Sheila Elliott and Larry "Bud" Meyer

00:01 Hi. My name is Sheila Wilson Elliott. I'm 64 years old, and today is October 21, I believe, 2022. I'm recording from my home in Portsmouth, Virginia, and my husband's name is Archie. All right.

00:25 And Larry. Hi, I'm Larry Budd Meyer. Let me look at your questions here. I'm 68 years old. Today is the 21 October. That's two days past my 60, I'm sorry, my 26th anniversary being married to Ann K. Robertson. I'm recording this from our home on Long Mountain Road, which is ten minutes outside of the town of Washington, Virginia, the county seat of Rappahannock County, Virginia. So Ann Robertson and I have been married for 26 years, and we've been living here off and on in Virginia for 16 years. The other part of our life is in Miami, Florida, where we both worked our careers over the past four decades. When we return to Miami in the wintertime and enjoy the weather, pool and life in a condominium. So we're fortunate to be able to go back and forth between two homes, Virginia and Florida. Lovely. And Sheila and Larry, what kind of prompted you both to sign up and take part in this one small step conversation?

02:01 Well, for me, I heard about it for a long time. I heard about storycorps, being an avid NPR, PBS listener and so forth. And so when I saw it, I said, oh, you know, that might be interesting, you know, to hear views of other people and be able to converse and, you know, hopefully to be able to let it be known that we have more in common than not.

02:36 Those words echo with me as well. Sheila, I mentioned in my biography that I come from journalism. I got a degree in journalism from the world famous University of Missouri School of Journalism, the oldest and best, and went to Florida to begin my career in 1976. I spent 20 years in print journalism working for various newspapers, including the Miami Herald. I left the Herald after spending time as an editor and executive there. And I went to work for the national John S. And James L. Knight foundation, also based in Miami, where for 14 years I was head of the strategic communications department and the secretary to the board. So it was fascinating work to work for a community based and journalism oriented national foundation. Retired early at 55, and one of the things I've done in Virginia for the last almost decade is get involved in the creation of nonprofit news organizations. These are community supported news organizations helping to shore up and continue the importance of providing local news to Virginians. It's not a well known story, but journalism has taken quite a hit in the last two decades, and the number of newspapers and publishing entities has seriously declined in the last two decades, and it's a concerning matter for those who care like we do about democracy. So the organization I started, Foothills Forum, is a news provider working in concert with the for profit weekly Rappahannock News, where the we raise community support. We are able to hire great journalists to do investigative and explanatory journalism published in the pages of the weekly newspaper in a cordial relationship that respects the newspapers mandate to be independent and self governing. When we're done with our journalism, we give it to them, and it's up to them to decide when, where, and how to publish. Now, one of the stories that we've been working on recently that relates to this very discussion is something that we started calling, and I sort of think Sheila will pick up on this. We called it common ground. That was the working title. We wanted to figure out why in our part of the old dominion, people who used to be cordial and have genial, pleasant conversations, even if they came from different parts of our political divide, suddenly weren't as cordial as they used to be. What was it about these conversations in our political economic climate had changed, and we decided to piece together a volunteer group of up to a dozen journalists to go out and ask up to five dozen different residents of our community from across the board, across the spectrum, all races, all economic, and all political aspects, to ask them a basic set of questions about the political divide. What is it that unites us? What is it that divides us? What do you think explains this divide and what can we do about it? These were not for attribution conversations. So we learned an awful lot in these conversations and have been doing a series of reports under the guise this place, rather than common ground, which we thought everybody could use. We wanted to be specific to rappahannock into Virginia. What is it about this place that is causing us to feel divided? Or on the flip side, what is uniting us that may cause us to come together for common purpose? And this won't surprise either of you, but here we are in Rappahannock county with one high school serving 7400 residents. And wouldn't you know, the Rappahannock County Panthers playing a new schedule of eight person football. So imagine not eleven players on both sides of the scrimmage, but eight in a new league. Suddenly, after years of losing and really being terrible, the Panthers have won six games and are number two in the conference. And the community is wildly excited. And we just did. We went all in with reporters, videographers, photographers to go last Friday to homecoming, where the seniors came out with their parents, where the homecoming court featured ball players, and where the team wonde with 6 seconds to go, a Hail Mary pass that was caught in the end zone to win the game and wildly excite everybody. So we were there to capture the excitement of this bonding community for everybody around football, and it was a marvelous piece. The video is in the works, and we hope to have more. But other than this place, reporting took a look at why. You know, what's driving the divide? Is it politics? Is it Trump? Is it junken? We wanted to dig deeper and find out more. It's an ongoing series. We're learning a fair amount, but we have a lot more to learn as we go forward.

09:45 Lovely, lovely. And I look forward to hearing more.

09:47 About that, hopefully in this conversation, too. And so with that being said, I actually will start off by asking Sheila if you could read Larry's bio, and then you will take turns. And, Larry, I'll have you read Shayla's bio out loud.

10:09 Larry's bio. After a career as an executive in print journalism and with a national foundation, I'm enjoying my third act as a citizen journalist and nonprofit leader. I co founded the nonpartisan, independent, nonprofit Foothills Forum in 2014 to raise community support for enhanced local news for the citizens of Rappahannock County, Virginia.

10:37 Great. And, Larry, if you could please read out Sheila's bio. Gladly. Sheila Wilson Elliott. I like that name. My parents journey in the racist south in Virginia and South Carolina, learning how racism has shaped my identity and efforts to supersede erasure the faith, ethics, and morals of my quote unquote, fathers union and political activism, family values, and that my rights stop wherever others begin. And, Sheila I want to give you the opportunity. Are there any questions that kind of came to mind for you that you wanted to ask Larry about his bio? Anything you wanted more insight about, or just curiosities that came to mind?

11:41 You know, well, I really appreciated all of the information that Larry provided, and I think that, you know, perhaps it would be good for me to give him a little bit about where I grew up and my life's journey up until this point, if that's okay.

12:00 Absolutely. Please.

12:01 Okay. My father was from South Carolina. He's now deceased. He. Well, he used to talk about his life, how he grew up, and surprisingly, with how he grew up and the things that he was exposed to. He was really. He was not a bitter man, and I thank God for that. He had to stop school in the third grade. And he really started working. His mother died when he was very young, and his uncles and aunts raised him. His grandparents first, they passed away, then uncles and aunts. By the time he was in his early teens, he was pretty much almost on his own, but he made a way. He eventually came to Virginia and he learned how to lay bricks. He saw my mother at a town store in Cortland, Virginia. She was with my niece Francine, and I always called Francine my mother's first child. My mother kept Francine because Aunt Barbara had to go to Richmond to go to the segregated nursing school there. I believe it was called St. Philip's. And so mother kept. My mother kept Francine while Aunt Barbara went to school to be a nurse. Well, my mother and father married in 1956, and I was born in 1958. They were married in their own home. My dad laid bricks and he built their first house. And so my mother had myself and my sister. She's three years younger than me. I remember seeing colored only water fountains. That wasn't lost to me. I grew up in Suffolk, Virginia. I was born. My mother went back to Courtland, and she had me in Franklin hospital. Franklin. It was called Rayford Memorial Hospital back in that time. And she moved back home to Suffolk, and that's where I was raised. I went to school there. When we were offered the opportunity to desegregate, my parents decided, well, you know, we're happy with Sheila where she is. So I stayed in the segregated elementary school. Some of my friends, one or two of them went over. I was in Florence Bowser. And if you look up Florence Bowser on Facebook, you'll find out a lot about Florence Bowser. I went to Florence Bowser and the other kids went to drive. But then I went to UVA after high school, graduated in biology, went to pharmacy school at MCV at the time we called it. Now it's VCU. And I received both my, my bachelor of science in pharmacy and my doctor of pharmacy degrees both at that school. Education was very important to us. And my mother is one that grew up on the farm. And her father died when the youngest of seven children, which my mother's now the only living because my uncle passed away on Wednesday. My mother's the last one. She's 91, but she barely got a college educate, a high school education to the point where she was reticent about going on because she didn't feel like she was prepared because she knew that she had to get out there in the fields to work. So. But they nevertheless, like so many parents want the children to do better than they did. And so my parents were able to do that for both me and my sister. Right now I am a union activist at my job. I work for the federal government. I work at a VA medical center and the president of my local. And I've been active there, I guess, for the last. I've been there for 33 years, November, and I've been active in the union for 32 years. And a lot of my activism is because of seeing where people are not treated properly and going through what I went through at that particular facility, things that I thought were racist or whatever you call it. Sometimes people just don't know any better. Just wanting to be able to help somebody the way I was helped when I had problems. So that's just a little bit about me. So now if you could give me your question again.

16:57 Can I offer a couple of observations, reactions? Well, first of all, I believe I should be calling you Doctor Wilson Elliott.

17:09 Well, my mother did not name me doctor.

17:16 But a doctor of pharmacy. I would hazard a guess that when you were a young woman and you were entering the University of Virginia at that time, it was a relatively unusual event. Were you the first person in your family to go to the university?

17:39 Oh, yes. Oh, yes. My generation was the first generation to go to college, period. The cousin that my mother was taking care of, she was the first to go to college, and she went to Virginia State University after that. You know, we all went to various schools. I chose UVA at that time because I had two. I had various choices. I had Virginia State College of William and Mary and the University of Virginia. My purpose for going to a majority institution was because I wanted to prove that I could do it and that I'm just as good as the next person that wasn't without its struggles. Because even in my first year, and I'm sure the one small step, people could probably go back to 1979 and look at the microfiche during that year and the following year of the Cavalier daily newspaper, and you will see in black and white things that happened that really did shape me. And even though it was hurtful at the time, I tried to turn it around and use it to strengthen myself and those of us who were able to graduate together, we did. So now, when I went to pharmacy school, there were six of us, people of color in the class. And by the way, I'm african american, but I'm first and foremost native american because my mother was native American. My great grandmother was not a way indian. So I say that first, because I can trace that lineage as best I can. The african piece, I can't so much. But my point being is that when I went to pharmacy school, there were six of us in the class, and we all decided that these six came in together and we were going to march out together. We did. All six of us. That's the first that ever happened at the medical College of Virginia at that time. Two of us went on to get our doctoral pharmacy degrees. One of us is an ophthalmologist in the United States army. He's probably retired now. The rest of us have practiced pharmacy in the state of Virginia up until this time. And I've been a pharmacist for 40 years.

20:22 And a pioneer. It sounds like the six of you were pioneers.

20:26 Yes, we were. We were. I mean, we like to talk about the fact that we came in together and we went out together.

20:32 That's awesome. That's awesome. May I relate a story to the two of you? And I'll have to go back to my first newspaper job in Fort Myers, Florida, in the southwest coast. I worked for a newspaper called the Fort Myers News Press. In those days, it wasn't unusual that in five years I would go from the sports department to the news department, to the business desk, to the features department, where I became an editor and a manager in five short years. But critically important, during the time that I was a news reporter, I covered education and schools. And during that time, the newspaper launched, for the first time, a significant reporting project led by a dogged reporter by the name of Jim McGee. He dragged three or four other reporters into a year long reporting project to go just down the block into Fort Myers black neighborhood, which goes by Dunbar. And at that time, the quite majority run newspaper, which purported to cover the entire community, simply had not covered the black community. Dunbar, in any way, shape or form, had never really gone to look at the lives of african american and black citizens. So we had the police reporter, the education reporter, a columnist, and this main reporter who spent a year interviewing people and then publishing the results of reporting. In my reporting, I sat down with high school juniors and seniors who were the last in Lee County, Florida, to have attended those segregated schools. Sheila, that you attended. And in my interviews, I asked them what it was like. They related that and other aspects of life as blacks in the segregated rural south of southwest Florida. I learned an awful lot. It was the beginning of curiosity that was to follow me in the rest of my career when I made it to Knight foundation. And it was time for our 50th anniversary project in Miami, Florida. It was a pretty natural thing for our organization to dedicate a significant amount of funding to Miami's black neighborhood, primarily known at the time as Overtown rich, deep tradition. But like other communities, urban renewal and the arrival of superhighways, the reconstruction of Interstate 95 wiped out much of Overtown. So in our reporting of that, together with the Miami Herald, again, belatedly, the newspaper took seriously its responsibility to be a reporter of all news in the community and to shine more light and more focus on the african american communities. So in a couple ways, here I am, a senior citizen, white male. But after I've endeavored through my journalism and philanthropy career to help belatedly bring back up to speed reporting and an understanding of our african american communities and places where I've lived in Rappahannock County, Sheila, there was a time when our population might have been 10% african american. It's now down to less than 4%. And it's mainly ascribed to the fact that with little opportunity here in Rappahannock county, people had to go elsewhere to find their opportunity. Just like your father left South Carolina to find opportunity as a bricklayer and probably highly skilled Mason in Virginia, he.

25:44 Was a highly skilled mason. If you go to Colonial Williamsburg now, he did. He and his crew and some other bricklayers, not just him, because that's a major endeavor. Those brick sidewalks that you walk on, he and other black masons just like him built those, the renovations of the various buildings. My father and the other bricklayers like him did that work. And it's sort of bittersweet for me when I go to Williamsburg because of the history of slavery. But also there's a sense of pride when I walk on those sidewalks and go into those buildings to know, because my father used to work all over the state because of his work. And so I'm very proud of that. I'm very proud of that. I'm sorry he didn't have a son to pass that on to. He had two daughters, and my sister's an engineer, and I'm a clinical pharmacist specialist.

26:49 Do you feel like your father's work was acknowledged, recognized, valued ever?

26:59 I'm not going to say that it wasn't valued. I think that it depend on people wouldn't know who did those sidewalks when they come to Colonial Williamsburg. I do, because I lived in the house with that man who got up 430 every morning, drove over the James river bridge, down Highway 64, either Route 143, trying to get to Williamsburg out and come coming back home, 637 o'clock at night, I lived in the house with him, so I knew that. And so I don't think that people just know those sorts of things. And for the most part, when he did his brick work and took his cruise with him, he was appreciated. But then a lot of times, you get unscrupulous contractors who, even though brickwork is just like seamstress work, it's just like bead work. It's a handmade thing, and every brick is not gonna be exact. That's the beauty of it, because it all quilts out. But when you get someone who wants to knit and pick just to reduce your pay, you know, that gets to be disturbing. And I know it did for him, but he had to deal with it because he had a family to take care of. And so I know that many times that was very disappointing to him. But as I said, you know, he was a good man. You know, when he was in South Carolina working as a young man, he was very active in the church. And my daddy could pray. He knew the Bible front and back from front to back. And if there was a wrong or injustice on whatever job he was working on, he was often chosen to be the spokesperson. And so when he moved away, at one point, he was in the north, and he did come back, as I said, to Virginia, and start working. You know, familiar with Langley Air Force Base? My dad did the brickwork day.

29:11 Wow.

29:11 Back in those days, they called it Langley Field. But at that point, he was able to join a union. And so he said, when I started working at the VA, I had been there several months, and he said, sheila, you working for the federal government? I said, yes, sir. And he said, don't they have a union over there? And I said, yes, sir. Are you a member of that union? And I said, yes, sir, because even though my father had his own business, he was the manager. He was the foreman. He was manager. He continued to pay his dues.

29:50 Sheila, your description as a union activist and organizer doesn't surprise me. I'd like to know more about it. But here's something that kind of, in a way, connects us, despite the disparity of what may be very different careers. Lately, I've tried to find a term to describe what it is I'm doing. I feel like I'm one of the last people out there trying to keep local news alive, whether it's in Virginia, whether it's in Rappahannock county, or whether it's nationwide. And we've developed a model here that has caught the attention of other rural communities in America. In Alexandria, in Fauquier county, in Harpswell, Maine, Joplin, Missouri, Waukem County, Washington, Athens, Ohio. All of these places have reached out to us saying, you're raising money from the community. You're doing good journalism. We need something like that in our community. How could we do it? And in that sense, I've tried to come up with a term for what it is I'm doing. And I'm borrowing something from Sheila's playbook. I'm calling myself a journalism organizer.

31:24 And you know, what you're saying is exactly right. And I'm gonna give you an example. When we have our powwow, and our powwow is always the third, I'm trying to find an outlet to plug my phone in. It's getting ready to die in a few minutes. Pow wow was always the third weekend in September. And when we started doing it back in 2010, I knew everybody at the Tidewater news, the Hopewell News, the progress index, all of those Smithfield. I knew everybody at all of those newspapers. And I could pick up the phone, call them, and say, look, it's powwow time again. I need to place my ads. It's not that easy anymore, because papers have been brought out by large entities, USA Today, local IQ, and I'm not sure who they are, where they are, but I think they're out of Ohio someplace. So then, when we look at our own virginian palette and daily press here in the tidewater region, it's the shell of the paper that it used to be. And so I'm with you on that, too.

32:55 Cool.

32:56 I thoroughly understand.

32:58 Just out of curiosity, were you a soror member when you were in school?

33:06 I studied all the time.

33:08 There you go.

33:10 Keep my grades up. And so there were a number of girls who did do that, and I was about to do it, but I said, no, Sheila, you better go ahead on this study, because, you know, my dad was working hard out there laying those bricks, and he sent both me and my sister to school, so I did not. I've been asked in my older years to do so. However, right now, I have a 91 year old mother who has dementia, and I cannot add anything else on my plate right now.

33:46 I understood them.

33:47 I work with them on a routine basis, but not a member of a sorority.

34:00 I'm one of eight children, four boys, four girls. I'm the fifth born. I use words as my bricks in my career, but I have brothers who. One's an engineer, one's an architect, and the third is a historic preservation contractor. Means he's worked with bricks for 50 years, rebuilding historic properties. His company was selected by the federal government to renovate Abraham Lincoln's home in Springfield, Illinois, a project that they did 30 years ago. Kind of put them on the map. And that appreciation of historic preservation, Sheila, is really one of the reasons why I had the career that I have and why I live where I live. I love historic preservation and history. It drew me to Virginia and has kept me here.

35:10 That's great. Now, you know, there's one thing that is disconcerting to me recently now, I guess, and that is this. And I'm going to call it, quote unquote, confusion between history and critical race theory. And I'm wondering how young people can be educated. I don't view our history as particularly negative or hurtful or harmful. To me, the truth is the truth. And, you know, in the field of journalism, it just seems that there might be a way where maybe we can kind of bridge that gap so that people begin to see our history for what it is. When I talk about seeing the colored water fountain signs, I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad. I'm just telling you what I saw. And if I say that I felt that I was discriminated against, whether it be for a disability or my race or my sex or whatever, that's my perception, and for me, that's my truth. So I just wish that we could get beyond this. I feel that if you don't know your history, you're going to repeat it. And it just seems to me that the way our nation is going, not just here in Virginia, our nation. And really, when I read what's going on in other countries, the world, you know, this far left, far right stuff is everywhere. And if we don't, we're going to repeat it and we're not going to exist.

37:23 Those are true words. We've lived through a decade that has brought badly needed a elated reforms. Me, too, that movement was transformative. It educated all of us about how our society has to change to be more respectful of women and to call out bad actors. I'm glad that we're living through that area that has redounding consequences in the same way, revisiting and re understanding our shared history to make sure that we all have our pages in history, that we can be appreciated and understood. It's long overdue. We're playing a game of catch up, critical race theory, and how it plays out is part of it. But again, I welcome the arrival of projects like the 1619 project for the Washington, I'm sorry, the New York Times. It's important that we all understand what's happened in Virginia, in our nation, and how it can guide and shape how we go forward. So all of these things are, they upend our society in ways that will make us better. They might be rough patches to go through as we're living through them. What happened in Charlottesville five years ago remains deeply disconcerting and worrisome. I hope we learn lessons from it to move forward.

39:36 I do, too. I do, too. Now, I think I'm going back to the question that our facilitator raised, and I'm thinking it was. Was it something about how we, or when things start, started to change? Was that.

39:57 I think the first question that I had posed was, if you guys had any points of curiosity after reading one another's bio, so if there was anything you wanted to learn more about.

40:08 But there was something else that you asked. But, no, maybe not. No, it's okay. No worries.

40:18 If you feel like you've delved into a lot of that information through your conversations, which I definitely saw just as you guys were talking. Feel free to also check out the conversation prompt and throw a couple of those questions at each other as well. Well, I do have a question for Sheila. Erasure is a word that you used in your bio, and, boy, I could, you know, as a word guy, I could sort of begin to define that, but I don't think so. I would love to know what you mean by that. What it means to you, what it means to our society broadly, and what are the consequences?

41:12 Well, what, when I said erasure, okay, I'm going to kind of tie in what I think that question was or something, some cue that I got. But at any rate, I'm going to tie it in. Being native American. Walter Plucker, back in the early 19 hundreds, decided that people were either black or white. He led effort. He was the head of the department of health in Virginia, and he led an effort to remove Indian from the census records. So that would mean that anyone who was Native American was not identified as such. And that went towards a big step in saying that native peoples don't exist anymore. That's one form of erasure. Fast forward to, I guess, probably around 2014, there were some census data or statistical data that stated that minorities would be the soon to be the majority in our country. And it just seemed to me that a lot of what is going on now is because of fear, fears that people of color are going to be the majority white people are saying or feeling, and not all white people, but, you know, a good number of white people feeling that, well, I'm not going to have the privileges that I've had, and I want to take back some of the privileges that we gave away. And so that's kind of where we are now. And that's what I mean by erasure. When. And I want to give you another example. I used to be on the board of health, and if I. And let's say I'm driving from my home here in Portsmouth to a health department anywhere in Virginia. Be in Virginia. It could be here in tidewater. It could be central Virginia. It could be southwestern Virginia, northern Virginia, wherever. If I got stopped for a traffic ticket. I'm gonna get a tea. So I went to one of our meetings, and one of the members was saying, I got stopped by the cop. But the cop gave me a warning. Gave. And she showed this paper that was a warning. I had never in my life seen a warning. Didn't know that a warning existed. I never gave any cop any reason to fear me or to be disrespectful. If they asked me where I was going, I told them where I was going. And you know what it was for? Let's say if I'm going to a board of health meeting, but I got that tea. And so all of that and little things like that morph into big things in the criminal justice system. So, therefore, when you put people of color in jail, penalize them for very minor things that people who are not of color, white people, you know, get a slap on the wrist for. That's erasure. Because when we put somebody in jail, we erase that person. While that person is in jail, that person is erased. The fact that that person has a record is forever stigmatized and not able to participate fully in life anymore. And so that's something that's a form of erasure. And so that's what I mean by erasure. And I'm glad you picked up on that, because I said that intentionally and hoping that you would pick up on it. So I can tell you what I mean.

45:40 Well, let me relate. I fear a form of erasure in my work. I grew up in journalism. I worked for newspapers during the great old day when they made tons of money and were able to have hundreds of journalists in their newsroom bureaus in Paris and New York and Silicon Valley. Those were high times. But fast forward to 2022, and we're seeing newspapers being shuttered at a rate of two per week. In America, the number of journalists working has decreased by 57% in the last decades. Newspapers, the way I grew up, hold the newspaper, read the comics, flip through the pages. Those. They're disappearing. They may be replaced by a website online saying, it's the Miami Herald, but it's the online version. That industry that I grew up in is disappearing, and local news is disappearing with it. More newspapers have shrunk to the point that they call them ghost newspapers. They might be staffed by one or two people covering an entire county, where used to be 15 covered it. Sheila, you referenced how that's played out in the Rhodes area. And I worry that a valued part of democracy, the local newspaper where you read about schools, courts, cops, county, and city, they're disappearing. And we're citizens of a democracy. And if we don't have some source that tells us what's going on in our community and where our tax dollars are going and how they're building schools or roads or courthouses, if we don't know that story as being told by what used to be the newspaper, well, democracy is in peril.

48:17 Yes, and I agree with you. Now, our journalists here in Tidewater that write for the daily Press and the Virginia Pilot, they are unionized. And they had a rally, I think, back in 2020 to voice their same concerns that you voiced. And we attended that rally. Three or four of us went to participate in the rally to support them, because we see the same thing. My husband is a retired judge in this area, and my husband loved the newspaper. I mean, he loved that newspaper. Every day when he got up early, he would read that paper from front to back. But when it became what you call a ghost newspaper, he was just so disturbed, so very, very. And he still is disturbed about it and doesn't know what to do about it. But there are a number of citizens, and I don't know how we can mobilize people, but it goes along with some of everything that is happening now. Greed is a motivator.

49:46 Right. You know, the other part of the erasure worry is I always, when I grew up, I thought that everybody had faith in our institutions and that we respected those institutions, journalism, newspapers being one of them. But then came the rise of a steady drip of, it's not news, it's fake news.

50:21 Oh, lord.

50:22 And that the erosion of faith led by the proponents of, oh, it's not news, it's fake news. What is so destructively harmful and hurtful? I see that as part of erasure. Oh, yeah. If we can't turn that around, then pardon my language. What the hell are we going to do?

50:49 Alternative facts.

50:51 Right. Boy, it's just quite worrisome and harmful. Here's a little commercial. I'm working with. Virginia humanities.

51:05 Oh, good. We do, too.

51:07 Yeah, well, there you go. I'm working with them. I'm working with Netta's Karsh Institute of Democracy and a number of journalists around the state. And we're putting together a statewide conference next April. We have the dates, April 20 and 21st in Richmond. It's a public and invited gathering of people interested in the future of journalism here and how we can keep it going, sustain it, reinvigorate it. So I'm going to see if I can't get you an invitation to that gathering in April.

51:50 Would love to. And I will be sharing it with all of my union brothers and sisters at the power daily press.

51:56 There you go. Okay.

51:59 I don't know if you're familiar with the Richmond Free Press.

52:03 The Boone family. It's the Boone family, correct.

52:06 Well, the Boone family. Mister Boone, before he passed away, he was from Suffolk, Virginia, and I knew him and my husband and his brothers went to school with him. But I'll make sure they know about it, too, which I'm sure they probably will, so that I can get as many people there as we can to support this endeavor. That's great. So please do. I would love to.

52:30 All right. His daughter, Regina Boone, is a photographer and she's part of our working group, our advisory committee. So we've got her on board to see if we can't get something going. Great. Wish us luck on that, by the way.

52:52 I'm sure that she won't let that opportunity go by, and neither will you and I.

52:59 So the way we're trying to understand what's going on here is to say that this decline in local news is a triple threat. It's a threat to democracy. That's a threat to the work of the humanities council, because their job is to relate the stories of Virginians.

53:21 That is right.

53:22 And, you know, they're playing a game of catch up, too, because they weren't always on top of the stories of Native Americans. They weren't on top of the stories of black Americans and African Americans or any other population here. So they're. They're playing a game, a good game of catch up. And so it's a threat to journalism, democracy and humanities. And so we're a three legged stool trying to do something before it's too late.

53:54 That's right. That's right. We work with Virginia humanities. In fact, my chief used to be on the board of Virginia Humanities. Now she is the president of the board for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. And so we currently have a grant that we are using to try to help us to enrich the education that we provide to people who pass by, who want to come and visit us at our museum and so forth. And so we're working on that, feverishly trying to get all of that done. Our project due date is November 30, so I have to have everything done. I'm the chair of our foundation, by the way. That's one of the big things. I stay up. Me, I co chair. We stay up. And we just decided last night that we were going to try to go to bed by 11:00 because we've been those 01:00, 02:00 people because I work full time, and when I leave work, I stopped by home, then I go to my mother's, get her into bed, and that's when I really get to doing some work. And once I get going, I've always been a night person anyway, so. But we know it's bad for our health, so we're going to try to change our schedules a little bit.

55:13 Well, I support that. You've earned it, Sheila. Give yourself a break and enjoy some of what the rewards of life.

55:25 Well, thank you very much. And I want to invite you and everyone on the call that we do have a, it's called a community house and interpretive center, but we call it a museum for short because whenever there's a grant or something out there, speaks to libraries, museums, and so forth. But it's the not a way Indiana community Housing interpretive center right on Highway 58. Right now, we have not been able to fully open, but I was hoping that we would be able to do so for November and December because on the first Saturdays of each month, we had something called, we would have something called the artisans market. And whenever we do open, if you use Facebook for the Nottoway indian tribal, Virginia, our chief's husband keeps everybody up to date on what's going on. You see what's happening with us. And hopefully, since we're not going to be able to open in November, I'm really hoping that by April we'll be able to get started again. And we usually go April through December, the first Saturday when we definitely open for artisans in the area to come by to sell their crafts and so forth. We do not charge we're not a rich organization. There are only 50 or 60 of us in our tribe and who are really working towards these things. But everything that we have offered has always been free and open to the public because we of the belief that we're not going to take anything from anybody. If anything, we're going to give you something. And so that first Saturday each month, I'm hoping by the spring, we'll be back up and going.

57:09 All right, well, I've taken notes.

57:11 Oh, yeah. Third weekend in September. 3 weekend in September. And we're right there in Surrey county, and so. Right. Actually, I don't know if any of you are familiar with the Scotland neck ferry.

57:27 No.

57:28 Jamestown to Surrey county. It runs between Jamestown and Surrey county, and a free ferry. And let's say if you're in Williamsburg, in that area, you can take the ferry over to Surrey county. And a lot of the people do from Williamsburg. Take it. And once you get off the ferry, you just keep straight. And you run that right into our pow wow.

57:48 There you go. That's wonderful. And, Sheila please feel free to send me kind of the Facebook link if you have that. Just reply to the email, and I can be sure to also share that information and make sure to put that.

58:01 Out for you, too. Reply to the email? Yes.

58:04 Yeah.

58:05 The email. I can reply to the email. Asher came.

58:08 Lovely. Okay. Okay. I did just want to happen as well and mention that we are kind of closing in on the time here. And so I'll give you both the chance to kind of ask any last minute questions or comments that you guys have. But I. I actually wanted to come in and just ask a question to both of you, you know, and having this conversation. I know, Larry, you mentioned a little bit about the displace project that's taking place to kind of continue to foster spaces like this. Do you find, though, that, like, on the day to day, that this happens often? Do you find that, like, being able to converse about topics where you can challenge people on their beliefs and kind of just be able to share an interest and your story essentially, like, does that. Does that come frequently?

58:57 Is it not frequently?

58:58 Do you think that's been shaped at all by the political climate? Just would love to hear kind of both your thoughts on that. I'll be quick. Sure. You know, the Myers Briggs test, the personality. My personality is diplomat. And I. You know, what that means is that I don't run toward controversy. I would rather try to shape it, move around it, explain it. And so I'm not an immediately confrontational person and those confrontational people on the other side of the divide. I have to work to go sit down and talk with them. I do find that if I indicate to them that I listen and appreciate at least part of what they're saying and where they're coming from, that maybe they will afford me some of that respect, too. And one of my most frequent critics up here in rap, Hannock county happens to be a former member of Congress who has used a local listserv to criticize everything and everybody basically around a point saying people like me are change agents. We've got an agenda. We're out to ruin the county. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. Our organization is apolitical and nonpartisan, and we've got a track record and a body of work to show it. And finally, during our common ground interviews, I sat down with that fellow and at the end of it he said, you know, this is helpful, I appreciate it. And I decided to get off of that harmful list, serve a while back because I'm not having any fun with that anymore. So maybe there is some change afoot. Let's hope.

01:01:24 Okay, you want me to respond now?

01:01:27 Yeah, of course.

01:01:28 Please, more of this. I'll be honest with you. I was a little bit apprehensive because I said, I wonder what we're going to talk about. I hope it's not some of those mean Facebook folks that I run across sometimes. I said, but I said, oh, I'll just, you know, deal with it as best I can. I'm not so much of a diplomat. I do wish I were. I do wish I appreciate, I'm one of those people who, and, you know, folk on my job will tell you, Doctor Ellie's going to tell you what she says is what she means. And I don't a lot of words, I get the point across and move right along. And so, but I cannot say that I'm always the most diplomatic person, but I'm trying. I'm a work in progress and we do need this sort of project. And I'll be honest with you because as I said, you know, I do PBS, NPR, all of that, all the time with the story core and everything. This should be really good. And I am just so glad that I was able to participate and I wouldn't mind doing it again. I think that the more we do it, the more we can come to common ground.

01:02:59 There you go on that we agree.

01:03:04 I think that was a lovely way.

01:03:06 To kind of go full circle in this conversation. And just again, if you guys had any kind of last minute comments before I. I hit pause on this recording.

01:03:16 Feel free to do that right now.

01:03:20 Well, I find myself. I mentioned the third act. You know, after working in newspapers, which was all about the truth, I went to work for the foundation. I was the head of the communications department. So I say to myself, I was in charge of propaganda. But in my third act, I can call the shots. I can do anything I want. And everything I've done, whether it's writing a book or starting a nonprofit, has all been volunteer work. I'm not earning a dime from it, and I enjoy it that way. And I want to continue doing that. So that. So life in Virginia is good. We do have our critics, harmful people on Facebook and others. Sheila at one time, they used social media to attack us, calling us not foothills forum, but foothills follies. That's hurtful and harmful. We decided to keep our heads down, stay the course, do our job, write our journalism, get it published, and make a difference. And I think we have.

01:04:42 Don't feel bad. Being a union activist gives you the same kind of name calling, so to speak. And, you know, many times I have met managers who've come in to meet me or I may have to go to meet with them about a particular issue with an employee. And afterwards, you know, they would end up saying to me, you know, you're so much different than what they told me you were. And I said, they tell you I was, and, well, I don't want to talk about it too much. I said, well, that's okay. I get the picture. No, I'm reasonable. I can talk to you. I am a straight shooter. I don't mince a lot of words. But in the end, if I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. If I cannot do it, something comes up and I cannot do it, I'm going to let you know right away because I believe in keeping my word. My word is my bond, and all I have is my integrity.

01:05:50 There you go.