Latest / The SEANC View / High-Stakes Primaries, Prison Leadership, and SEANC

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High-Stakes Primaries, Prison Leadership, and SEANC · The SEANC View

0:00
Hello and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
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We have kind of a smaller crew today, but we have lots of topics to get to, so let's jump in.
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I'm Jonathan Owens, communications director here at Scenic, alongside Artis
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Watkins, executive director of Scenic, and Sammy Klein, the podcast producer.
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Absent today is Suzanne Beasley. I guess I said we had a skeleton crew,
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but we're just missing one person.
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Oh, we're missing a big chunk of our heart. Yeah. But I like how you take role, John. Missing today.
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Missing today. She didn't chime in. She didn't raise her hand when I called her name.
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So this episode is going to be a little different. We're going to have Charles
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Johnson, who was president at Scenic in the early 2010s, I guess.
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Do we call it that decade?
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Yeah, I'm not sure what you call it. But I will say... The mid-2000s so far.
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So Charles is my favorite president because he was my first president.
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So I will get into that with him a little bit. I enjoy talking to Charles always.
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And before that, let's talk a little bit about the election and what's going on with it.
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Primaries coming up March 3rd. Early voting has already started.
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And I've noticed, and you have
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two artists, that it looks like turnout is pretty high this year already.
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Yeah, it's kind of mind-blowing, actually. I saw on Twitter that as of Saturday,
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26% of the people who have early voted did not vote in the 2024 primaries. That's,
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That's a huge difference. Yeah. According to Jerry Cohen, who is the resident
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turnout expert on Twitter for North Carolina, he was at the legislature for a long time, right?
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He is the encyclopedia of all things legislative.
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And he's a scenic member, I think. He's a good guy.
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Yeah. He says five hours ago that 419,800 people have already voted in North
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Carolina for the primary.
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And that's up 17 percent from the
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same time in 2022, which was the last midterm. So what is driving that?
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Because I know we have some really intense primaries out there,
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but like I said, I don't even think I have a primary.
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Yeah, I mean, I think November we would all expect turnout to be massive.
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Midterms can be really contentious and depending on who the president is and
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what's going on in the world.
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So we saw that with most presidents that in the midterm, the public really wanted to make a statement.
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I don't think we'll see anything much different in November. so we would expect that.
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But for the primaries, this is unique. I think there's a lot of interesting
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primaries this year, though. Some...
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You know, the parties, each party seems to think there's folks in their primary
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that are really not real Republicans or real Democrats. Yeah.
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And I think that's fascinating. So how do you win if you're not in a primary?
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That's the big question.
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The congressional race in, I guess it's Durham, the she's race,
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that one's really getting heated, right?
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That is a very heated race. The Congresswoman has been very good on labor issues
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and certainly has been a friend to Scenic.
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So I think it's kind of surprising to see her in a race where she's facing pretty
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intense primary competition.
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Not real sure what was driving that need to challenge her.
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I guess we should say that MPAC did not make any endorsements in this race. Right.
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Well, we don't have a federal PAC, period. But our political action committee
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that can only do statewide races did not endorse in any primaries. Yeah.
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And I guess the elephant in the room is Senator Berger's race up in Guilford
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and Rockingham County. Rockingham and Guilford.
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And those are really different counties, one from the other.
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So Rockingham is where Senator Berger is facing the biggest pressure from Sheriff
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Page, his opponent in the primary.
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And then from all reports, Guilford is a much friendlier county for Senator
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Berger than it is Sheriff Page.
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Sheriff Page's stomping ground is Rockingham. So it's going to be a big question about turnout.
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Yeah. So Berger is from Eden, right?
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Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's interesting that they're both from Rockingham.
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The part of Guilford must be pretty small to not control that race.
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Well, and you got to figure, more likely to have more of the business community
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that would probably have a deeper relationship with somebody who's been in power
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for many years. Yeah. So we'll all be waiting.
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I think everyone will be watching that race.
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March 3rd is your day to go to the polls if you haven't gone already to early voting.
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And today we have a special guest, very special to me, number one in my heart,
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Charles Johnson. There's no one more important to you.
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My wife might not like that. No, Charles looks a little uncomfortable about it, too.
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But Charles is a Scenic hero of mine, I'll say that, because you were my first
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president at Scenic when I joined the staff.
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And you're so nice to me, and we've built kind of a relationship over the years,
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and I really enjoy talking to you. So I thought you'd be a great guest to come
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on our podcast, and artists did as well.
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So we just want to talk to you a little bit about your life and your time as
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president and time in state government. How are you doing?
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I'm doing good. The first thing I want to say is thank you for that.
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You might not even know that. Yeah, I'm retired now, so I don't get much congratulations
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or pats on the back now, except for my eight-pound dog. You know,
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she gives me all the pets I get every day.
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And I'd be remiss if I don't say she wanted me to tell artists this morning
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she's ready to get back to work.
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So y'all need to get that building squared away so she can wear her work uniforms
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and she can get back in there and do her job at the office.
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That little dog is something else.
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Bossy. Yeah, Bossy is her name. So I do want to ask, so Brenda acts like that's her dog.
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Is that your dog now? Well, initially, I fought the idea of a dog for two years.
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I didn't want no dog. We got a brand new house, and all I could think about
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was what my dogs did to my house.
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You know, chewing on everything. I fought that, but I lost.
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And then eventually, the dog adopted me.
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So now she's, yeah, she's my dog now. Okay, great. We could have predicted that.
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So Charles has a long history in state government prior to his retirement.
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He's got a long history in scenic of a lot of positions, and he's held positions
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on boards for the state as well. So let's start with your career.
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How did you get into state government in the first place? I got into state government
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when I left the military.
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It was real basic. I applied for a bunch of jobs, and the first person that
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called me that wasn't in my hometown in South Carolina, that's where I was going.
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And the Department of Cultural Resources called me first. Oh,
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cool. And I went to work for them.
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I worked not too far from here, right down the street on Cattle Boulevard at
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the Library for the Blind.
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Oh. And I was a mail clerk there. We processed videotapes, a Braille book.
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I never knew that. I didn't either.
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And stuff for North and South Carolina.
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And I came to work one day, and my supervisor told me, he said,
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son, you're in the wrong place, but I'm going to send you where you need to go.
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And he set up my interview. Pope Correctional was on Blue Ridge at the time.
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And I went over there for the interview, and they hired me.
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And the most interesting thing I can tell you about that was I still remember
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what my first paycheck was.
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It was $21.5. $21? $21? $21? $21.
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$21,105 for 30 days work. Oh, okay. You know, I distinctly remember that.
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I can see that to the day because I knew then I had to have a part-time job immediately.
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Wow. Because that was just not going to get it. What year was that?
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That was 90, I went to work for the state in 92, so that had to be around about 94.
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Oh, okay. Yeah, around about 94. that's when I got paid. And it was an interesting
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time in the Department of Corrections because that was the beginnings of getting tough on crime.
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Crime bill passed, prison expansion happened, the prison was moving from Blue
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Ridge down to Granville down there.
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So it was an interesting time in the department at that point. Yeah.
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We had Emily Jones, the first vice president, on last week, and she said that
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she started around that time, and the vacancy crisis wasn't really that bad
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at that time. It was pretty easy to fill jobs.
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It wasn't because when—oh, by the way, I remember Emily. Okay.
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I went to work at Central Prison after I got promoted from Granville as a lieutenant,
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and she was a sergeant then. I remember her.
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Yeah. So we worked together briefly, but it wasn't at that time because at that
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time, the people who worked in the prison were either prime military or you
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came from a farm, off a farm working.
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So those were the type of folks that worked in the prison system.
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It was just switching over to where Governor Hunt had came in with the workforce
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program and he was hiring. It was a big push to put women into jobs,
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and that's where a lot of the education came into play.
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And so you had this big cultural shift where this job at one time,
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it was based mainly on work ethic and coming to work and understanding your role in it,
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switching to a more nuanced thing where it was education and the process of
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rehabilitation and all of that stuff. So it was a big time, big change at that point. Yeah.
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And you, so you were at Polk. How long were you at Polk? So the first time I
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was at Granville, I was there for a little over two years.
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I went to, that was the original. Then I went down to Granville down there.
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I was down there for a couple of years.
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Then I went to Central Prison. I was at Central Prison for 12 years. Yeah.
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Yeah. And I left Central Prison, went to Bun Correctional for about a year and a half, two years.
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And then I went back to Granville and finished my career down there. Okay.
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I remember when I came on to work at Scenic, you know, I didn't know about the
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power structure of Scenic. And you were the president at the time.
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And my boss at the time was like, oh, that's Charles. He works behind the wall.
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So I was very intimidated by you at some point. I can tell you that working
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behind the wall prepared me for my job with Scenic.
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And then Scenic, as the president, prepared me for my job as associate warden
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at Granville Correctional. So, Monday morning lineup at Central Prison at that
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time, you may have had 125 correction officers.
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And if you for 15 minutes, everybody's hanging off your words that you say,
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you're setting the tone for the day. You're telling people what they need to do.
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You are advising them on policies to keep in mind.
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But you're also preparing them mentally and getting them to understand about
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the importance of being a cohesive unit, about working together.
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Addressing national issues and local issues.
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You know, if you hear something about something that went on at another prison,
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I felt it was vitally important to talk to that, talk to my people about that,
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to keep them from making the same mistakes.
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You know, and it prepared me because once I learned how to communicate and understand
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eye contact and reading the room, I was able to transfer that into being the president of Scenic.
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Yeah. You know, and then when I became the president of the scenic,
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it taught me about the adversarial process, about communicating,
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hashing out ideas, working in collaboration with different disciplines and different people.
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And I was able to take what I learned from there on to being an associate warden
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at Granville Correction during a pivotal time where we were renovating the prison.
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We were switching over to new ways of doing things, preparing staff to go from
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youthful offender to adult offender. It was a very important time during that
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time. Well, that's awesome.
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You know, a lot of people don't understand that Scenic has a 51-person board of governors.
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And our president, that's the size of the body they're leading and have to deal with.
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So literally, that's the North Carolina Senate plus one.
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So tell us about it. You said that kind of taught you a lot that helped you
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in the prison to be president over a 51-member board. Yeah.
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Tell us about that. How did you get people kind of hashing things out without
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really beating each other over the heads to where they got nowhere?
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The first thing you have to understand about North Carolina is North Carolina,
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I think it's 100 counties.
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But really, if you break it up, it's probably it's like three or four different
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states inside one state.
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Yeah. So once you identify that, then you realize that, OK, they may have different
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thoughts, but they have the same root. if they're a state employee.
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They're concerned about health care.
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They're concerned about their pension. They're concerned about their salary,
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you know, their working conditions.
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So let's focus on these things. If I can get all of these different people to
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focus on this, then we can move things forward, you know.
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But if I get you to focus on just the things that are important to you,
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we're going to alienate these other groups of people. So we can't get caught up in that.
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Yeah, and how do you get people to kind of, I guess, drop their own ideas or
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their prejudices even, or, you know, and come to the board ready to tackle those issues.
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Well, the first thing you got to realize is everybody has bias.
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Yeah. When you identify that everybody has bias.
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Your goal as the leader slash moderator is, is to identify the biases and then
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try to stay away from them.
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Okay? Stay away from them. Don't allow the small issue to destroy the big picture
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because you have to keep your mind focused on what the goal is, the task at hand.
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One of my favorite persons told me, say, son, don't get focused on the grass,
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in the grass when you're supposed to be on the grass top.
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Yeah. You know, if we get all down here in the weeds, we never get to what we need to go to.
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We're not going to get into that. And if you keep them away from that and just
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focus on these big issues, you can bring everybody.
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If you live in the mountains of North Carolina and a state employee and you
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live in the metropolitan area of Charlotte.
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Now, you don't live the same way, but you got the same issues.
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Yeah. Your money doesn't go far enough in Charlotte, nor does your money go
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far enough in the mountains neither.
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You know, now in the mountains where you might struggle with health care access,
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where in Raleigh, I don't have a health care access issue, but I still have
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the same basic issues, paying too much for medication,
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paying too much for doctor's visits.
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So we got the same issues. So let's focus on that.
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Yeah. I think that's interesting because something that a lot of Gen Zs are
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taught is to focus more on your implicit biases, which I think is crazy.
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Why are we focusing on the differences rather than everyone's similarities?
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Because I had to go through multiple implicit bias trainings throughout college
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that are just trainings of recognizing your underlying biases in comparison
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to other people and recognizing how to unlearn those things.
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And see, it's interesting you say that because your age group.
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So I'm a prison manager. Now, I was trained by baby boomers.
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Come to work, come to work on time, keep your mouth closed, do what you're told.
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That's not going to work with you.
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It doesn't work with your generation, okay? It doesn't work with my daughter's generation.
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In order to reach you, I have got to listen and I have got to understand where you come from.
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And because I have one way of training, I can't devalue you or not validate what you're saying.
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What you're saying may be Chinese to me, okay?
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But I have got to be open mind enough to allow you to say it and then look inside
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of it and say, okay, I can pull this out and me and her can agree on this.
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The vast majority of my staff towards the end of my career was 20 and 30-somethings.
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Okay, I'm over 50, all right? We're not the same, all right?
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We don't think the same. We don't look at things the same way.
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Some of the things they would try and do would make no sense to me,
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but I can't simply just blurt out my daughter gets on me about all this time.
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She says, I will not let you become that grumpy old man, you know.
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And she tell me, keep your filter in your mouth, you know.
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And that's what you have to do when you get older. You have to hold on to your filter.
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Because I think the worst thing we can do is when we get older is,
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is we get so bitter that nobody in your generation wants to talk to us.
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And then how can we move forward, you know.
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Which leads to the question, you know, I think state government is like everything else.
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It's having trouble making sure the workplace stays diverse and not having enough
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young people wanting to choose public service because they don't have much reason.
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The salaries aren't there. The health care is getting diminished.
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And the retirement benefits, you know, they're not the same either.
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They used to get, when you went to work, you got health care once you retired.
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They've taken that away.
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So somebody coming in at Sammy's age wouldn't have that on the table.
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So what do you think the state needs to do to get those younger folks back in?
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The state has to figure out a way to reach them, one.
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And when I say reach them, speak to them in the language that they understand.
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Okay, whatever the median is. So we're doing a podcast right here.
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If you would have told me 15 years ago that I would be doing a podcast about
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cynic, I would have told you, for what?
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Because nobody listens to that. But if we're going to meet Sammy's people,
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then we've got to do things like this, because that's what they are.
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You know, they don't read the newspaper. You know, they don't do that.
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That doesn't relate to them. So if we want to relate to them, we have to reach them.
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And then the biggest thing, now that I can express my opinion,
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I don't work for the state anymore, you know, is the state government has to
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place value in the new employee.
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They can't simply look at them as a resource that we can discard because the
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services that state employees provide run the state of North Carolina.
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There would be no roads, no schools, no hospitals, no ferries at the pier,
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no museums downtown for the children.
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There would be none of that without state employees. So let's talk about that. You ran a prison.
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Yes. So now we know people come into prisons to work, and it's pretty much they're
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out. They leave within a year usually.
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Having run a prison, how much does that cost the state?
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Millions. So it got to the point when I was a state employee,
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my supervisor, I'll never forget it.
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I came in. He slid a packet over towards me. He said, listen,
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that's scenic. You need to fill that out.
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That's a supplemental health insurance. You need to fill that out.
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You need to give to this. Don't worry about this. This is the things,
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and you need to carry this for your 30 years because your goal should be to
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retire. All right. That's what they told me.
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Now, fast forward, I'm a manager. I'm conducting interviews.
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I'm trying to get staff in.
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I'm telling them, give me 18 months.
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Because I knew realistically they were not going to stay. You know,
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it would take me 15 interviews for employees to find one employee that would stay.
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So there's 15 employees that we uniformed, that we hired, that we sent to school,
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that we trained, that went out the door to get one.
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Wow. And you can't work like that. Because they can go work for the detention
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centers locally and make a lot more.
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The biggest thing that Granville faced was losing them to the federal prison system. Gotcha.
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It got so bad that the, so, and this is interesting now because it comes full
20:25
circle as they talk about how these ICE agents who haven't had a background
20:30
check are working as employees.
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Because I know that it takes six months to a year to do a background check on a federal employee.
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And they usually, they used to do it in person where they would come and see
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you, but they were taking so many of our employees that they just called me on the phone.
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Because they knew me by the first name, you know, and I knew the investigator.
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And he would call me and ask me about this person, that person, whatever.
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And what I would tell these people who I asked for 18 months from,
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I would tell them, if you give me 18 good months of service.
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I'll give you a review that's better than sliced bread.
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You know, I won't say nothing bad about you. I'll be glad to let you go on with your life.
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You just give me these 18 months. Now, ideally, you would want 36 months out
21:14
of it. You won't buy three years out of them. But I knew I was not going to get three years.
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So my goal was to get 18 months because I knew if I kept them for a year and a half
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and I got them involved and I got them close to getting promoted and I got them
21:27
used to living off one paycheck a month and I get them to settle their life
21:31
down to understand around it, I may have a chance at holding on to them.
21:35
So you think there's a problem with the state being a training ground or you
21:38
think that just kind of works? Oh, that is a huge problem because we're giving away money.
21:41
Yeah, we are giving away money. And we're giving away millions of dollars every year.
21:45
And it's just not the problem. I can't remember the figure, but it costs an
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awful lot to get an officer trained.
21:51
Yes. I can't quote it to you now, but I can tell you that between the money
21:56
it costs between training them and dressing them, because you've got to give
22:01
them uniforms, you've got to order boots.
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Nowadays, you've got the safety package. They need a vest. They need all of
22:06
these things. And just about the time I get all of this set in and I get this
22:10
officer trained to where they learned to wear the uniform properly and to come
22:14
to work on time, they're going out the door.
22:17
No, you know, and it's a cycle, you know.
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I would hate to imagine what it takes or what's going on.
22:26
I can't tell you directly, but I know there's no way that Central Prison is
22:31
outfitting 125 correction officers every morning and more. But they got the same mission.
22:36
Yeah. They got the exact same mission. And probably more. I'm sure they're not.
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I knew Granville is not having 35 to 45 officers show up every day for a shift.
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Yeah, I think Central's probably in better shape than a lot of them just because of where they are.
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But, yeah, Granville, I would imagine, and certainly in some of the rural ones, it's bad.
22:58
It's very dangerous. And I fully understand it's not just the prison systems
23:01
that are suffering, because I talk to people on a daily basis that work in other
23:05
departments, and they're going through the same thing.
23:08
Maybe not to the extreme, but it's the same thing because, as you said,
23:12
there is no desire by young people to be a state employee. But the state has to function.
23:18
So let's go back to your time at Scenic and how you got involved in Scenic and
23:24
how you decided to run for office and things like that.
23:28
So I got involved with Scenic because my supervisor told me to.
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And that's how most people from my generation, that's how they got involved.
23:36
It was either your supervisor or it was somebody in the personnel office that
23:40
told you when you got your hiring package.
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Which, of course, had to end a long time ago because that was, you know, not cool.
23:47
Yeah, that's the way it was. Yeah. And the way I became an officer,
23:51
it was kind of comical. A lot of people probably did this too.
23:54
I got convinced to be an officer by going to an annual meeting.
23:57
Yeah. You know, so they told me, say, hey, come on, go with us.
24:00
We're going to eat some chicken and some barbecue.
24:02
Oh, well, you got me right there. Yeah, free food. I'm over there.
24:07
I got a plate full of chicken and barbecue.
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And the guy beside me says, I'll nominate Charles Johnson to be the district chair.
24:15
And I'm sitting there, I'm holding this chicken wing in my hand.
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And I'm thinking, to do what?
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He said, oh, don't worry about it. We'll tell you what you need to do.
24:23
And that's how I became a district chair, you know.
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So I didn't get an understanding until I came to the first board meeting.
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And that's where, you know, the light switched on when I came to the board meeting.
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I said, oh, this is really like government, you know. They're sitting in here. They're professional.
24:41
There are, you know, there's rules to this and you have to do certain things
24:44
or whatever. Yeah, you probably never heard of Robert's Rules of Order.
24:47
I had no idea of what this was. And it launched my lifelong passion of politics.
24:53
You know, I didn't really like politics at that point, but I started liking
24:58
it once I got involved with it. Once I learned how to lobby,
25:01
I'm just a little country boy from South Carolina, but I've been to Congress for Cynic.
25:06
I've lobbied congressmen, senators, you know. I've been to the legislature on Jones Street.
25:12
Cynic put me there. The governor's office. I've been to governor's office.
25:15
I've served on three statewide committees.
25:18
I was on the one that covered the pension study commission, a retirement study
25:23
commission. I served on the insurance board, trustees for the state of California. Health plan.
25:28
Health plan. State health plan. And then I also served on the commission that
25:33
are certified law enforcement.
25:35
And I think that that one was probably...
25:39
The second most gratifying, the most gratifying was the health board, health insurance.
25:44
And the reason it was is because I got an opportunity to learn how big the state health plan is.
25:51
You know, you upset the apple cart. I turned it all the way over.
25:56
You know, I turned the apples flowing all over the ground. That's a great story.
25:59
Will you tell that story real quick? That was a big deal.
26:02
So to set the stage for it, let's understand North Carolina.
26:05
I don't know if it's still that way, but the North Carolina health plan was
26:09
the largest insurer in the state of North Carolina at that time.
26:11
It still is the biggest commercially insurer.
26:13
One out of every nine North Carolinians is on our health plan.
26:17
You know, so that's a huge pot of money.
26:19
And at the time, our health plan was constantly going up.
26:24
When I first became a state employee, they gave you a booklet each year and
26:28
you had all of these choices from all these different health plans.
26:32
Everything from Wealth Plan to Blue Cross and Blue Shield. You could choose one of these to be yours.
26:37
Well, eventually it went down to one, right? And then when it became that every
26:43
year, every two years, the health plan kept blowing up.
26:46
So somebody in the infinite wisdom
26:48
decided to put my name on a piece of paper and got me on that board.
26:52
Well, I got in there and got educated on what was going on. It was. Was it you, Artis?
26:58
And realized that nobody on this board was truly representing state employees.
27:03
You know, you got doctors from the health plan. You got politicians here.
27:09
You got people from all of these different walks of life.
27:12
And they got all these alphabets behind their name. But the little average Joe
27:16
that works for the state that's playing and driving this big monster,
27:20
there's nobody talking for them, you know.
27:22
And they had people from the retirement system who had retired state employees,
27:27
but they wasn't talking for the working person.
27:29
And I kept watching and watching. They kept raising these rates.
27:32
And then I asked the one question one day. I said, so when I first started this,
27:36
you told me it's a three-legged stool.
27:38
It's the taxpayers are on one side of the stool. The employees on the other side of the stool.
27:44
And then you've got the hospital system, right? And all three of us work together
27:49
to provide this health insurance.
27:51
And the only person that seems to be paying more is the employee.
27:56
How's that? They still use that analogy. Yeah, yeah. How is that?
28:00
And so they come to come this big, huge rate hike that they want to do.
28:04
Well, they wanted to get rid of the spousal coverage.
28:06
No spousal coverage. No spousal coverage at all. That was that would have been a massive blow. Right.
28:11
And then they want to jack the rate up extremely high. And so we wasn't going for that.
28:16
As an organization, CENIC went around the state, let people know and gave them
28:21
an email to send their ideas and their thoughts on this.
28:24
So I show up at the next meeting and I got a stack of emails this high from
28:30
people who are who are funding this thing.
28:32
Right. And I sat there waiting patiently for my opportunity to speak.
28:37
And I let them know that, you know, the thousands and thousands of state employees
28:41
that this is supposed to be for do not agree with what you're doing.
28:44
Yeah. We got a problem with this. And it's not right that you're balancing this
28:49
on our backs. there needs to be input from the other two legs on the stool.
28:54
And that time I was on the board, we didn't have a rate increase that entire
28:58
time because I was not going to stand there and just watch you,
29:01
jack these rates up and pull money out of my pocket and not improve my services,
29:06
not make it better, and somehow tell me that there was nothing you could do
29:10
about it when I know you could do better.
29:12
That was a massive, massive showdown. And, you know, I think what struck me
29:17
about this, though, is that you were appointed...
29:20
Not just by one political party's governors. You were appointed by both parties
29:25
to different boards. Yes, and I want to say that.
29:28
Republicans appointed me and Democrats appointed me.
29:31
And I will say this, this is my personal opinion, state employees do best when
29:37
both sides are represented, when there's a split government.
29:41
When one side has total control, when one side doesn't have to listen to the
29:46
other side, we don't fare well.
29:48
And if we don't fare well, the population doesn't fare well,
29:52
because we are the population.
29:53
We represent the working Joe, and it doesn't work out well.
29:58
So when that occurred, when I finally got that light went off in my head,
30:02
that's when I made the personal choice to become independent.
30:05
I vote for Republicans and Democrats. I vote for my issues. You know,
30:11
if you're talking about pension, if you're talking about health care,
30:14
and now at retirement age you're talking about taxes, then you're talking to me.
30:19
You know, all of the other things that don't affect me, I don't really dive down that hole.
30:25
And it's one of the things I remember from your presidency is you were very
30:29
vocal with the board about the fact that you felt passionately that Scenic needed
30:33
to not be just a given for any political party,
30:36
that we needed to be with the people that stood with us, period.
30:40
And I think our phrase at that time was, no permanent party, just permanent issues.
30:45
Yeah. You know, our issues are permanent. You know, the issues that I got at
30:50
55 years old are the same issues that Sam's going to have when she gets 55.
30:55
You know, it's going to be the issue she got now may not be the exact ones I
31:01
had, but they're similar.
31:02
Yeah. They're similar because she's a working person.
31:06
So it is Black History Month. And we asked this of Emily last week as well,
31:11
but is there someone from your career or from your service in Scenic that kind
31:17
of mentored you or helped you along that you'd like to recognize?
31:21
I got a couple of people. The first thing I'll say is I remember the first time
31:27
I walked in the Scenic office and inside the Scenic office is a poster on the
31:31
wall of a convention that,
31:34
And when you look at that poster, there's nothing but white people there. And it was 99% men.
31:40
Yeah, it was all, yeah. You know, and that was state government at the time,
31:44
you know. But the time that I was coming along, state government was changing.
31:49
It was becoming more black people were involved, especially more females.
31:54
It was a large number of women that were becoming involved.
31:56
My first female supervisor when I came to the prison, can you imagine that?
32:00
The first female supervisor I had was in prison. because when I was in the military,
32:04
the unit I was in didn't have any women in it at that time.
32:09
So my first supervisor was a Black female, Claudia Sherrard. She was my supervisor.
32:14
And she supervised me and got me started in the game. So she was Black and she was a woman.
32:19
I learned the things I think the most influential leader in scenic to me,
32:26
I'll probably say would have been Linda Sutton because she told me,
32:30
she was the first person that told me that you can be president.
32:33
She said that to me at the time because I was trying to figure out,
32:37
was this something I really wanted to do, you know?
32:40
And when I looked at her and I said, okay, I'm going to try this.
32:45
And I'm glad I did because it influenced my life. And I tried to be a good representative
32:50
of what I thought a state employee and a leader should be.
32:55
You know, I wanted to be somebody that years from now they can say when they
32:59
walk in a scenic office, they see my picture, oh, that guy was a good president. Yeah.
33:03
That meant something to me. And I want to say we did some things that we wanted
33:07
to do. We didn't do everything we wanted to do.
33:09
And we did some things that had never been done before, you know, and it was a good time.
33:14
State government was expanding and the state government expanded,
33:17
scenic expanded, you know.
33:19
And so we took advantage of that to try to push some things forward and put
33:22
some people in play. Your current president, Wendell Powell,
33:26
me and him were at a convention in Puerto Rico.
33:30
And that's when I think at that time, I think I was, I was reasonable rep.
33:33
Wendell was district chair.
33:35
We then made plans and we said, hey, at one point, man, we're going to,
33:40
we're going to be somebody in the organization. It was like,
33:44
okay, well, you go first and I'll be behind you.
33:47
And here we are many years forward. and it played out and the work was put in.
33:53
Wendell went all over the state.
33:55
Wendell was going to join us for this episode, but he had a family emergency.
33:59
But I think if he came, he may mention you as one of his mentors.
34:03
You know what we're going to have to do, sitting here listening to you,
34:06
there's no question about,
34:08
We're going to have to have you back with President Powell.
34:12
I'd love to hear y'all talk about the way you looked at it back then and how
34:15
it played out for each of you.
34:17
I think that'd be a great conversation because I know how much he looked up
34:22
to you, you know, and in many ways in his presidency is emulating some of the things you did start.
34:27
Yeah, I think he would say that. I'd be glad to do that. Maybe we'll have a
34:31
spinoff podcast. They can do their own podcast.
34:34
Charles and Wendell. I can. I listen. Lord, we'd have to edit it.
34:38
Because we know Charles got opinions. Y'all say everything.
34:41
I listened to the podcast you did with Emily. Yeah.
34:44
And I was sitting there listening to that. I'm like, man, oh,
34:47
man, I could talk about that.
34:48
Or I could talk about that. See, that's the thing. I want more stories out of
34:51
you. So we got to have you back. I like stories.
34:53
Well, it won't take much more of your time. I know you like to cook.
34:58
I watch your—oh, he has a great Instagram page, by the way. He does a lot of cooking on Instagram.
35:02
That is, that's the, since I'm retired, I like to cook and I like to grow vegetables. Yeah.
35:08
I looked outside yesterday and my onions and garlic is starting to come up. Uh-oh.
35:13
You know, so I'm working on looking at. You do mostly grilling, right? Like smoking?
35:18
Smoking, grilling. And it doesn't
35:20
matter. If it looks interesting and I think I can do it, I'll try it.
35:23
You know, and when I buy stuff, I buy stuff to cook with, you know, so my wife don't mind.
35:29
Yeah. So we've got to get her to bring some stuff into the office. She don't buy that.
35:34
Well, thanks for joining us for the interview, but we are going to ask you to
35:37
stick around for our silliness here, if you don't mind.
35:40
I am down for it. Okay. So we usually have a Gen Z moment.
35:45
And you got anything for us this week? Yeah. Right now, something a lot of Gen
35:49
Zs are talking about is Punch the monkey, who is in Japan.
35:53
He's a sweet little monkey that was basically abandoned and not accepted by
35:59
his mother. Is that the one with the little dog?
36:02
Yeah. His little orangutan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I think I saw it.
36:05
Oh, man, it's breaking my heart.
36:07
Yeah, they gave him a stuffed orangutan as, like, a comfort and emotional support.
36:13
And there's been so many videos of him cuddling that where he'll get kind of
36:17
beat up by the other monkeys.
36:19
And then he'll run away and just grab his little stuffed monkey and cuddle it.
36:23
But some good news about Punch is that recently he was...
36:28
The way they would say it is adopted by an older monkey who is now taken after
36:33
him and is like watching out for him, making sure that the other monkeys aren't picking on him.
36:38
Because they were going to beat him to a pulp. Oh, yeah. So it's in a zoo in
36:42
Japan. I did a little research and they said that this happens every time there's a little monkey.
36:47
Well, not every time, but sometimes it happens. And it's just like the first
36:50
time it's really been noticed by the masses.
36:53
But it's so pitiful, the little monkey. Okay, well, I need to give you folks
36:58
a little enlightenment because I have time to watch nature shows,
37:02
and it's not just monkeys that do that. Oh, yeah.
37:04
A lot of mammals do that. Oh, yeah. When there's an animal just orphaned,
37:10
they'll, you know, if it's not adopted, they'll kill it.
37:12
Wow. That's sad. Life.
37:16
So my idea was the good state employees at North Carolina Zoo need to go get
37:21
punched and bring him to the world.
37:23
Right. Maybe the monkeys in Ashboro would be nice. Yeah. Now,
37:27
see, that right there shows your generation.
37:31
That's, you know, that's the difference between how you look at it and how I
37:35
look at it. You know, the millennium in you says, okay, let's go save much.
37:39
And the gen X in me says, you know, punch can work it out itself.
37:46
And then there's my generation that says, now, the monkey's just going to come
37:50
live with me. And it's my monkey now.
37:54
That's a that's a good one though i'm glad you brought up punch because
37:57
i've been kind of obsessed with it too oh so cute so if you go to google today
38:02
and type in because i actually did it to do some research here that you type
38:06
in punch the monkey and the screen fills with like little cartoon versions of
38:10
him i love it so there you go and question of the week john's wacky.
38:22
So it's getting a little warmer outside. What's your favorite thing to do when
38:26
spring comes? Oh, man, that's easy.
38:29
Cook grill. You know, when it first started getting warm, because I have multiple
38:35
grills that don't, my wife doesn't complain.
38:38
I don't say anything about the Amazon boxes. She don't say anything about the grills outside.
38:43
You know, I line all my grills up. I'll clean them up and get them cleaned,
38:47
and I'll get charcoal put in them, and then I'll just look at them and say,
38:51
Okay, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
38:56
Okay, this is for Saturday right here. And then I'll figure out,
39:01
you know, I don't want to just cook chicken and ribs.
39:03
You know, I want to stretch my legs a little bit. Like right now,
39:07
I've got a rabbit defrosting in the refrigerator.
39:10
I'm going to take the rabbit and cook it on the grill. And then I'm going to
39:14
put it in a pan with some carrots, onions, potatoes.
39:17
Okay. I'm going to braise it until it gets soft.
39:20
And then we're going to eat. I think that's like a French delicacy,
39:24
right? Yeah. Brenda won't eat no rabbit.
39:28
Flavor. Yeah. I'll ask Brenda how that was. Yeah. But so what medium do you work in?
39:34
Like, you know, what art form? Are you a charcoal man? Are you a gas grill? What kind of? Okay.
39:41
No true grill person will ever tell you that a gas grill is.
39:46
Even an option, right? No. I have no gas grill.
39:50
Okay. But I do have charcoal, and I have pellet grills. I burn stick wood.
39:56
Okay. It just depends on what I want to do. If I want to cook a whole pig,
39:59
I'll start out with stick, and I'll use some charcoal.
40:03
Yeah. You know, if I want to cook it fast, and I don't want to look at it all
40:07
night, I'll put it on the pellet grill.
40:09
I got all options. Let's give you a plug for your Instagram.
40:11
What's your name on Instagram? Carolina King.
40:14
Okay. Yeah. Check it out. Carolina King, yeah. He cooks some delicious stuff. What about you, Sammy?
40:19
It's almost camping season. I love going camping more in the spring and early
40:23
summer because it gets a little too hot to tent camp in the middle of summer.
40:27
It gets sweaty in the middle of the night.
40:29
But I like spring because that's when I love to go. We'll usually go a Memorial Day weekend.
40:34
You've been to Uari? Oh, yeah, a million times.
40:38
Uari's nice. Yeah, we used to go horseback camping there. Okay.
40:41
Yeah. Now, see, you're the type of person I could see one day getting one of
40:45
those vans tricked out and driving all the way across the country.
40:49
Yeah, I think she would like that a lot.
40:51
From inside of a van. I could see you. I've told my dad I want him to help me
40:55
fix one up because he's very handy.
40:58
He's very good with tools. And I told him that I want to get a cheap van one
41:01
day and fix it up and just travel.
41:03
Well, speaking as a father, I'm sure he's not down with that.
41:07
He's not thrilled about it. But if he's the one helping me fix up the van and
41:12
he knows it's safe. Yeah.
41:14
OK. He'll accept it. And he'll probably put some compartments for hidden weapons.
41:17
Oh, yeah. And I'd have my dog with me. He's like, yeah, take your dog. You'll be fine.
41:22
What about you, Artis? It's always fishing. I mean, we're crawling up into the
41:28
striper and then go looking for, you know, late March, go looking for the drum
41:34
or the trout that might be in those holes,
41:37
those warmer holes in the rivers.
41:39
But leading up to that first week in May. Yeah.
41:43
When the fish are running, the blues and the drum are running out on the Outer
41:48
Banks. When is the big rock tournament down there?
41:51
I don't know. I don't know. Oh, okay. You don't do that kind of thing?
41:53
No. No, okay. That's money.
41:55
I know Michael Jordan goes to that one. Yeah. I always wanted to go.
41:59
Yeah, me and Michael Jordan aren't really fishing together. I wish. That would be great.
42:03
I never realized how many difference it is in fishing.
42:08
I got a friend of mine that all he does is bass fish. anything.
42:14
That's the only fish that there is.
42:16
So yeah, it is very special. Like I grew up saltwater fishing.
42:20
And so when I found myself living around more lakes than the saltwater,
42:27
I tried to train myself on that.
42:29
That is really different. It's hard. I think freshwater fishing is so hard.
42:33
Yeah. Bass fishing in particular with that different rod and everything. Yeah.
42:38
He won't, you know, he think, and then here's a trick. He doesn't eat any fish, you know.
42:44
So all he does is catch and release. I said, so let me get this right.
42:49
You don't eat fish. All you do is catch the fish. And if it's a big one,
42:53
you take a picture of it and you throw it back in the water. He said, yeah.
42:56
How do you got it? It's very zen. So we have a pond in front of our house that's
43:00
owned by somebody else, but my son's been there so much.
43:03
I'm sure like all the bass have like messed up in the house.
43:06
He's probably caught them all, you know, I guess my springtime activity is kind
43:12
of sad this year for us, though, because it's always been watching my son play baseball.
43:16
And we've spent the last, what, 13 years going to baseball games. Yeah, y'all did.
43:21
And this year, he's not playing for his college. He's hurt his leg.
43:26
So he's not going to be playing this year. And he's actually changing schools,
43:30
too. But he's hoping to go back next year.
43:32
You're not going to know what to do without baseball. I know.
43:34
There's so much free time.
43:36
We've got to, like, actually talk to each other. It's crazy.
43:39
We don't have to plan for a trip every weekend.
43:41
But I am going to miss baseball. But I will try to get around to some of the
43:45
colleges and Durham Bulls. And that's it.
43:49
I like it. All right. Well, thanks for coming in, Charles, and everyone have
43:53
a great week. Hey, it's my pleasure. All right.