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Rick's Live Blog: Full Show 9-30-26 · Rick Outzen: (we don’t) color on the dog

• rick_s_blog_live_9_3-5FbSISzCs: Hi, I'm Rick Alson and this is Rick's Blog Live. Thank you for watching. New issue of In Weekly is out. It is vote. Please register to vote. It's October 5th, is the date. Monday. That's the last chance so that you can vote this November. Check the issue out. Big cover story on the Raffetery Center. I'm gonna talk a little bit about more, a little bit more about that later in the show, but they had the ribbon cutting yesterday for it. This show you want to stay with us through all of it. We're going to be talking libraries. We're going to talk about vote neck, schools, which schools are going to get closed, and maybe more should be. We'll talk about sports, The Last Day for Ray Palmer, his CEO of Pensacola Sports, and we got music with Katie Denineen. Great show. We'll go ahead, let's just get started. Welcome back. I'm Rick Alsen. This is Rick's blog live libraries. It's been something we have talked about almost all this entire year. We've got two openings on the Library Board of Governance that West Merino has failed to bring to the County Commission since January to vote on. They have been without a director for the library system since August 10th. and they still don't have any kind of guideline or any recommendation from Merino, any hadn't even submitted the names of the people that have asked to be on the board. So we're in this limbo world. Last month, gosh, over forty-five days ago, I had Blaine Wall with us. Dr. Wall is the chairman of the Board of Governors. So thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me back. Yeah, we you came on right after the resignation of Bell Rivera. and at that time you had sent a letter to the county administrator asking for a meeting. And why did you ask for the meeting? I asked for a meeting for a couple of reasons. He had canceled our regularly scheduled monthly meetings. I think it's important that we're meeting. Our our founding documents require that we meet monthly. Including the resolution that they passed, the commissioners passed creating this board. So I wanted us to have a conversation, but also because in that document we are we play a role in selecting a director. So I think it's important that we have conversations about what are the next steps, how will a director be selected, who's running the library in the interim. on top of things like the budget, we have to have oversight of the budget and the deadlines for submitting a budget where we're coming close. So there were several reasons that I asked for it, but I never heard a response. Yeah, and that has been a pattern. it's been a pattern from from the very beginning after the selection or or the the hiring of Crystal Bel Rivera. Y'all as a committee met. The thing that's different, well, I I tell you what, let's don't let's don't get caught up in that. I mean, I think it's well documented you know, on the blog and in a newspaper that The process that was followed the last time there was an opening on the board was opening for the library director. The board was intimately involved with the county administrator Jack Brown at the time. The review, the board helped decide the qualifications, screened all the applications, decided who should be called for an interview, narrowed it down, all done in the public eye, and the county administrator accepted the board's recommendation. That's how it was done 2015. Here we fast forward to 2025. And essentially you were strong armed by the county administrator when somebody, Lori Nesmith, stood up and tried to press for the process to be followed, and they came to the meeting with y'all with nothing and weren't going to give you anything. You selected two very qualified candidates. One, like you said, was internal. in the system that that had been working in the library system. He ignored that and went with Crystal Bell Rivera, who ended up resigning on August 10th, a little over six months in the job. but meanwhile, y'all have had trouble you were having you were gonna have trouble making quorum because you're a five member board and you only have three members, right? That's right. so there were announcements in local media At the end of 2025, saying that there were openings and that applicants should be sent to the director, at the time, interim director Crystal Bel Rivera. I saw on the blog that you had published those applicants who met that deadline and who wanted to serve on the board. typically those are sent to the commissioners pretty quickly and a decision is made so that when someone's term on the board expires at the very next meeting, there's a replacement so that we're not in danger of losing a quorum. but that has not happened. There has been no consideration. As far as I know, the names have never made it to the commissioners. I don't know if they've seen the applicants. You know, perhaps if they check out your blog, they'll say that's the place to find that's where I'm finding a lot of my information. Yes, because we're not being told anything or given anything. Well you look at it and it's a pretty good selection. Yes. of those five that that asked one was a member that you served with, has served who's eligible for another term. John Bullock, you look at at the background of all the candidates, some have, you know, one has library experience, which is helpful, could be helpful. The others have a lot of community experience. I last week when I saw that y'all's meeting was canceled for September, another meeting being canceled, I went ahead and said, I I went to my readers and said, come on, if you're interested in being a part of this, go ahead and and put your name in. So I asked them if they sent our application in, go ahead and send it to me. We got three more names of people that said they're interested, but we don't know if there's an application process now or not. what's going on as far as the management of the library? Have you met with the interim library director? So under Crystal Bel Rivera, when she was there, she would send out weekly updates to the board members, giving us statistical information on usage. main events or major events that had happened that week, if there was a summer reading event or what have you. But when she left, those reports stopped coming. And so we've heard nothing from anyone in library management since she departed. We've not been notified of her departure. We've not been notified who the acting director is or if there's a process to replace the director. In fact, we weren't even notified that the meeting scheduled for this Monday was canceled. I found that out through the press. I I heard from you and from the news journal and but you about it the new picture. Right. Yeah. So so I the same day I heard from people saying, you know, what about this? And I would not have known about that except for the local press and the work that you're doing. Well, you look at this, Blaine, and there is a listening to the the county commission meeting last week and citizens one after another stood up For the need for the governance board stood up for the importance of libraries. and they were very civil, but they were very direct. There seemed to be among some of the from West Marino, the county administrator, and some of the commissioners, some sort of thought of, well, let's just do away with the Board of Governance. Why do you think that's a bad idea? I think it's a bad idea for a lot of reasons. First of all, it was created for a reason. Before the Board of Governance, there was An advisory board, which apparently was not meeting the needs, right? There was a reason they moved from an advisory board to a governance board. but there is a special tax that's collected that helps to fund our libraries. And the money from both the city and the county is collected and trust and entrusted with the county officials to operate the library system. So at the time when they they had this new library system that they created, they said it's important to have representatives from both areas. giving their insight and oversight of the library system to make sure that taxpayer dollars are being used wisely and that the library is meeting the needs of the community. So I think that's still an urgent issue. I keep hearing from the county administrator that the board is not doing the job that's that's been laid out for it, that we are, you know, overreaching and we we've rewritten our bylaws and we're doing things that we're that we were never intended to do. And I would urge anyone who hasn't looked at the resolution that created the board to go and look at that. I know you have it on your blog with all the founding documents. but pretty much our bylaws are word for word what this founding document states, what the resolution states. And it says that you know we have a role in recommending a director. It says we shall recommend, not we might, or if the county administrator wants us to, it says we shall recommend a director of the library. It also says that we shall meet monthly, not again if the county administrator wants you to meet monthly. The only place in the document that the county administrator is mentioned is that we make a recommendation to that person for the director. So obviously the final choice is with the county administrator according to the document. And as you said, there's past practice that establishes A different practice than we've seen recently. Right. But nonetheless, it it's all spelled out there. There's nothing saying that the the county administrator is the person who decides when we meet. It also says in that resolution that the chair can call special meetings, which I've attempted to do twice, and he's ignored both times. Again, it doesn't say if the county administrator approves, it says the chair has the right to do that. So I just think that, you know, if they're not going to follow this resolution that the board passed and adopted. Then they should look at changing it. but that has its own issues that come with that, right? Because there's an interlocal agreement with the city, they're getting tax dollars from the city, so if they're going to change the structure, I would imagine that would require a talk with city officials as well. Right. Right. Well, Blaine, thank you for coming on. this is an important issue. All the documents that Blaine referred to, we've set up a page on the blog. It's it's right there. In the navigation on the right sidebar of the website, you can go and check all that. You can also watch the video when then county administrator George Tuart presented it to the county commission and clearly said, this is a governance board. We don't want to run the library. Yes, it it won't be a department of the county. yes, they will still come under the county. So this is a very, very important issue. It's on the county agenda for Thursday. If you want to find out More about it, follow the blog. We'll do the best we can. Blaine, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, Rick. Always good to talk with you. All right, we'll take a break. We'll be right back. One thing I love about my job is I get to meet very interesting, cool people. And one of this next guest is I have loved her from the moment I've known her. She's a community activist. She's an unbelievable DJ, mental health counselor, just someone that I lean to to kind of help keep me grounded on what's going on in the community. It's Hel Morsett. Help thank you. Thanks for having me. In Weekly Rising Star. I am. Cover Girl. we've had her on the cover of In Weekly. She is a doer. I am a doer. You are. You've got this new project, Vote Nick. Tell us Vote Nick. Tell us about it. So the idea is to have our Super Bowl of voting, basically. our festival. So Vote Nick. Which is coined from the turn freaknik, which is a big festival that happens in Atlanta, or used to, I should say. But it's a huge thing. It's a big party. it is to bring people out and then for us to get on the buses to go vote, and just have a good time all around together. We don't have enough of that. So this is a big early voting block party basically. Well we've got a couple days. October fifth is the last chance to register to vote for the election. So if you're not registered You can do it then. You can do it online. There's so many easy ways to do it. But that's date. But then we're gonna have a longer period for early voting, almost two weeks. Yes. And we had Robert Bender on last week talking about it. So this is it's you and I both really we want as many people as eligible to vote and register to vote to vote. Yes. And and you vote however you want to vote, but I want to see that number turn out really, really high. So This is you've found a f sort of a big vacant lot on certain antees. the across the street used to be Tom Ann Buddies. Tom and it's Anne, A-N-N, Buddies. and you got the spot, it's from noon to five on a Sunday. On a Sunday. So come after church, October twenty fifth. Okay. Come after church. If you didn't go to church, come church with us. We're gonna have all types of local artists that are gonna perform at the event, all different genres of music. But the DJs, because y'all know I'm a DJ, I gotta give the DJs some. So they are going to run this party. it is gonna be a field day, basically. I want people to come bring your chairs out, you know, bring your picnic, tablecloth, like layout. hang out, we're gonna dance, we're gonna have good time, we're gonna have local vendors come because we always want to pour back into local businesses. I've been running block parties all summer. So this is the culmination of all of those block parties I've been doing and the biggest way that we possibly can end out the block party season for me. Well well yes Hale was also the DJ for the best of the coast party that we had you know and and in my staff best of the coast doesn't happen in a week or two. It begins in May and Joni Delassine, my editor, runs the show and she was so happy to have that moment to and to see everyone excited about it. the other thing that that I think is important that really what's gonna make this work hell is it's great to do it during early voting because people don't have to go to a specific precinct. No. So y'all can have buses and vans running to a couple of spots. Yep. Downtown, Brownsville Community Center. There places close by. and so it's a real opportunity to really sort of take advantage of the freedom of early voting. And that's gonna be the big deal and difference of I think some other things that we may have done in the past. Black Voters Matter is coming into town if people are not familiar with Cliff and Latasha Harris. They are the founders. They'll be coming into town on a huge bus to take people to the polls also. and we have citizens, locals that are getting their cars and they're like, I will help people go to the polls. So between Spring Street and Brownsville, we should be really busy that day. that's great. Well, it'll be a little different than the last election. And and you were on the ballot in twenty twenty four. I was you were. and it was a great I I I I talked to State Representative Alex Andrade, who you ran against, and how he enjoyed being on the campaign trail because it was a really it was a a campaign about ideas. That's right. And I think that that so your reputation in town goes across party lines. Yep. And but what drives you? What what drives you to do this? well, number one is my kids. If we'll be honest. I am a born and raised Pensacola girl. My kids are born and raised Pensacola kids, and I just want this community to be better for them, to be the best for all of us. I think that there's always gonna be a Florida for everybody. so when I think about who I'm voting for and things like that, it's always about who thinks that Florida can be for everyone that's here, making it accessible for all of us. That's just really important to me. Now how can people keep up with with vote nick in Yeah. How how do they follow they can follow me the best are to follow me on Facebook and Instagram. DJ Hell DJ Hell with the Dash. and then they can also visit my website, lifeishell dot com. I'll have it all updated with all the details. There's video from we did do VoteNick in twenty twenty four. So there's video from twenty twenty four's vote nick up there too. cool. Hopefully the weather will be good. It will be good. it will It's gonna be beautiful. Good fall weather. Yeah, it really it will really be cool. Well, you know, I I really appreciate you coming on. I think I'm excited about what you're doing here. and of course we're we're working on our voter guide. We'll have that come out right before vote nix so we'll get one more shot to let people to know what's going on. Again, the voter registration the last time to register is on Monday, October fifth. You can do it through Scambia Votes.gov or we've got a in this issue of the paper, we actually have a QR code that will take you to vote.org that you can also register there. So for us, we won't I consider a election a success. We have a good turnout. I think a huge turnout means that the election is the people have spoken. Mm-hmm. In an election with a small turnout, you know, then you feel like we really didn't we really didn't get what we wanted. We didn't do it, yeah. Yeah. So I I I think that that is is critical. We've got David I mean, I'm sorry, Robert Bender, I think of David Stafford with Robert Bender's friend. But Robert Bender they run a clean shop. Robert loves his job too. I love that about Runs a very clean shop. You know, they they ninety-nine per ninety-nine point nine percent accurate in how they count the votes. There are a lot of local races out there. Of course, state races are huge. and a lot of the votes will matter. The votes will absolutely matter. Every single vote will matter. people just gotta do it. Right. Come do it with me. Let's have fun doing it. I do well. Thank you so much for coming on. We will be back. We'll go ahead and pay a few bills. and we've got much more coming. I'm Rick Altson, and this is Rick's blog live. ZASAC. SAZAC. I gotta try to get that right. That's the committee that the school board formed back in July. It's a student, let me get the name right, is a student attendant zone advisory committee. They had their first meeting on September 24th. Their job, their mission is to right-size the school district. They selected their chairman, it is Walker Wilson. Walker, thank you for coming on the show. To be here. Thanks for having me, Rick. So, you know, based on your research and and what you've watched with the school district going into the meeting, what was the reason for doing this committee now? They don't do it every year. Right. So I mean I think you've seen the school district's student population decline over the past five to six years, to I think the tune of around seven thousand students. 800 this seven ninety-nine this year. Okay. Yeah. So and you're talking about that's probably right at twenty percent of their students. they've lost to either voucher programs, homeschooling, private school, or or just simply moved out of the area. And so my understanding of what you know I had researched and seen online about SASAC committee is you they look at the school system holistically. you know, see if there's schools that need to be combined. Do you look at, you know, bringing in a K through eight program to help support the school so you have more students in a in a building, you know, where you eventually have to close the school down and move those students elsewhere and redistrict them? Do you bring in you know, a magnet type program like an MB Cook, Brown Barge or West Florida High School to accommodate, you know, folks from all around the county? in a at a school that's maybe got a lower population. and so that's kind of what I thought we were going into and that and and certainly what school board member Krisa Bergosh asked me when when she asked if I would be willing to serve and I said I'd be happy to and you know, that we were gonna take a look at all the schools and see what their attendance was and what changes may need to be made. And I think, you know, with seven thousand students going away in that short period of time, you certainly've got to look at look at it and see what is best to move forward. Yeah, each student's right now worth about ninety one hundred dollars, so it's over seven million dollars that was lost in revenue for the school district just this coming this current school year. you're a product of public schools? Yeah. Washing Washington Heights. Right. You've run for school board and you've studied the issues over time. the this is what I did c your committee is eight citizens, three district administrators are on it. I went back into the time machine and and looked at 10 years ago or gosh 20 years ago when Jim Paul did it at the I found the newspaper article about it. it was back then a school panel refines plan. They met, they had 13 members back then, they met for eight months. they came away with some pretty tough decisions. They decided to close Woodham High School. Brentwood, Brownsville, and Wedgewood Middle Schools were all closed. the i it and it was very and the the person in charge, the facilitator at the time was Sean Dennis, who was the facilitator for y'all. But That didn't happen this time. They didn't ask you what, you know, to do research on what to close. They told you what they want to close. Yeah, they told what's going to be closed. They it was no so we were looking there's no question mark. I I feel I I think a little bit more so maybe and maybe that was the intent of you know putting this committee together was rezoning students. you know, we're looking at Warrington Elementary, on Navy Boulevard and Lincoln Park Elementary. And there's another smaller school that is also in the mix, but I it's got very, very low student population. Yeah, it's a special needs type schools. And and so essentially y they're gonna be closing those two elementary schools and we've gotta look to see where now we redistrict those students at the surrounding elementary schools and in those neighborhoods. And you know, I both of these schools have lower than three hundred students enrolled. so certainly, you know, it's probably unsustainable to keep a school like that with that low enrollment going. But you know, I guess I thought in my head, maybe there would be more to the committee than us just rezoning, which is happy to do, happy to serve and and help out. But you know, we had one meeting, we've got another one scheduled in about a week and a half from now. And so, you know, I'm sure that everybody on the committee is probably sitting there thinking, you know, what can we do to help and and hope to not have to bring something like this back in a few years if we continue to lose students and you know, we're just dealing with two elementary schools in our entire school district. Is that solving the problem that we may be facing down the line? And and maybe the school district has studied this, you know, more than than we've been able to look at it just yet and has seen that these are where the issues lie and and that's why they asked us to to look at it. So We'll see what we've got in store. They want us to bring a recommendation to them by December. So we've just got a c a couple months, you know, two full months to to be able to do that. And so we're trying to meet every other week until we kind of figure out exactly what our end end goal and recommendation will be to the school board. You it's it's interesting that that they have such a short turnaround in that, you know, back in in two thousand and six they knew it was gonna take, you know, nine, eight to nine months to go through the process and look at the facilities. And those were big decisions back then. To close a high school was huge, to close three middle schools, all that were in district three, which is now Commissioner May's district, and he'll tell you that their district sorely needs a middle school. the do you think that there's a chance for y'all as a committee to bring it back up? Or or how do you plan on chairing it? I mean I think st there's probably a lot of question marks on my end of like what exactly are we able to recommend or do do they want us to look at, right? and so I I certainly plan to go meet with the principals at each of these elementary schools and would like to meet with some of the principals of the other elementary schools that would be, you know, at this point absorbing the these students into their schools to kind of get their take on it. And you know, I had heard mumblings of maybe a year or two ago of the school district looking at combining an elementary s two elementary schools and and creating, you know, a K through three and a OJ Sims and then B cook. That was that discussion was going on. I I think and we're getting hitting up to a deadline pretty quick, but it probably would be worthwhile for you to go talk to Carissa Burgash who are pointy and see what the school get a direction that you know because administrators don't necessarily Do what the school board members want. So I I think that that would be a worthwhile deal. please keep me informed on what's going on and we'll do our best to get it to y'all. the school system's important. Public schools are critical part of the quality of life that we have in our community. That's one reason why we stay focused on it with the blog and within weekly. we'll go ahead and take a break. We'll be right back with Rick's blog live. Welcome back. Rick Outson. This is Rick's Blog Live. Thank you for watching. This has been fun. We have now done our first quarter of shows. A whole, you know, started in June and we're still going strong. You look at the community and you look at how things have changed. When I moved here in the 1980s, Pensacola Sports Association at the time, it was a golf deal. If you were a golfer, you were you would join it. That was primarily all it did was golf. Maybe some other things, but that's primarily what it did. Shirley Cronley came in as the new executive director and really started taking it in a different direction. The Double Bridge Run began with Shirley. She really started looking at soccer, looked at at other opportunities. I think they did we did water waterboarding, skiing. tournament we did a lot of different things and Shirley was willing to experiment with those things and it took us out of being just golf into a broader sports association. Then came Ray Palmer and Ray took it beyond anything that I think anyone's thought sports could be. With went got back plugged into high school sports runs basketball connections with huge events. and today that we're take while we're taping the show is September 30th. It's Ray Palmer's last day as CEO of Pentacola Sports. And I asked my friend if he this would be the last thing he did on his job and he agreed. Absolutely. And it is such an honor. I was so excited when you called I was originalized I was mentioned I was going to play golf. And when you called and said, would you do two o'clock on Wednesday? I was like, absolutely, this is the perfect way to wrap up. We've been dear friends, you've been part of Pensacola Sports, Association Pensacola Sports, all of it supportive from day one. And yeah, I couldn't be more honored to wrap it up here. Well, it it's it's I I appreciate your friendship. You know that. You have always been when everybody in the world would be on my ass. Ray would meet me in the post office and say, Rick, it's not that bad. You're doing good. I like what you're doing. Yeah. And he would might be the only person that day that would say something kind to me. You know, that went two ways too. There wasn't I wasn't always the most loved at some of the meetings of the powers to be as well. And and you also shared that that support. Well, I you know, I'm gonna take up for good people and my and my friends. But you know, it is It's been fascinating to me to watch how it's gone from a primarily sports, a golf association to the the transition that Shirley put it through, to now you look at we have an SEC women's soccer championship here that and and we've got teams who want to come back and play exhibition games because they love the field so much. That's right. And and then you've we've got this long-running relationship with Sunbelt. Started a basketball tournament here during COVID. they're staying with us. A lot of the changes at Brosningham Field up on in in the central part of the county was driven by SEC because that gave the commissioners an incentive to do, and it's it's driving, hopefully will drive more changes at the base center. the Sports is tourism has become a big deal, hasn't it? Well, absolutely. In fact, if you look in the tourism industry today, you go to just about any community in the country. And they are trying to figure out how to tap into that sports tourism. It has become the shining star of tourism. It has shown growth consistently through all the financial times. after COVID, it was the first back in to you know to really show signs of health and growth and reactivation because people could go and play outside. They weren't gonna go to a conference. You're not going to a conference in a convention center of a thousand people when you're scared to death of catching anything. But you would go play out on a soccer field at something out or a horse event or whatever it may be. And the tourism industry has is the only one that's continues to show growth. We have been very lucky our tourist development council has recognized it. Our Board of County Commissioners have recognized it, and they've given us an opportunity to make Pensacola and Escambia counter a player in this industry. Yeah, it's been funny because we've we've argued and fought for an indoor sports facility. We still don't have it. But we we it every year, every time, every two or three years we do a new study or we do a new and we've done this. you have you have sat in my office and we have talked about it. And every time there's some naysayer that comes up and says, it's dead. It's dead. It's it's built out. You got OA, you got things going over in in Bay County. It's dead. There we we're behind the curve. And then the next study comes in and it's grown even more. That's right. You know, it it it hasn't i it's it's it is an evergreen deal. It's better than the convention business. It's better And it's and it spreads throughout the community because they will even if they're Brothingham, they'll stay on the beach. They will you don't have to have hotels around the fields. They don't care where they want to play. They want to come play at a nice place with good officiating and a good facility. The John R. Jones Project is a perfect example. Those are old fields that got a lot of use. We have com very strong competition on both ends of this, both east and west and north. with very nice venues, but we're gonna put twenty-two new turf fields on an existing field. And the calls are are unbelievable of the people who already want can I get that field booked for three weeks next July? They don't care how much a hotel room costs our beaches are there, but they're also willing to come in January. When the beaches are not, they need that business. And that's what makes Sports tourism, such a unique opportunity for our community. So so Ray, when you look back at this, what would what would you say was your the your proudest moment, the thing that you really that you're proud that y'all accomplished? I think we've changed the attitude of a lot of people in this community of what sports can mean to it. We've always what one of the other things is I'm very proud of the relationship we've been able to build and establish and maintain with our tourism agency, partner tourism agencies, because I go around the country and have seen organizations where their tourism agency, their visit Pensacola, or their ACE or their and their Pensacola sports, fight over dollars. And we did that for a while. We used to fight over dollars. And then we said, with the assistance of the Board of County Commissioners. Once you guys get together, we're gonna focus, let you guys kind of be the main agencies. We still have other partner agencies that still work with us. But we get along so well, you know, I could call, visit Pensacola and say we've got this opportunity, whether it be Sunbelt Conference basketball, where it came in, we needed Sunbelt, we needed the base center, we needed the county, we needed the city, and we needed Pensacola Sports. And we all had to come together. to agree to bring Sunbelt Conference basketball here. I had been chasing Sunbelt Conference for their baseball event for a number of years. I'd been multiple trips to New Orleans and sat down with them and said, and they were still in a at the home home fields on campus championships. Someday they were gonna go and go to a neutral site. When they got a new commissioner, then they started looking and he loves neutral site things. But when the I think that's probably the proudest is that today, I can call visit Pensacola and I know we are going to have support from them. I can call the Board of County Commissioners. I can call the Tourist Development Council and they believe that we are going to work together. and I and so many communities around the country do not have that relationship. Well, your accomplishments are well known. It it has been you're still my subject matter expert, so you still will be get the foot the text messages. And the phone calls and we'll we'll go grab a beer or have a cup of coffee or or you know as this all comes out. But you deserve to rest. I look forward to being that call. Great. Ray, thank you so much for coming on. As always. Love you, buddy. What a pleasure. Love too, man. It it's been great. It has. Well, go ahead and take a break. We'll be right back. We're Rick's blog live. Welcome back. I'm Rick Outson. This is Rick's Blog Live. And in Weekly, we promote music, local musicians, local bands, and we do our best to be a real part of the arts and culture of the community. Our very first issue, July 1st, 1999, we set a flag in the ground that that was something we were going to be. And we've seen the ebbs and flow of the local music scene here, and we're in a resurgence now, I think, of a lot of talented young artists in our community. One of them is Katie Denineen, who's with me today. Katie is the best of the coast musician, best musician of two 2026. This is not something she that it was she may have campaigned for it, but there was no this is all done by the readers. And that's what really makes it cool that you earn that people know who you are and they love your music. Mm-hmm. It was a Big honor. And I did not campaign for it. I did not know anything about it until it came out and I was like, that's amazing. It makes it cool. It really does. Yeah. Very shocking. When did you figure out that you wanted to write music? Because you're not just, you know, a musician and a singer, you're a songwriter. Yeah. When did you decide or did you get the bug? I got the bug when I started to go to open mics. around town. And so when I first moved to Pensacole, I grew up in Fort Lawn Beach, moved here for UWF. how I first connected with community here was through the open mic scene, the Tuesday, Constant Coffee at the time, now craft, poetry night. and that's what really inspired me to start thinking about what I want to say. And I would say through just that weekly accountability of a community and wanting to bring new stuff to the table, that's kind of how my songwriting journey started. Now you you kinda call your genre indie garden rock or indie garden pop. what's that mean and what does what kind of song qualifies is that? So it's hard I think as a musician to genre yourself. If you're not a very specific genre. And so I guess with the whole garden rock thing, I'm going towards something that sounds very organic and natural like all all of the bits and pieces, there's not a lot of overproduction in my music. and also I draw a lot of influence from nature and from kind of those homespun experiences, you know, that it takes to build a garden. So I guess, you know, part of being a songwriter, you try to visualize maybe what you want people to do to your music and want people to garden to my music. So that's well I actually know when I write, I d I have a specific person I'm writing to. Not well a or a type of person that I'm writing for, you know. And so I can see that same it it it it helps to f hone you hone that skill. Yeah. You know. Yeah. In August you debuted your album Simmer. you were on the cover of N Weekly. This is another issue where we put the our cover girls. Katie was it was great. You you had a release at Handlebar. which is a great venue. And I think the handlebar is a big part of the renaissance of of the music scene here. and shout out to them. Mm-hmm. how did the release party go? It was awesome. the last big event I had a at the handlebar was earlier this year. I got married. and my husband and I met playing music at the handlebar, so we had our reception there, and the album release show just felt like another like vitalization of celebration, tons of people, really talented people on the bill too. I had two friends who live in Nashville come and open for me and worked with Birds of a Feather, which is the local kind of punk puppet troupe, to bring in this huge paper mache what whale that was kind of like a immersive art experience. So it was, you know, it was awesome. I loved it. Yeah, you know, when we interviewed you, s you know, some of these stories you said you've sat on them for a while and and w did any of them change over time? Is how you evolved? Like which one could you think? the the most standout one is probably Lucky, which was my first single from the album. my husband is in an R and B funk pop band and so he had taught me how to play R and B chords, and so I wrote that song as as an R and B song. initially. And when I took it to the studio, my producer Starlin was like, Katie, you might not like what I have to say, but I think we need to make this a country song because of how simplistic the lyrics are and so we kind of took the initial song and turned it into this kind of Willie Nelson, Patsy Klein, like old school country version of that. So that one took the most transformative measure in the studio. But really all nine songs I brought to the studio somewhat like I'd describe it almost like wet clay, like the vase is basically built, but I wanted the influence of my band on all of the songs and so all of them kind of got sorted out. You recorded in Water Valley, Mississippi, which I went to Old Mess, so Water Valley I'm very familiar with there. Why pick that studio? 'Cause that's where Starlin is. okay. Starlin is my producer. He used to live here. he was a big part of the handlebar when it was first reopening and Yeah, he was produ he bur produced my first album. He's produced a lot of local bands and when he moved back to Mississippi, to work at Dial Back Sound, which is Matt Patton's studio who is the bassist in the drive by truckers. you know, I just followed him because I trust him with my stuff, you know. So how do you how do you feel we we are as a town for music now? I feel like there's a lot of promise and there's a lot of great musicians and bands and songwriters and a growing number of venues and opportunities and I I hope that people continue to just give back to the community to build it up. But I you know, I feel like since I've become aware of venues and and musicians in town, it feels like it's only expanding, becoming more and more. Like just last month I played a house house venues are my new favorite kind of venue because it's just You know, it's so homey, it's so intimate. Right. and so I don't know. I think I'm discovering more and more kind of what's living right under your nose and also what can continue to flourish. So I think we're doing really good. Well, and you've got a website that people can go and they can check your calendar or they can book you, which is is is great. Are you part of the Songwriters Festival? yeah, the Penn School Beach Songwriters. Yeah. Where you when where are you gonna be playing? Well, we just did so for the past four years I've hosted an open mic that is right before the festival. So we just did that last night at From the Ground Up Garden. but then over the next two Thursdays in the festival, this Thursday I'll be at the fish house, and next Thursday I will be at Bamboo Willie's. and beyond that I'm kind of busy with other stuff. But I'm I'm hopeful to make it out to some other realms. Well Katie, thank you so much for doing this. And anything, keep us in the loop on where you're playing. We'll get you keep you in the calendar. Awesome. and of course this will be the first of many best of the coast wins. well thank I appreciate it. We love that. Gosh, we are very, very fortunate as a community to have this local talent. And and if you've got a favorite artist you'd like us to have, email me, recitinweekly.net. I'd love to hear about And maybe we can get them on the show. We'll go ahead and take a break and we'll be right back. What a show. I I might get good at this if we keep doing it, but thank you for watching. Yesterday, well, for you, it'll be Tuesday, September 29th. The Rafferty Center over in Legion Field had a ribbon cutting, a three million dollar plus facility raised with private dollars, primarily the Rafferty family. Doug Baldwin, NFL all-pro Super Bowl champion with the Seattle Seahawks, and several others made that happen. Doug Baldwood gave a keynote speech, and I want to just mention it. He knocked it out of the park. He talked, he thanked all his parents, his grandparents, the coaches that made him who he is, but he talked about love. And he talked about we as a community need to do better. And we can. He called out the mayor, he called out Quent Studer, he pointed to me, he pointed to everyone in the room and said, we can do better. At the end, it's just love. Go to the blog, read the story. Doug Baldwin did a fantastic job. And I will try to do better. Thank you for watching.