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The Government Mule #6 - Derek Cowan · The Government Mule

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, everybody.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, welcome to another episode of the Government Mule Podcast.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Michael Willis.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm the Tulsa County Clerk.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Today, my guest is Derek Cowan.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: Derek is our manager of the recording department in the county clerk's office.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll just say before I turn it over to Derek, one of the things we wanted to do and I wanted to do with this podcast is really highlight some of the other government mules, in addition to me, that work at Tulsa County.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: Derek's been with us for a long time.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: He's a key member of our staff, and he's just overall a fascinating guy.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Before I ask him anything or give him a hard time about anything, I will say Derek is also on the credits to this podcast because one of his um hobbies, probably more than a hobby, really, is music.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: Music.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: So he did the music for our intro and our outro on the Government Mule podcast.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: So Derek, welcome.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for being here.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm glad to be here.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I want people to kind of understand a little bit about what you do, what your job is, but also probably more importantly, who you are and how you got here.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: So in our staff in the county clerk's office, we have about 43 full-time people right now.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: Out of that 43 people, the numbers are kind of dwindling on the folks that have been here for what I would consider a real long time.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I am, well, I would be your fourth county clerk that you've worked for.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so Derek's part of a kind of a unique club, and we've only got a handful of people left working in the county clerk's office that have worked for now four county clerks.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: So Derek, tell me how you got your start.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I one of my friend's mothers, her name is Benita.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Her name was Bonita Knighton.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: She worked here in, I believe, accounting.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I worked for a bank down the street, and I was one of their runners.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I would come and record things that in the department where the where I that I work for now.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes if I had time, I would go and say hi to her.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then she this was back in summer of 97, before I started working here.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and she said, she told me it's some people retiring, it's some people that that are kind of stepping down or whatever.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And there may be room for me to apply and and uh get a better job because the bank I was working for was merging with another one, and they were kind of cutting some departments, and mine was one of them.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't want to move to Oklahoma City that they were gonna offer me to go to Oklahoma City, but I I mean I didn't know anybody.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to stay here.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I applied, and then I got an interview with the three top employees with the county in one room, and you know, it became more like a conversation than an interview.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And here I am, 28 and a half years later, and I'm I'm still good.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I barely had any hair on my face.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Who that's the one?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh well, you were 14.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: When you started.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean, I'm I'm glad that I mean, I'm I'm glad it happened.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad that she told me that she alerted me to the openings that could come to pass.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it was it's a blessing, and I'm so glad to have the team that I have and the teams that I've worked in, because I worked in Land Records for 21 years.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then I got a chance to come over to recording and I stayed.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad that I have for the team that I have now, the I mean, we've we've put these people together and they work together, and they they work well together, and they work well under us.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just it's just a great team.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's and so for people that don't know about sort of our organization structure in the county clerk's office, we have um Derek works in the real estate services division, and in that division there are two departments, recording and land records.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: So Derek worked, you said 17 years, right?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: 21.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: 21 years, I'm sorry.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: In land records, um, where you know Derek's job in land records would be he would he would index records, verify records coming into our system.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: Search, search.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: Search, help customers, lots of customer service stuff.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: On the recording side, um, you know, we have customers come in the office to record documents.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um we have people come in, well, they also receive a ton of stuff through both the mail and e-recordings, but Derek and his team's job really is uh getting documents through the door, lots of customer service, lots of contact with people who really don't know exactly what they might need to be doing.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um but Derek's team is really good at handling all of the uh variety of people.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, definitely.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we get some interesting ones in the office.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And some that we know we've known for years.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing that we also try to do is is give as much guidance as we can without sounding like or without it being implied as legal advice.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, that can get legal professionals, you know, not you know, not on our side.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: It could.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So but we now have more than half of our recordings are e-recordings.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: So it means they come in, they come in via the interwebs.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, right.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: Into it, the internets, and our staff uses that cue to start the process rather than coming in via an envelope or mail or just over the counter by a customer.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and some people feel that it's safer and uh more efficient because you you never know when that mail is gonna arrive.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because someone may have sent something March 23rd, and we don't get it until March seventh uh April 17th.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: So some people would rather bring in certain things they'd rather bring in themselves and walk out with it.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh some some things that are more life or death type things or or are time sensitive.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: They would rather bring them in, hand them to hand them to us, and we'd hand them back to them with a receipt and recording uh information on it.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's that seems to be that that seems to satisfy them more than sending it online or mailing it in.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Some things you should not mail in.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: So on any given day, your department will see I would say probably a minimum of 75 customers come through the door to maybe a maximum of hundreds.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um what's some of your favorite types of customers we get?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um entertainment-wise, it's is is different than the favorites.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have favorites that come in often enough to where we got to know them and about their family and things like that.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Those are some of the ones that we enjoy coming in.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we we enjoy all your constituents coming in.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we want everybody to come in.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: But there are some that we think, oh, where's where's John?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he hadn't been in in a week or whatever.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: So uh we so those are the ones that we we we have conversations with them and sometimes they'll they'll talk about some uh legal uh standings or legal issues or whatever, and it might be a subject or a topic that we're dealing with at that time while they're standing there.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, it it's it's interesting conversations, that is interesting occurrences that happen that sometimes don't end in in a good in in the best uh circumstance, in the best way, but we get through it and sometimes they're oh you know, I I'm I'm glad you told me this.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad we went all the way through this and now I I know what to do next time.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, it's a good it's a good feeling to get people to, you know, even when they just say thank you and they walk away.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because uh the alternative might not be as good.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: So Yeah, I mean I I've mentioned this to the staff and and talk about this a lot.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: I try to go out into the community and be part of different things going on and whatever, and not a week goes by that I don't have someone come up to me and say, you know, I was in your office last week and I really didn't know what to expect.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: I really didn't know what I was doing, but the staff really helped me get from point A to point B.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I was really more uh surprised about how that worked rather than thinking it was going to be a really difficult and not fun circumstance.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um I always tell people, I'm like, well, you know, for us, we we know that we have a monopoly on land records in Tulsa.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: You can't go to, you can't pick another county clerk's office to go to and and record your documents or do your research on real estate or anything like that.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: But we try to maintain that we have the privilege of treating our customers like actual customers, not like an inconvenience.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: And there are some government offices that don't that don't do that.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: And and I'm grateful for you and your team because you know you're the front door to our office essentially, and um we get such great customer feedback, but not every customer is always happy when they leave.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you mentioned the entertaining ones that we get.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh talk about some of your more entertaining uh, if you will, experiences with people.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, w we get the ones we get some people who they they seem to have a little bit of knowledge about real estate or the law or the statutes or whatever.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't want to describe too much because it might be somebody watching.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they think they know more than they do.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we have to deliver them news that's you know not exactly what they were hoping for.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, and and sometimes that's what it is.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is it's a statute or something they have to follow and they either didn't know about it or never had to follow that that rule or practice or procedure in another county.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this one, this is it's right here on paper.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: It has to be done.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and um we d we try not to be pushy, but we try to warn them or um well just warn them that if this part doesn't happen, this other part might not happen.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, because it's sometimes it's a domino effect, and this domino has to fall in order for that one to fall.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we try to help them as long as we can as much as we can to that line of legal advice.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what we don't want to appear to do.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of it is the rules and the and the uh the the rules, the laws, the statutes, the practices, procedures.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the some of the practices are just what we do to make it more efficient.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the and the which becomes procedure, and then the rules and the law, I mean the uh statutes and the laws, we have to we have to follow them too.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's our job is really to to abide by those and there's not really any wiggle room.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um Yeah, and people, you know, w we don't interpret them.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: We will we'll tell them what it is.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: If they want to print out, we probably if we have it, we'll probably give it to them.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: But they still have to interpret most of it themselves.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, unless it's some attorney standing by that.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Can give them some information that uh was listening and then they might give some information.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, sometimes we just get customers.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: We had one yesterday that was they come in like any other business.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Every business deals with this.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes people act like knuckleheads.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we had one yesterday.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, one of the things that I I actually kind of enjoy this part about my job is that I like I'm I'm not out at the front desk all that often.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I walk through a lot and I check on people and and whatever, but I'm not actually back there recording documents with you all very often.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: But if we have a situation that needs a little maybe more attention or more authority on it or whatever, Derek's staff is very good about notifying me or our chief of staff.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Both of us are uh reserve law enforcement.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: We've got a couple other folks in the office.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, one of our guys in land records is uh is a former military police.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so we've got uh some help yesterday.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Funny story.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: We had a guy who came in who has been stealing our pens.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is really funny.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: So we have a guy that comes in fairly routinely, and one time he took, he tried to steal one of our U.S.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: Postal Service mailboxes.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um security caught him on the way out the door, got the mail carrier back.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was last week he came in and stole like a whole container of our pens.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: And we have little pens, and they're they're very inexpensive.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: But they say Tulsa County Clerk's office on them.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: And if a customer picks up a pen and leaves with it, we're not gonna argue or anything.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's there for their convenience.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: They're blue.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: I like blue ink.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: We need wet ink signatures on a lot of the documents that we have.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Is it easier to tell that?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Those are easy to tell.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so they're there for a purpose.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: But this guy came in stealing pens last week.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: He was back yesterday.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: As soon as he came in, I was notified.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I came up and worked at one of our empty stations for a while, and the guy came up two or three different times because he had gone to land records and gotten a few copies of documents, and he came up and he paid.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think the first one was like seven dollars, and then he came back five minutes later and paid two more dollars for two more copies, and then came back a few more minutes and and paid six dollars for six more copies.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: He kind of lingered around, and I think he kind of knew that we were keeping an eye on him, and then he left, and then he came back, and sure enough, he sat over at our little conference table and grabbed a whole big wad of pens, and I intercepted him.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: I went into police mode and intercepted him, and he was real surprised, and but we go we saved the pins.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: We got our pins back.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, our our 25 cent pins, but that's an example of a kind of sort of entertaining customer that me we might deal with every once in a while, and Derek gets a good dose of those on the regular.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean and it's uh it's mostly entertaining when we get that type of person coming in.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And not often do we get someone that's loud or obnoxious or anything like that, but we have hand had to handle them and we've had to explain the reason this doesn't happen, that doesn't happen, or this shouldn't.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just that's just the way it the way it goes.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if another county doesn't do it, doesn't do it this way, I mean that's fine.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: But don't expect us to waive a rule because the next county doesn't do it.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, that's just I mean, but it is sometimes entertaining.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we, you know, we we we laugh and we we talk while we got our heads down and and and diving into the work, but it's a it's a fun place to be.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: I I I mean I am one of those who are eligible for retirement, but I I don't um I don't really want to go yet.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: Not quite ready.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, you know, it is I mean, because I love what I'm doing.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and and one of these days when I get when I have my retirement career set up, you know, I I'll go ahead and give warning and I won't go, hey, I'm not coming in tomorrow.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so we appreciate that.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: Right, yeah.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that would leave us in a bit of a lurge.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: Did you think 28 years ago when you started that you'd be here for 28 years?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: When I interviewed, they said, so what do you want to be?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what no, where do you think you'll be in five years?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: This was back in 97.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was getting back into acting and stuff.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I thought they meant not I thought they meant what location, not what status I would have.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm gonna be in Hollywood.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Oh, oh, you're you're ambitious, huh?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm supposed to be, right?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then we got to talking and then it became a conversation.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then they said, Well, come on back Monday and you know we'll get you set up.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so that's what happened.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was still able to have some theater acting gigs and a couple of commercials and stuff like that.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: But it was um this was this kind of held me uh held me grounded.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And um you know, it it's it's been a good ride.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to ride it a little bit more before I before I go and we get to see our retirees come in and visit and or whether they're picking up something or coming to talk to some talk to uh one of our uh leaders of like retirement or whatever.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's good to see some of those.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we involve we we try to involve our retirees as much as possible.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: We have a handful of them that come to our Thanksgiving uh launches and different celebrations we do in the office for different people having things going on.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: We got celebration today for someone who's gonna get married here in a couple weeks.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um well on your team.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Kylie on your team is getting getting married.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: She'll be out for a little while.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: But um And we have a we have a retiree from another office that came back to work for us.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean we have we have some part-timers and we have some interns that are coming in this summer and that we have had for a couple of years.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, just some continuity kind of works for us.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and with someone who has worked in another office who has knowledge of our material work, that helps too.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it really is.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's switch a little bit away from work stuff and talk a little bit more about your personal background and and some of that kind of stuff now, despite the fact that you're wearing a Philadelphia Eagles uh lanyard today, you know, a couple weeks ago.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: I was a couple weeks ago you came up and you were like, hey, hey, hey man, you you you mind if I wear this Philadelphia or this lanyard?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: I hadn't I didn't even pay super close attention to it.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I looked at it and I'm like, is that for the Philadelphia Eagles?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: And anyway, it was kind of funny because I think some people joke with you about well, was it for the Edison Eagles?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: Is it in Edison High School?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh no.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Booker T right here.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: So Booker T class of 90.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then, and then, but when it comes to the Eagles part, I became an Eagles fan when I was in high school.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because the Dallas Cowboys sold the team to Jerry Jones.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: They fired the only coach they ever had.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was a Cowboys fan up till that time.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I was already a fan of some Eagle players.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: And Randall Cunningham being the most prominent of those players that I liked.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I've been an Eagle fan since then.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And um I finally got a jersey last year and a Randall Cunningham jersey.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it's I think we had a jersey day one day, didn't we?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I wore an OU jersey.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've been an OU fan since I knew what football was.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: But but it it's um the next Jersey.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: Next jersey day, you'll have to break that Randall Two.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna break break that out, yeah.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean when it comes to um other interests, I mean my my most the interest that I've had the most activity in was it has been music.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I was an athlete for a little bit.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: I played basketball in middle school and high school, but I played a little baseball.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: But music has always been, ever since I got my first Casio keyboard when I was nine years old.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's when I just loved it.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I would listen to um commercials and TV shows on on on the television, and I try to play the theme song music.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And one of my favorites to play was this show called Hill Street Blues.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was just a piano part.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, it's so it was it was always and my family encouraged it.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I was probably I was the most musically inclined in my family, but my sister played flute.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: My mom I think she played flute also a long time ago.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And my dad was a football player.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: But but it was I'm glad they encouraged it because I was gonna find a way to do it anyway, if they didn't.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: So Yeah.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's funny.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I I when I started as county clerk in January of 2017, yeah.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um Derek was still working in the land records area.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think you kind of sat like in the middle or towards the back of our old setup back there.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: And when I started, um I didn't really know Derek.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'd seen him around the building a little bit, but didn't really know that much about him.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, he was fairly quiet in the office.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: So over the years as I've learned all these things about you, it makes me fascinated because I kind of refer to you as the Office of Renaissance man.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're like I'll take that.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean a very accomplished musician.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um we both kind of on occasion, well do karaoke.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: Do a little bit of karaoke here and there, um, which has kind of been has been we've had some super fun times.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and and and that's a thing that we do now.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's not even no question that are we going to so-and-so?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we y'all gonna do karaoke?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, well, yeah.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Of course we are gonna do karaoke.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um but in addition to that, I mean, and your love for music, the thing that fascinates me, because I love music too, and I I grew up um in school, I was in vocal music and did band for a couple of years playing trumpet, but didn't do anything else instrumentally.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: With and I own a couple of guitars, but I'm not very good at them.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um and never really did any piano, although I can read music enough to to peck something out.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: But you're pretty fluent in several instruments.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: You like piano?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: We've talked about drums before.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um our county employee band.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: We we had a band and we Yeah, talk about the Tulsa County band we had.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: The Tulsa County Employee Band was it was man, it was awesome playing with these people.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: And and it was people from IT, from HR, from Juvenile Bureau, from I mean, from Building Ops, Sheriff Office.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: We, I mean, we just said, hey, you play guitar, right?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: You play, you sing, right?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: You play bass, right?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then let's come and jam.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: We used to go to the one of the buildings at about third in Houston, and it was a room that was where you could just plug and play.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And man, it was awesome.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we had a couple of gigs.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: We had it was county funded gigs where where we played for them.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we did like a charitable giving campaign uh lunch one time.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right, right.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: And United Way stuff and all that.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it was yeah, man, I miss those days.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And but some of us, I'll say probably all of us were into music some kind of way.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, many of us kept going.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Many of us just kept going.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: We we came into the band as a musician.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: We when it kind of dissolved because retirements and things like that, and r and resignations, we some of us kept doing it, and I'm I I just kept doing it because, you know, I just love it so much and I love the creative part of it.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, it's just sometimes it's just in a person to do that.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, you just I can imagine a lot of those former members are still doing it.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Speaking of the creative part, so here a couple months ago, you know, we were working on putting this podcast together for a while.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I had kind of mentioned to you a while back, I'm like, hey, you know, I might need some music help at some point.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: And um, a couple months ago, I went to you, I'm like, hey, man, this is this is getting real.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna need some intro and outro music.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, it didn't take you long.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: You went home and knocked it out over a weekend or something and brought me a a demo, and we loved it and we use it.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: I and I appreciate that.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is it's um I mean, it it's stuff that I have that you know that will only be instrumental, some stuff that I might put vocals on, but I just I like to hear what people imagine when they hear it.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Some people may say, it sounds like it's closing opening credits, or it sounds like somebody driving down Riverside.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Say, okay, that's that that sounds good.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I can hear that too.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, i it it's everybody has some type of creative outlet, whether it's painting, drawing, writing, or whatever, or making or sewing or whatever, or knitting blankets.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, some quilters in the office.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we got some quilters.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: We got some creative people in the office.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bunch of them.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, to have an outlet, a creative outlet especially, is good for the mind, body, and soul.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: So we're getting close to our uh time frame for today.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: We need to do this again.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay because there's a couple other things I want to talk about one of these days, including the fact that little known, or maybe or maybe not little, but not widely known in the Tulsa County community, but Derek Cowan was actually a member of a boy band.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Long time ago, but a couple years ago.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're and we still we st we still are in it in contact.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: So Yeah.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so we'll talk about that another time.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um but really the key to this podcast, helping people get to know our people at Tulsa County.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, we I've done one of these with Maggie before she left.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: That was the first episode we did.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was this is the next one like that, and we'll do many more of these.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: But I couldn't think of a better person to have on on this one than you because you're a really unique guy and uh such an incredible part of our team.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I say this, I think I've said this on everything I've recorded.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: We do really have an incredible team.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: We talked about it earlier.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: We're blessed to be able to work with some really incredible public servants and folks that really take public service seriously.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: And at the same time, we try to have as much fun as possible in the office because um, well, that's what you should do.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we mean.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: We we spend more time with our colleagues at work in a lot of cases than we are able to with even family members sometimes.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: So um anyway, we're we're blessed to have a great crew in the county clerk's office.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: Derek is our recording manager, runs a great shop up front.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: If you ever come into our office and need something, probably the recording department will be your first stop.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to Derek or one of his people there, they take good care of you.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: So anything else you want to part with?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm Go Eagles?
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's oh yeah, that's right.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And go Nick's and Thunder, whichever one.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you've been listening to the government mule podcast uh produced by the Tulsa County Clerk's Office.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Michael Willis, Tulsa County Clerk.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: This is Derek Cowan, recording manager for the clerk's office.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: We're signing off on this one, but we'll be back with another episode soon.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks.