to train them up. I said, the adults have changed. Not the kids.
[00:40:06] Speaker C: Right.
[00:40:07] Speaker A: I said, they know nothing when they got here. I said, but the adults that were in charge of getting them to this point.
[00:40:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: The difference is I've let them down.
[00:40:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:40:15] Speaker A: The kids are still wonderful.
[00:40:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:17] Speaker A: It's not their fault.
[00:40:18] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: They're children.
[00:40:19] Speaker B: I never even looked at it like that. I hadn't never even thought about it.
[00:40:22] Speaker C: I mean, we've said it a million times. Yeah. These kids are being raised.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. But you know, but you just don't think about it, you know, just my immediate thoughts, like, well, I'd hate to be a teacher to. Or this or that, because I ain't got the patience. You know, it's not their fault.
[00:40:34] Speaker C: Agree.
[00:40:35] Speaker B: It's not their fault.
[00:40:36] Speaker A: So my dad.
[00:40:37] Speaker C: Well, it's. It's not. It's not about that for me. For me, it's more so of.
I couldn't do what Bob does because I can't do it the way I.
[00:40:48] Speaker B: I do it the way you want to do it.
[00:40:51] Speaker C: I can't do it the way I. I can't treat those kids the way I do my kids.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: No, no, no.
[00:40:56] Speaker C: You know, this is the way I do it. So I'd have to come up with a totally new way and figure everything out for them.
[00:41:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:02] Speaker C: Which I could see that. That's why I say I couldn't do it if it was. If it was Bo, here's 150 kids. I want you to make sure they're all good.
Give them to me.
I have no restrictions, no nothing. They can stay with me for a year.
That would be something that I. If. If I took that on, I would. You know, with those kind of not having any restrictions on it, I could handle it. But. But you gotta do it this way, this way and this way and achieve this. I'm like, how am I gonna do that? You know, they talked about the way
[00:41:35] Speaker A: that we were raised. I worked construction with dad all the way through high school and college.
And I got up one. He woke me up one morning.
He said, time to go to work. I said, dad, I don't feel good.
He said, well, I hate that, son. He said, going back to bed, he said, I hope you get to feeling better. I said, yeah, thank him. So I went back to bed. Next morning, I get up, I'm putting my boots on. He said, what are you doing?
I said, I was getting ready to go to work.
He said, son, he said, we were pouring concrete yesterday, and you laid out on me. He said, if you won't work when I need you, you certainly won't work when I don't need you and I don't need you anymore. You're fired.
And then he went on into work. You know, he was the superintendent building at this point. He's building schools in Knoxville. So he has 60, 70 subcontractors.
He pulls into work, and they're all like, where's Bob at? He said, he laid out on me yesterday, and I fired him. You don't think that made a believer out of the Rest of them too.
But I was 19 years old and that was the last day that I didn't go to work because I didn't want to now tell that story with so much pride because it made me who I am.
[00:42:38] Speaker B: Oh yeah, Absolutely.
[00:42:39] Speaker A: I called him one day, I was on the side of Highway 72.
I said, Dad, I need some help. He what is it? And I said, I'm out of gas. He said, I drive next Chevelle. He said, I gave you $20 put in it. I said I didn't have time.
He said, you got all the time in the world now, don't you?
He said, you're not in that big of a hurry anymore. He said, son, he said, the only thing I could have done was to drove down there and put it in there for you myself. He said, you just sit there and wait. He said, I'll be there when I get there.
He left me out there for 45 minutes to an hour and I was five minutes from the house.
He said, you're not that big of a hurry anymore, are you?
But that's.
[00:43:14] Speaker C: But you didn't. But that's his Chevelle too.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: It.
[00:43:16] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that's Yalls Chevelle.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: But I love that. Telling these stories because it made me who I am.
[00:43:22] Speaker C: If you've been driving that old truck, he wouldn't have came.
[00:43:24] Speaker A: No, no.
[00:43:26] Speaker C: Just because he said your veil is the only reason.
[00:43:30] Speaker B: Well, I just. I just. I just was thinking that, you know, because making a believer out of you.
[00:43:36] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:43:36] Speaker B: Back when you were in school and I was in school and you know.
[00:43:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:40] Speaker B: When that principal come in. If they had to get the principal involved to handle that two minute butt whooping that you got, I guarantee you like Bill Lee bringing tobacco. And ain't nobody bringing tobacco in again for at least six, eight months. You know what I mean? It ain't nobody going to be bringing tobacco.
[00:44:00] Speaker A: So you come into my office and this is the best part of the discipline.
Matthew, let's call you mama. You're going to tell her what you called that little girl at lunch.
Mr. Ember, can I paraphrase that? And I said you wouldn't be in here if you'd paraphrased. You're going to tell her exactly what you said. So I call you Mama. I said, I've got Matthew in here with me. I said, I'm going to let him tell you why he's in here.
And then you have to get on there and tell her you called her some little four letter word or you pop somebody between the legs or whatever,
[00:44:32] Speaker B: that's probably rough for them paddling.
[00:44:34] Speaker A: Well, it, it helps because sometimes parents find it difficult to believe that their child did some of the things that they've received discipline for. So it, it makes it a lot more.
[00:44:48] Speaker C: That's a good way to deal with it.
[00:44:50] Speaker A: Makes it a lot.
[00:44:51] Speaker B: It's an awesome one.
[00:44:52] Speaker A: It makes it a lot more because.
[00:44:54] Speaker C: Believable. Yes.
[00:44:55] Speaker A: When this is what I've done.
And so then the parent doesn't, you know, and so the next thing to that is ask the child, is there anything else that I need to know? I said, before we talk about discipline. I said, because what I don't want is for your mom to call me back tomorrow and say, well, he came home and said, this has happened too.
I said, we're not going to revisit this tomorrow. We're going to tie a bow on it today. So is there anything else that we need to talk about?
Nope, that's fine.
You know, and so that helps me because when I first started, you'd spend an hour on it today and two hours tomorrow having to rehash because they went home and told a different version of it.
And so it really makes it. That's the worst part for the kids.
[00:45:42] Speaker B: Oh yeah, that's rough. I ain't. No way I'd want to call mom. I'd rather take a paddling as well.
[00:45:48] Speaker C: Yeah, my mama Bo got a paddling today. But hey, what happened? I, I handled it. I paddled him. It's over. No. Yeah, when you gotta, you gotta tell
[00:45:58] Speaker B: your mom and dad.
[00:45:59] Speaker C: I mean, I was getting a whipping anyway if I got a paddling when I got home too, probably so it wouldn't have mattered, but. Yeah, that's, that's a good way to deal with it. We had, we had Matt's cousin on and, and he's been in education and stuff for a long time. But he said that, he said the reason he got out of your mainstream education at school level is the parents.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: The parents. He said it was really hard to. It wasn't the kids, it was the parents, you know, but he said we'd
[00:46:30] Speaker C: have kids on videos doing stuff and the parents walk in and say, no, it didn't happen.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: We're blessed in our end of the county. We, you know, there.
[00:46:38] Speaker B: Which he wasn't. A higher end school too.
[00:46:40] Speaker C: Yeah. And it wasn't here.
[00:46:42] Speaker A: We have an occasional issue, but we have very, we have a very supportive community and stakeholders and the parents are very supportive of what we do.
[00:46:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:52] Speaker A: And for the most part, you know, they. They know the children that they send to our school, and there's not a lot of surprises.
[00:47:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:47:00] Speaker A: You know, but. But the other piece of that conversation is I always try to let them know to just like I told you all a second ago, that they're still kids.
This is not a life sentence. This is not a terminal disease.
This is a mistake.
My daughter came in one day. Clara was like third or fourth grade. She comes in, she walks over from Eaton Elementary. She comes into my office and she stepped back out. She said, dad, there's a bad kid in there. I said, clara, there's not a bad kid in this building.
I said, they're all children. They make mistakes.
And so that's the conversation I try to have with these parents, too, is, you know, I'm not judging your child.
[00:47:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: I'm just trying to correct an inexcusable behavior or inappropriate behavior, you know, I said, they're still kids. I made the same mistakes. You know, I'm not sitting here on my high horse trying to be a
[00:47:55] Speaker B: fool saying that you're. Yeah. That you're better, that you've done better.
[00:47:58] Speaker A: Kid is not an awful person. He's a kid.
We work together. Together as a team to try to correct these things so that he'll wind up an adult that can make good decisions.
[00:48:07] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:48:07] Speaker B: Function. Absolutely.
[00:48:08] Speaker A: Because so many times the parents think you have it out for their children, and that's just not the case. And so you have to build that relationship so they know that you're trying to build them up all the way around.
[00:48:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's some good stuff. I had never thought about that. Calling your mama and tell her you said a four letter word. Or your dad.
[00:48:27] Speaker A: Let me tell you something else.
The middle school's different now. Like, the seventh graders are talking chemistry now and the eighth graders are doing Shakespeare. I mean, it's different from when we went to school, but I sat some kids down one day last year because they were doing some Shakespeare. And I told them, I said I absolutely hated Shakespeare. I did not like ELA people, period. But I did not like Shakespeare. I thought it was no value. When I asked the teacher, when am I ever going to use this again? They never had an answer.
But I said, I've realized. And both of you all are about to realize how often you use that. I said, when we're trying to go through whether it was Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet or whatever, you're trying to interpret these things, discern, you know, what did he mean by this and that? I said, those are the skills I use every day, whether I'm interviewing somebody or I'm talking to a student. You know, I'm trying in this conversation, I'm trying to interpret. And I thought, man, this is what she was trying to teach me when I was learning Shakespeare.
[00:49:30] Speaker B: I had never thought of that either.
[00:49:32] Speaker A: How to take this story and figure out, Pull it apart, what's really been said.
[00:49:36] Speaker B: What? Pull it apart.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: That's like. Like I said, trying to talk to this kid that's struggling and find out, you know, that.
[00:49:42] Speaker C: Oh, that.
[00:49:42] Speaker A: You know, dad got arrested over the weekend. Okay, now here's where we're at.
[00:49:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:49:46] Speaker A: And I said, it's those same skills that they're teaching in Shakespeare.
[00:49:52] Speaker C: Same thing preacher teaches you, too. That's how you got to interpret the Bible.
[00:49:55] Speaker A: Yeah. So I use.
[00:49:56] Speaker C: That's all worded like. Yeah.
[00:49:57] Speaker A: Ironically enough, I use those skills probably as much as I do anything.
And I thought they were worthless.
[00:50:03] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. I kind of thought the same thing, too. I ain't going to lie.
[00:50:07] Speaker C: Honestly, I don't know if I was taught anything about this stuff. I can't remember.
I don't know. I don't. I mean.
[00:50:13] Speaker B: Oh, I remember. I remember the stories. I mean, I do.
[00:50:19] Speaker C: School's a blur for me.
Was it. You had Bob. You had Bob in school, too?
[00:50:24] Speaker B: One year. I had one year.
[00:50:25] Speaker A: You guys both wound up going the Housley track.
[00:50:27] Speaker B: But I was free.
[00:50:29] Speaker C: I was Fritz. I never had one year of Housley.
[00:50:31] Speaker B: I had one.
[00:50:32] Speaker C: That's the ironic side of it.
[00:50:33] Speaker B: One year.
But then it was mechanics.
[00:50:37] Speaker A: So let me. Let me tell you something really interesting.
So I've got a table set up in my office. I've got my FFA jacket above it. Then I've got a birdhouse that we built. And I've got my steps and I've got my hammer that I. So were you in there with Curtis?
[00:50:53] Speaker C: Ben?
[00:50:54] Speaker A: Nope. Curtis Jones, he came in and helped teach.
He was.
[00:51:00] Speaker C: I don't think so.
[00:51:01] Speaker A: So one of the. One of the last years I was there, Curtis Jones came in. He was a. He was a retired machinist from Oak Ridge.
And he started coming in and volunteering and helping teach.
And so I told Fritz I had first block plan. I said, I want to take machine shot. I said, when I was in high school, it was at the vocational school and the guidance counselor. When I said, I want to go to vocational school, the guidance counselor said,
[00:51:24] Speaker B: you're going to college.
[00:51:25] Speaker A: You don't need to be with those kids.
Which always burnt me up, too, especially once I started teaching. But that's. You know, those kids, that's. You need to stay over here.
[00:51:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:35] Speaker A: And so I told Fritz, I said I never got to take machine shot. So first block, one semester, I sat on the front row. I was just Bobby, you know. Second block, Mr. Amber.
[00:51:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:51:47] Speaker A: But first block, I sat in there and I made my steps. I made my hammer. I did all of those things.
[00:51:52] Speaker C: And it was baseball bats.
[00:51:54] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. And so I've got them all in my office.
And I can't tell you how many times that these parents came in to my office.
Name on their shirt, you know, company name on the hat, you know, just, you know, their kids gotten in trouble, they're mad at me. The school's trying to railroad them the same way they railroaded me. And if I get them calmed down enough, they'll look over there and see that hammer. Did you make that in Fritz's class? I said, I sure did.
Once they realized that I was a shop teacher, that I used a bridgeport, and that I not afraid to get my hands greasy, the whole conversation changes. Because their shop teachers care that you guys. You think about. Think back. Your shop teachers were the ones that really cared about you. They looked at me. All of a sudden, I'm no longer wearing a necktie. I'm wearing a pair of dickies.
They look at me totally different. The whole conversation shifts when they realize that I was running the machines, know I was in machine shop a little bit, teaching kids how to weld and things like that.
[00:52:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:52:53] Speaker A: All of a sudden, I'm Fritz.
[00:52:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:55] Speaker A: You know, they're not looking at me as somebody that mistreated them at school, like their math teacher or their English teacher. All of a sudden, now I'm Fritz.
[00:53:03] Speaker C: You know, I think kids accept that better at a vocational teaching level like that. Because you're teaching us to be like you.
Those other teachers ain't teaching you. They're teaching a lecture on something that they don't do. They're a teacher.
[00:53:20] Speaker A: It's getting better all the way around.
I'll say that it is. Loudoun county schools is.
Everything that I'm talking about is.
Is like, when I'm talking about these parents and things, it's because of a lot of those parents are justified in their feelings.
You know, I've got things in my educational background where I was mistreated. There's a lot of us that do.
That's changing. And so it's it's still. It's not that way anymore in my experience. And so I want to make sure that, you know, as people are listening to this, that they hear me say that I'm talking about people that experienced things 15, 20 years ago.
[00:54:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:02] Speaker A: You know, Loudoun High Schools under.
And it's not anything reflection of the old leadership, but it's under new leadership. And they want of their assistant principals came from our school. And she is absolutely wonderful. And. Well, it's Jennifer Stewart.
You probably had her at Philadelphia.
She taught at Philadelphia for years.
[00:54:23] Speaker C: She.
[00:54:24] Speaker A: Jennifer Lyles.
[00:54:26] Speaker C: She would have probably been. Not been there when I was Matt Chapman.
I didn't have those special classes Matt was in.
[00:54:35] Speaker A: So anyway, they've got. You know, she's. She's really understand.
[00:54:40] Speaker C: That's what I used to tell her name was.
[00:54:42] Speaker A: She was a Lyle.
She was from Lenore City. Her maiden name was Lyles, but she's Jennifer Stewart.
[00:54:47] Speaker C: Oh, Lyles. She must have came in. She must come in after I was gone.
[00:54:51] Speaker A: But she's, you know, she really understands that community. But she's also very, very, very strong academically, which is just such a.
An amazing balance to see.
So she really can get the most out of these students and she understands where they're coming from and what their struggles are. And so education, especially in Loudoun county, has truly changed a lot since. And it's not because I'm in administration, but since I moved into administration, I've been able to see a lot of shifts, I'm sure.
[00:55:22] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
[00:55:25] Speaker C: You're seeing it from a different viewpoint. And now at that point way.
[00:55:28] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:55:29] Speaker C: So not just from a.
You thought they were trying to get you and use a teacher, same as the students did. Now you're. Now you're seeing it from the other level. It's like me, it's like being out in the shop and then going into the, you know, the office. It's like, okay, they're not.
[00:55:45] Speaker A: I had a boss that said, you got to see that whole. That whole field of flowers, not just the one you're sitting on.
You know, it's that.
[00:55:50] Speaker C: Yeah, you got like that.
[00:55:51] Speaker A: You got to look at the entire field. He said, it's more than your Daisy.
[00:55:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:55:55] Speaker B: I think the only time I ever went to high school, I mean, went to the principal office in high school is when it was in Ms. Watson's class.
And me and Josh Brown, we were throwing an eraser at each other.
I mean, like, I don't know if he was mad or what, but he Was throwing an eraser and I kept catching it. Well, he threw it one time and it busted the front window out at the high school.
[00:56:20] Speaker C: That'll do it.
[00:56:21] Speaker B: That got me in there.
[00:56:24] Speaker A: Foster caught me at the water gun, got me a paddling. And he said, he. Mr. Foster, always.
[00:56:28] Speaker B: Our Mr. Foster, okay.
[00:56:30] Speaker A: He always called me Little Farmer. He said, no, little Farmer, you got yourself a paddling that day.
Let me tell you a funny one on him now. You.
[00:56:38] Speaker B: Did you not used to go over there and eat lunch with him all the time?
[00:56:40] Speaker A: So when I first got there.
So Mr. Fiesel and I went to high school together.
[00:56:45] Speaker C: No.
[00:56:45] Speaker A: And so when I first started teaching, Marvin said, why don't you come over here and eat lunch with us?
And so I went into the history office one day, and Mr. Foster said, Little Farmer, he said, you're welcome to eat over anytime you want. He said, don't bring your greasy buddies with you.
[00:57:04] Speaker B: That's great.
[00:57:04] Speaker A: I told him one day, I said, Mr. Foster.
So when I asked Jennifer to marry me, she was in graduate school.
And I asked her sometime, I think it was September.
And I said, Mr. Foster, I said, I've asked Jennifer to marry me. And she said she would. He said, well, congratulations. He was always very blunt and to the point.
[00:57:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:57:31] Speaker A: He said, congratulations. I said, we're trying to decide. I said, she's living in Nashville right now.
I said, so she leaves on Sunday and comes home on Thursday.
I said, so we're trying to decide if we get married in December.
I said, for the first six months of our marriage, she's going to live in Nashville or we can wait until August when she's back home.
And he said, little Farmer, he said.
He said, I've known you a long time, and I've known your family a long time. He said, you. You're good people. He said, you come from good people. He said, I've met this little girl. He said, she's very pretty. She's very smart. He said, let me give you some advice. He said, girls like that don't wait on boys like you very long. He said, you marry her as soon as she'll have you. He said, six months isn't that bad.
And I said, that's a good point. I just got up and walked out of the history officer called her. I called her and I said, let's just go ahead and get married in December.
[00:58:34] Speaker B: Oh, that's great.
[00:58:37] Speaker C: Well, that's how that we. Well, it wasn't even that planned. That's how me and Megan married. We Were. We were dating for a long time, years. And we. So we decided we were gonna get married. I asked her daddy if I could, and we decided we were gonna get married sometime. I don't even remember when it was, what the date was of the original. The original date.
And then we had both been working at our jobs. She was going to college still, but we were both working at our jobs four or five years, something like that. Both of us, maybe her longer at that point, but we both had va. We both put in for a vacation same week, and it was coming up in like three weeks.
[00:59:19] Speaker A: No, she from Loudoun, she.
[00:59:21] Speaker C: She went to Sequoia from Madisonville.
But we. We both had vacations planned, you know, at our jobs, whatever. And it was like. It was in like, seriously, like three weeks away. And then we looked at each other and I don't know who said it first, but we looked at each other one night. We were like, you want to school? You can get married in three weeks. When we're on vacation, we'll just use the church. And, you know, and that's how we did it. And her aunt swore up, now she's pregnant. You know, I'm like, no, it just don't want to wait.
[00:59:49] Speaker A: So I'll tell you a funny one, not a funny one, but I told you all initially that throughout all of this I would talk about different times where God's really intervened and blessed us.
So Jennifer and I had decided we were going to get married in December.
And at that time we were renting a piece of property from Jimmy Matlock. We were living on Jimmy's farm.
And Jennifer and I were sitting in the living room and she said, bobby, she said, if you're okay with this, you know, she said, I've worked at a bank all the way through college. And she said, I'll handle our finances. I said, yeah. I said, I hate writing checks and I'm terrible at it. So, yeah, take it. And so I gave her my, you know, I gave her my checkbook. And of course she commenced to absolutely chewing me out.
She's like, how.
Where's your money?
At that time, I'd invested in a quite a few cows, but I didn't have any real savings. And she said, you've been taking me out every weekend and spending hundreds of dollars.
And I said, yeah, I eat a lot of bologna the rest of the week. And she said, well, you're just dumb with the way you managed your money. You know, you don't make any money. She said, I thought you Were making good money the way that you were spending it. I said, no, I was just spending it.
And so she was. Initially, she was frustrated.
[01:01:12] Speaker C: I'll spend what little bit of money I had.
[01:01:13] Speaker A: So she looked at my ledger and she said, you've not been tithing.
I said, I haven't. I said, I know better. I said, I was raised better than that. But I said, I haven't.
And she said, you've got to start tithing.
I don't have a problem with it, Jennifer. I said, I'm good with that. I said, I've just not been good with it myself.
And so she wrote out a check. And she said, I just wrote a checkout. She said, you've got about $15 to make it the next week or so.
Knock on the door. I open up the door. It's Jimmy Matlock, my landlord. He said, bob, he said, dean and I won't be able to make it to your wedding next weekend. He said, we're going to be out of town. I said, jimmy, I said, my wedding's not next weekend. I said, it's next month. He said, oh, okay. He said, well, here, take this. Anyway, I opened it up and it was my tithe check.
I mean, almost to the dollar. And the ink wasn't even dried on the one that Jennifer had written.
And it was just like, I guess we're starting off on the right path.
[01:02:13] Speaker B: We're doing it right.
[01:02:14] Speaker A: I mean, it was literally. She wrote the check.
[01:02:17] Speaker B: It's amazing how some of that stuff.
[01:02:18] Speaker A: He knocks on the door and hands me almost to the dollar, the exact same amount.
[01:02:23] Speaker B: Wow.
[01:02:24] Speaker C: Yeah. I can't tell you. I can't tell you how many times I've been like, golly, it's tight right here because of I just spent this or something.
And something like that happens to me. Yeah.
[01:02:40] Speaker A: Out of the blue now I really frustrated Mr. Foster. One day I told he I was raised in a Nazarene church. And he said, what is a Nazarene? And I said, well, they're Wesleyan. I said, so they believe like a Methodist, but they worship like a Baptist.
He said, oh, okay. I said, main reason I go. I said, they only charge 8% tithe.
I said, that's not biblical.
[01:03:07] Speaker C: You know, I was raised in Nazarene church, too.
[01:03:10] Speaker A: I remember that now that you say it.
[01:03:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:03:12] Speaker A: I remember that now that you say it.
[01:03:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:03:15] Speaker B: I met my wife in a church. I'll tell you, that was a wild experience.
[01:03:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:03:20] Speaker B: I was running sound at a church of God. We were running sound.
[01:03:24] Speaker A: That would Be a wild experience.
[01:03:25] Speaker B: Well, and it was. We were doing a what exactly? It was like a.
A Hebrew dance thing that they were doing at this church. So it was kind of different for me. I'm sure I'm. You know, I ain't used to this.
[01:03:42] Speaker A: My mom was raised church God. I understand.
[01:03:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So anyways, I was running the soundboard and everything, and when we get done, you know, my job is to get my stuff and get out of there. And a few others was helping me. Well, anyways, this guy walks up to me. He's my. It was a family friend. He walks up to me and says, hey, I got a girl that's single. I want. I want you to meet her. And she brings.
Or he brings her over here.
She is from Oklahoma, and she was only down for that weekend.
And I'm literally usually just running. And he's like, I just want you to see her. Just want her to meet you. So we walked up and we talked for two hours after this happened at this church. This is how random and wild this stuff is. And then a year later, we get married and she moves from Oklahoma. She come from Oklahoma to watch our sisters. In this performance, that guy puts us together. He knew her personally. He lived in Georgia, and they were neighbors with him, and they met. And then he. At the time, he was living in Alcoa, where. At the. Where this church was at.
And I met her that night. He just come up. He said, you're single, she's single, Y' all should talk. And just turned around and left us.
That's the way he left us. And we talked there for almost two and a half hours. And everybody put up the. All the equipment and everything.
[01:05:05] Speaker C: He sat around like, look Matt over.
[01:05:07] Speaker B: He ain't helping.
Probably. Probably.
And I was that close not to ask him for her phone number.
That's how wild. I mean, that close. Like, the whole time, I was like, I don't know if I'll ask her. I never asked a girl for her phone number, but, you know,
[01:05:24] Speaker C: and there.
[01:05:24] Speaker B: The rest is history. Got three kids later, so.
[01:05:27] Speaker C: Well, yeah, it's. Things work out. Is there. Is there anything we've left out of the story of you?
You think, well, what?
[01:05:37] Speaker A: One of the things I'm always. I take a lot of pride. Until I was born crippled. I was born with a clubbed foot.
[01:05:44] Speaker C: I did not know that.
[01:05:46] Speaker B: So
[01:05:48] Speaker A: I learned how to walk on, like, the Forrest Gump braces. You know, the big, tall metal braces. But I.
They didn't. They did an article in The Shrine paper this year. But when I was a year old, mom and dad took me to Lexington. I was sponsored by Freeman Russell, I don't know if you've ever heard that name, and Bony Lyle. They were both Shriners in Loudoun. And they took me to Lexington, and the Shriners fixed me.
And I always try to put a plug in for them because there's no catch with the Shriners. Mom said the only thing they asked for was a phone number.
She said, never asked for a credit card. Never asked for a bank statement. Never. I mean, nothing. They said, what's a good number we can reach you at? I think we can help your child.
And they took me up there. They performed surgery on me. And, you know, I have a distinct gait now.
A little girl the other day asked my daughter, she said, why does your dad walk like that?
You know, but after you.
[01:06:52] Speaker C: You know, I forgot that.
[01:06:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:06:54] Speaker C: And I mean, I didn't know that story, but I had forgotten. Now I can. I can. I can picture you walking around from the.
[01:07:01] Speaker B: From the.
From Fritz is back to. Yeah. But, you know, I never.
[01:07:06] Speaker A: What I tell people is, I didn't know I was disabled. Mom and dad didn't tell me.
[01:07:11] Speaker C: Yeah, they didn't.
[01:07:12] Speaker A: Nobody said, slow down and wait for Bobby.
[01:07:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:07:14] Speaker A: Nobody said, that's too heavy. Somebody get that for him. Yeah, that just said, get it.
[01:07:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:07:20] Speaker A: And it changed my life. They never treated me like I was disabled.
[01:07:25] Speaker C: Right.
[01:07:25] Speaker A: So I wasn't.
[01:07:26] Speaker C: How old were you when you had that surgery?
[01:07:29] Speaker A: A little over a year old, I think.
I learned how to walk on plaster casts. And mom still.
She kept them all. We hang on a Christmas tree. I've got little baby casts. She put a red ribbon on them. She wrote, like, Bobby, nine months old on the bottom of it. They hang on Christmas tree.
But, yeah, I mean, the Shriners are good people. And like I said, I mean it. They don't ask for anything. Nothing.
[01:07:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:07:54] Speaker A: They just fix kids. But you want to be humbled.
[01:07:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:07:57] Speaker A: You know, go up there and it's. It sounds like. Like I'm on 8th grade lunch duty. You can be in the middle of that hospital, and, I mean, you just hear. Just sounds like the wheels were coming off the bus down this hall, you know, just all kinds of craziness.
And you turn the corner, they're missing limbs, third degree burns all over the bodies, and it's just. They're just cut. I mean, just having the time of their life. But you turn the corner and you realize, boy, I don't have Anything to complain about. I'm gonna listen to these kids.
They're just.
It's an amazing place. And so I would. I'm always, you know, tooting their horn a little bit.
[01:08:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:08:35] Speaker A: For the things that they do. We have a lot of people in this community. They've been touched by them. And that was another God thing that put them in our path and took care of us that way.
[01:08:42] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah. You ever think you got it rough, go see something like that or hospitals or something. Just. You will, definitely.
[01:08:49] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. You understand?
[01:08:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:08:51] Speaker B: You'll definitely. You'll definitely be humbled very, very quick. Your problems become nothing when you see this stuff.
[01:08:57] Speaker A: Let me tell you the last thing this is.
My mom and my dad have given me all kinds of. Of good things, you know, to say. My dad's favorite. One of my favorite things from my dad was, take the hardest job you've got. Told you this the other day. Give it to the laziest man you have. He'll show you the easiest way to do it.
My mom said real problems can't be fixed with money.
She said, if you can write a check for it, it's not a problem. If you can borrow it from the bank, it's not a problem. She said, this world is full of people that would love to be able to write a check and fix their problems.
[01:09:31] Speaker C: That's fact.
[01:09:31] Speaker A: She said. She said, if you can. If you can fix it with money, it's not a problem.
[01:09:35] Speaker B: That is good.
[01:09:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:09:36] Speaker B: Never heard that.
[01:09:37] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:09:38] Speaker B: Wow. That's two good ones right there.
[01:09:39] Speaker C: And that's true, too. Yeah, that's 100% true.
That's good.
[01:09:44] Speaker B: That's a good note right there to end on, boy.
[01:09:46] Speaker C: Yeah, it is. Wow.
[01:09:47] Speaker B: That's good.
[01:09:48] Speaker C: All right, well, thanks for joining us. You heard that? Remember all those things. That's good advice to hear. We appreciate everybody listening. Hope y' all enjoyed it.
[01:09:56] Speaker B: We'll see y' all next time. Thank you, Bobby.
[01:09:58] Speaker A: Hey, thanks for having me.
[01:09:59] Speaker C: Thank you.
