Good Morning BT | BoPlex Turns 70 | Hegseth vs. Media | Remembering Cullen Ferguson - Good Morning BT with Bo Thompson & Beth Troutman

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You want to be good?

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Or do you want to be somebody who changes the world?

Speaker 3 (00:05):
Can I be both?

Speaker 4 (00:06):
From these talk eleven ten and ninety nine three w bet.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
I have been around a long time for this has
the makings of a team that can bring light from
the dark.

Speaker 4 (00:17):
This is good Morning Beauty with both Thompson and Beth
trout Man, the year on that.

Speaker 5 (00:23):
Can't be on the weekies falking.

Speaker 6 (00:25):
I am not thrown away my shot. I am not
thrown away my shot good morning. Just like my country,
I'm young, scruppy and hungry, and I'm not thrown away
my shot. I'm like that a scholarship to King's College.
I probably should brag the bag. I'm mean's astonished. The
problem is a lot a lot of brainsmen. Oh polished
a nahmagist to be heard.

Speaker 7 (00:45):
With that word.

Speaker 6 (00:45):
I dropped knowledge on a timon in the muff, the
shining piece of cold trying to reach my gold power
speech unimpeachable only nineteen the Mamana soda. These New York
City streets getting cold, I sold every burning, every disadvantage.

Speaker 8 (00:59):
I've earned a manage.

Speaker 9 (01:00):
I don't have it done to brandish.

Speaker 6 (01:01):
I walk these streets famished, the plan is to fan
this book into the rain, but damn it's getting God,
So let me spell up a name.

Speaker 7 (01:07):
I am the Al.

Speaker 6 (01:09):
Yes here we are meant to be a carlony that
runs independently. You are pretty in ascendlessly. Essentially, he taxes relentlessly.
The gin George turns around on his descendants free. He
ain't never gonna set his descendance free. So there will
be your revolution in this century. And to me, don't

(01:31):
be shocked when the history book mentions me. I will
lay down my life if it sets us free. Eventually
you'll see my ascendancy. And now you're not thrown away,
not shot. Now you're not thrown away, not shot. And
you're just like my country. I'm young, scrappy and me
and I'm not thrown away, not shot. I am not
thrown away, not shot. I am not like the country,

(01:57):
young scrap.

Speaker 9 (01:59):
Thanks al, good morning. Just the first time that Hamilton
has made your playlist. Yes on a weekday since we've
been keeping the Official Playlist.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Since we've been keeping the official playlist. Have y'all seen Hamilton?
Have y'all seen the musical?

Speaker 5 (02:17):
No?

Speaker 10 (02:19):
I saw part of it on television during COVID when
they were putting on TV right, I saw.

Speaker 9 (02:23):
Like the first halfter intermission.

Speaker 11 (02:24):
Like Disney Plus aired it. Well, I I'm this is
gonna be a little bit of a humble brag, but
I was. I was in New York and a friend
of mine took me to see it on Broadway and
I kind of like ugly cried for like the whole
half hour after the show was over, and Craig calls
me and he's like, what what What's.

Speaker 9 (02:41):
Wrong with you?

Speaker 1 (02:41):
And I was like, I just saw Hambleton. Nothing that
brilliant is ever going to come out of my brain?

Speaker 5 (02:47):
Was it that sad?

Speaker 12 (02:48):
Well?

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yes, there, yes, I don't know.

Speaker 5 (02:53):
So it was the humble brag that you saw it
on Broadway or cookie Bot.

Speaker 9 (02:56):
I'm waiting for it, Bernie, because I'm trying to decide
which which level we're going.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I'll tell you the humble brag. I was so in love.
I was Alexander Hamilton guys.

Speaker 11 (03:06):
No, no, no, I was so in love with the
show after I saw it, because I thought it was
so brilliant, just so well written, and it's just historically
just such a great story, which is the founding of
our nation. You can't come away from it not feeling patriotic.
Then for my birthday, this is the humble Greg. But
for my birthday several years later, Craig bought me tickets

(03:29):
to see Lynn Manuel Miranda reprise his role, which he
only did for two weeks in Puerto Rico as a
fundraiser to raise money after the hurricane that decimated Puerto Rico.
So we I got to see Lynn Manuel Miranda as
Alexander Hamilton.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
I almost cried in Puerto Rico, in Puerto Rico. In
Puerto Rico, I was.

Speaker 9 (03:49):
Going to go this direction because I haven't had a
chance to do it in a long time.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
That was a good morning dt humble breath that one
calls for something more. That was a good morning beat.

Speaker 9 (04:03):
Guy, nothing humble about it.

Speaker 5 (04:09):
Brag that's pride in Puerto Rico.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
I cried in Puerto Rico.

Speaker 9 (04:12):
But like, don't cry for me, Puerto Rico.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
It was just there's.

Speaker 11 (04:18):
Like the one of the greatest Argentina shows.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
It's it's so brilliant.

Speaker 9 (04:24):
Madonna, Well can we ruin them?

Speaker 8 (04:28):
Most?

Speaker 11 (04:29):
Just that you know when I first when first Hamilton
first came out, it did not sound like something that
I thought that I would enjoy, because I'm not like
a big rapper or hip hop aficionado by any stretch
of the imagination.

Speaker 5 (04:40):
Oh no, I heard you break there. You can rap
a little flow there.

Speaker 11 (04:42):
Well, I do know like all the lyrics to well
all of the songs now, but it's so good.

Speaker 9 (04:47):
Here's a little behind the scenes. So every morning, y'all
know that Beth has this song, she has to tell
me what the song is. A lot of times I
have the song. But if I don't have the song
or I'm not familiar with the song, I have to
because I've been bitten by this before, I have to
make sure that it's air ready.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
So I started rapping.

Speaker 9 (05:03):
So today she's over here like wrapping the lyrics like
to herself and the burner.

Speaker 5 (05:06):
You know there freestyle in there back what's going on
over there?

Speaker 11 (05:09):
So I was trying to go through my head to
see if there were any curse words, and then.

Speaker 9 (05:13):
She went, oh, yeah, there's one, there's one, and found
the clean version. So all this happens was in about
five minutes. Says We're about to get on the air.

Speaker 11 (05:20):
Which the other fun thing that you should know is
that bo and I actually talked on the phone all
the way to work today, as if we weren't going to.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Talk for four hours. Once we got here.

Speaker 9 (05:29):
Yeah, she called me and I was still walking out
of the house.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
I was like hey, and I was like, oh, wait,
are you still at your house? You need to call
me back.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
When are you still eating your egg?

Speaker 9 (05:36):
Gun?

Speaker 13 (05:37):
Well, hey, I see you in the parking lot here.
I'll just talk to you here in a couple of seconds.
I see you walking.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
That's basically what he said.

Speaker 9 (05:43):
I said to her, I'm driving up to the to
you know, to the entrance, and I said, well, I'll
I could practically see you now. I'm going to hang up.
I'll hang up and take my window down.

Speaker 5 (05:53):
Hey, Beth, hold on, hold.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
On, I'm gonna hang up right now.

Speaker 14 (05:56):
I'll up.

Speaker 9 (05:59):
I was always where I'll hang up and take your
call off the air, which.

Speaker 11 (06:03):
He did, and then we walked in together and continued
the conversations like.

Speaker 9 (06:06):
You can hear it if I answer right now anyway,
off and rolling.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
So, Hamilton, guys, the founding of our.

Speaker 11 (06:13):
Nation, which it's you know, coming here made the ten
dollar bill, did not two hundred and fifty years two
hundred and fifty years we're about to celebrate. And if
you haven't seen the show, I mean just the history,
just the story.

Speaker 9 (06:25):
I know one song really well from that movie that
that that play, and it was the Room where it happens.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Oh well that's because of the Room where it happens.

Speaker 9 (06:35):
That was That was a segment we did daily. Spoiler alert, guys,
doesn't mean what you thought it meant, though, well kind
of kind.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Of does, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, kind of does.

Speaker 9 (06:45):
In the context of the play, though I've been told
that it's not quite the same thing.

Speaker 11 (06:48):
Well, it is Aaron Burr who is singing it, which
spoiler alert, Aaron Burr does shoot Alexander Hamilton, which I
think all.

Speaker 9 (06:54):
Of gosh, you guys, I was just gave to watch
a second now, all right. Teresa Payton is joining us,
coming up in a moment from Australia, Land down Under.
She's like, she's like six days ahead of us. I'm
giving a vega mighte sandwich jump on the bobby. That's right,
that's not a knife traffic check.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Right now, I know that all three of you just
did that. Each of you had you gotta go.

Speaker 9 (07:16):
Crocodile on thee was a men at work reference. Actually
it was you're right, this is.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
Good morning beating.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
You got a light money?

Speaker 9 (07:26):
Yeah, sure, kid, there you go.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
And your wallet.

Speaker 14 (07:33):
Nick, give him your bonnet.

Speaker 4 (07:36):
What it's got a knife?

Speaker 5 (07:41):
That's not a knife, that's a knife.

Speaker 14 (07:49):
I had to do it. I had to do it.

Speaker 9 (07:52):
I mean, after all, when you're fifteen hours ahead of
where we are right now on the other side of
the world. Teresa Payton is on the WBT hotline from
Australia from Melbourne, Australia, home of the Australian Open come January.

(08:12):
Just in case you're a tennis fan, Teresa.

Speaker 14 (08:15):
Pate from the future.

Speaker 9 (08:16):
Yeah, right right, what all has happened fifteen hours into
our life?

Speaker 7 (08:22):
I can't tell you.

Speaker 15 (08:23):
Because then I would like ruin the timeline.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, you'd spoil it for us.

Speaker 9 (08:27):
Well, so what are you doing in Melbourne this week?
That is that's quite a ways to travel in the
name of cybersecurity.

Speaker 15 (08:35):
Yeah, what am I doing here? No, it's an incredible
group here. They have this incredible community of people that
get together from all over Australia but other places as
well to talk about cybersecurity, risk, fraud and so we
just had a really great conversation today about AI and
where things are headed, both on the good side and

(08:56):
on the negative side. And it's just been incredible conversation.
Really smart people and you know what, their problems are
the same as our problems.

Speaker 9 (09:06):
Just with a different accent.

Speaker 15 (09:07):
Right, Yeah, they sound they sound so much smarter when.

Speaker 9 (09:11):
They say it.

Speaker 16 (09:12):
I go.

Speaker 9 (09:13):
Now, this is an interesting story because I know, being
where you are in the world, this has been quite
the talk in Australia. The phone numbers of the Australian
Prime Minister and Donald Trump Junior are among several private
numbers that have been made public on a on a
website that is accessible to the masses in some form. Here,

(09:36):
what's going on with this one? Because you just happen
to be in the middle of a firestorm of coverage there.

Speaker 15 (09:42):
Oh I know, and you know, so I had started
media here in Australia last night and they're like, what
do you know about this? I'm like, give me five minutes.
But interestingly enough, it's actually this database was pulled together
allegedly by an Australian who's living in your the United States,
and it's supposed to be a subscription service so you

(10:03):
can do like five free searches and then you can
pay money to do more than that. And they claim
that they really just did screenscraping of different places on
the internet. But people are saying these are actually the
real personal numbers of elected officials that wouldn't be on
LinkedIn and they wouldn't be on other places. So a

(10:23):
lot of questions to be asked and answered at this point,
very concerning.

Speaker 17 (10:29):
Now.

Speaker 15 (10:29):
One thing one of the reporters said is they got
an early read on the list and they called a
couple of the numbers and some were disconnected, some were
not legit, but some actually were.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
Wow.

Speaker 11 (10:41):
Now, if you are down there with having conversations as
you often are these days in places all over the
world talking about AI, AI is another story here. Soon
you will be able to shop at Walmart in chat GPT.

Speaker 18 (10:59):
Yeah, so what's interesting?

Speaker 15 (11:00):
So I asked chatchept about this, and so first it
happened to know where I was, which was a little disconcerting,
and it said you can't reliably buy things from Walmart
right now through me in Australia, and so I was like, okay,
well how about in America And it says, well, yes,
it's going to be available in America. I'm like, well,

(11:21):
how about Charlotte, North Carolina, And it said, well, it's
not available yet, but it will be seen. Would you
like me to check when it's going to be available?
So I guess it's still a coming soon feature. I'm
a little it'll be interesting to see how Walmart rolls
this out. So will you be online ordering and all
of a sudden you get presented with would you like
to do this in chat cheepte or you're going to

(11:42):
be in chat chept and it's going to say you
sort of seem like you need to buy something from Walmart?
Would you like to buy something? So I don't know
how that user experience is going to work, and.

Speaker 11 (11:51):
It feels like it might be a privacy issue as well,
that suddenly chat gpt has your shopping habits or it
feels very much already report to me.

Speaker 15 (12:02):
Does No, you're not off at all. I mean even
when chut gpt said well, it's not available in Australia,
I'm like, well, I didn't tell you I was here,
so it's kind of weird.

Speaker 9 (12:12):
It feels very pop up ad on the internet type thing,
you know, like a like you're using chat gpt and
you know we'll give the answer after this AD.

Speaker 15 (12:22):
Well, that may happen.

Speaker 9 (12:24):
Now, I was perusing your feed last night on X.
It's at Tracker paytent on X And we always say that,
or a lot of times we say that these conversations
we have on WBT extend online if you interact with
Teresa there. Now I was looking last night and you
were listening. We're talking about AI and chat GPT ways

(12:45):
that AI powers your digital security. So often we hear
about negative stories as it relates to AI, but you
can manipulate it to your advantage and protect your identity
out there with a few steps that you posted yesterday.

Speaker 7 (12:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (12:59):
No, So I'm posting a step every couple of days
of things that people can think about doing.

Speaker 19 (13:04):
So.

Speaker 15 (13:05):
For example, if anybody has listened to us for any
period of time, they know I love the Brave browser. Well,
Brave now has AI integrated into it. So now you
have both a privacy browser and if you decide to
use AI and use it within Brave, it keeps your conversations,
the things that you ask, the answers that gives you,
it keeps it private. So that's one. Another one is

(13:28):
you can actually use it, and I talked about this
on Fox News. First, you can actually use it to
say is this a scam? So if you get approached
a text message, something online and email, you can actually
put it into chat, GPT or your favorite gen AI
and ask it is this a scam? And it'll look

(13:48):
for the red flag and say, yeah, it actually might be.
So there's so many amazing things that we can actually
use AI for to make a safer, more secure, and
spot scams faster.

Speaker 11 (14:00):
Love it when there's a that makes me feel a
little more positive about AI rather than, you know, just
scared of AI. There was one more story that caught
my attention, and this is just maybe more of a
of a concept right now, But the Washington Post had
an article about how online content now is having such
an impact on young boys, about what the quote unquote

(14:23):
concept of a man is and that online like this
whole I guess they call it a manisphere, is having
more of an impact on what boys think about manhood
than maybe parents are.

Speaker 15 (14:37):
H very interesting and I guess it depends on where
they're hanging out online and what they're seeing. Right, So
is it I'm gaming, I'm on discord? Is this TikTok,
is it Reddit? You know, where are the different places
that they're getting information from? But you know, it is
one of those things where it's so tough that I'm
so glad you brought this up because a lot of

(14:58):
parents say to me, how do I keep up up?
And I always say, like, the best way to keep
out this at the dinner table and ask hey, what's
something kind of cool and interesting you saw today? And
when they share it with you say, well, where did
you see that? So that you can sort of get
a feel for where are your kids or your young adults,
where are they hanging out online? Where are they getting

(15:20):
their information from, so that maybe you can go there too,
so that you can sort of see what they're seeing
and have a conversation about it.

Speaker 11 (15:28):
Teresa Payton from the Future, I know, I feel like
if she sounds really happy, so I feel.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Like it's going to be a Gesha sounds like she's
next door and she's in Australia.

Speaker 9 (15:37):
She's in Australia in Melbourne. That's just do you want
to marvel about modern technology all this AI and chat GPT,
just listen to our phone connection right now? So where
are you off to? Between now and when it's back home.

Speaker 15 (15:51):
Yes, Austin, Texas is next.

Speaker 9 (15:53):
Naturally, of course it's next. Right, that's a that's a
that's a transcontinental flight right there. Well, safe travels. I
know there's this follow up on the topic we were
talking about with the Australian PM's phone number and Donald
Trump Junior. You were on CNN talking about that in
recent hours and right now you're down under in Australia.

(16:14):
So safe travels, and thank you for always calling us
no matter where you are.

Speaker 15 (16:18):
Well, Beth and Bo, it's always great to be with you.
I would never miss this, so thanks for being flexible
with me again, and be safe out there.

Speaker 12 (16:27):
GIMFC if you.

Speaker 9 (16:30):
Want to coming down today four three only one reason
why we go to the eight four to three today
wherever on this show.

Speaker 5 (16:39):
All right, we bring on.

Speaker 9 (16:44):
From the North Myrtle Beach Bureau of Good Morning BT,
the one the only Wayne Troutman, you know him as
the Wayneyact.

Speaker 12 (16:52):
Good morning sir, Good morning, hope everyone's doing well up
there in the Charlotte area by Things are beautiful down
here again finally down in the eight four three studio area.
But we've had a very exciting weekend, which sure did well.

Speaker 9 (17:09):
I'm glad you said finally, because we we've had some
logjam the last couple of days. But I see all
over social media these and you know, on the newscasts
and whatnot. I see these this footage of the erosion
that has happened down primarily in your area, you know,
down there Cherry Grove, a North Myrtle Beach, you know,

(17:30):
the outskirts of the where the line is from North
and South Carolina. But this storm that came through, this
this northeaster that we were talking about last week, some
of these images of what it left behind are pretty amazing,
and I thought we'd bring you on because you're right
there in the thick of it.

Speaker 12 (17:46):
Absolutely well. Tell you down Georgetown, which is about an
hour south of us, had it the worst. You know,
the combination of the king Town along with the nor
easter that was coming through a lot of a lot
of erosion damage. They had a rosion some places deeper
than six seven eight feet some of the walls that
it built right here in Ocean Drive area where the

(18:08):
studio is. We were very lucky, in fact, I sent
Beth a picture of Sunday of the beach and how
good it looked. They had the tractors out Sunday morning
area scraping it down and it looked.

Speaker 18 (18:21):
In great shape.

Speaker 12 (18:22):
But ten minutes north of us up in Cherry Grove,
quite a difference, a lot of erosion up there, but
they're getting They had seven inches of rain down in Georgetown,
we had just over three. As we have discussed before,
Cherry Grove is a flood area. In fact, when I
was doing a little research, I found that on the
flood map they predict that ninety seven point one percent

(18:46):
of all the properties in Cherry Grove with flood at
some point over the next thirty years. Ninety seven point
one percent are predicted to flood. So that is a
low area, which the beach itself is very flat hugely
so having the erosion that we had this particular time

(19:07):
is much different than what we normally have up in
Cherry Grove. It's been quite a it's been quite an
experience that here, by the way, Cherry Grove has already
has a plan in place six weeks from now, they
were already set and start putting you sand on the beach.
They're just going to step up that program and get

(19:27):
the beach built back up, and they'll have it ready.
We'll sn just a few weeks back to normal. They
haven't seen the plan yet for Georgetown, but I'm sure
they'll be doing something very somewhere.

Speaker 9 (19:37):
Well, we've seen the pictures of the outer banks of
North Carolina where you have those homes, those homes on
stilts that have fallen into the ocean, and they had
a few more of those instances in recent days. But again,
like I said, Cherry Grove, and then like you say,
further down. So when they have because I saw one
at least one picture of you know, steps down to

(19:59):
the beach that had been roped off because you step
off the last ledge there and you're you're going down
ten twelve feet, what do they do? They have to
bring in big dump trucks And is that how long
does that take to fix something like that.

Speaker 12 (20:16):
I've been a living here that about eight years. We
haven't had one quite as bad, So I couldn't say
they're predicting up in the Cherry Road, which is not
as critical as the one in Georgetown, they're predictably about
thirty days to get it back into in excellent shape.
But they already had everything lined up.

Speaker 18 (20:31):
They just moved it up a few weeks.

Speaker 12 (20:33):
It'd made it easier for them.

Speaker 9 (20:35):
Well, we're about to get out of hurricane season at
the end of this month, but we're still there. So
there has not been there has not been a storm
that has made landfall in on the coast of the
Atlantic coast this season. There have been a lot of
them that have been churning out there, I mean Erin
for example, and then this recent stuff, but there hasn't

(20:55):
been one that's made landfall. So that's a big deal.
But it doesn't mean we're out of the woods, because,
as Ray Stagic says, that you still got technically a
few more weeks of this.

Speaker 12 (21:03):
Yeah, exactly. I will be going up this weekend. I
head up Thoughtful Beach with just about two hours north
of us, so I'll be seeing how the erosion, what's
going on up there, uh in the next few days.
And by the way, I got to tell you something
myself Suicide Stories Podcasts. I reached the agreement yesterday with

(21:23):
Beach Music TV, a ROK channel, that they will be
carrying our podcast on television on Roku.

Speaker 9 (21:31):
On TV on Roku.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
So my dad just launches a podcast and he already
has TV rights.

Speaker 5 (21:37):
That's a bit of a humble brag there, win, dude.

Speaker 9 (21:41):
I mean, who doesn't have Roku these days?

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Wow, it's on the on the Beach Music channel.

Speaker 9 (21:46):
Hang on, yeah, here we go that good morning beat.
Humble brad. We're not on Roku, are we? The seventeenth
segment's not on.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Rokoe Nope, And we've been out longer than the Beach Music.

Speaker 9 (21:58):
You guys aren't. Howdy?

Speaker 5 (22:00):
That's all about who you know?

Speaker 12 (22:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (22:01):
We wait a minute, we know the way they act.
How how is this happen?

Speaker 5 (22:05):
He's with holding connections from us?

Speaker 9 (22:07):
How many are we on? Like the twenty sixth episode? Now?
How many episodes?

Speaker 12 (22:11):
Oh now, I'll just T'm released number nine, toy? All right,
I'm going back doing one a week. I've already got
seven more already recorded ready to go that I'm cleaning up.
And whenever I get you guys back down here, you're
going to be on a fash with me.

Speaker 9 (22:25):
Oh see, it's only fair because he's been on yours.
That's exactly right. We did it from from from your
place there. Well, look that's it we did. I've never
met a Roku star before, like the remote stick.

Speaker 20 (22:38):
What is that?

Speaker 9 (22:39):
Yeah, it's like that exaggerating No, No, I'm telling you seriously,
though I had his own channel. We ought, you know,
Roku killed the radio star.

Speaker 5 (22:46):
That's right.

Speaker 9 (22:47):
When when we talked to you this summer about this
idea that you had about doing a beach music podcast,
I thought, who who else? Who's more perfect than Wayne
Troutman to do that? You know everybody down there between
you and h A, you know everybody. So this is great.
So look, we're having some fun on a Wednesday morning.
But I again tell everybody the name of the podcast,
and obviously you can get it on Roku and as

(23:08):
we'd like to say, wherever you get good podcasts.

Speaker 12 (23:12):
Oh yeah, the name is Surfside Stories and we have
the audio is on Spotify, the video is on YouTube,
and now the videos will all be on the Roku
Beach Music TV shuttle.

Speaker 9 (23:24):
And he's in negotiations with Amazon and Hulu.

Speaker 11 (23:27):
And right right right, if he's going to be too
big to do reports with us, that's right going on
Joe Rogan next week.

Speaker 9 (23:33):
Through as.

Speaker 12 (23:36):
I'll never give up this. This is the most fun
thing that I do.

Speaker 9 (23:39):
Yeah, please don't because you have to stay there so
we can come to our show again next year.

Speaker 12 (23:44):
Amen.

Speaker 9 (23:45):
All right, man, Well look, it's good to check in
with you. I don't like to tat too much time
in between updates and on all seriousness, I hope the
beach erosion gets cleaned up there in the next few weeks.
But I hope you have a great, great weekend, Wayneiac.

Speaker 12 (24:00):
Thank you for checking in. It's great to talk to
all of you. And keep that football fantasy pool going.
I'm gonna keep the bottom me in, Beth.

Speaker 11 (24:08):
That's right, Well, I've got the bottom solidly, solidly under control.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
I have created quite a foundation for you, gentlemen.

Speaker 9 (24:14):
Yeah, bringing up the rears. It's a family effort, all right.
That's the Wayney act bowing Beth here and the Zoke
and Bernie and Steve and in the traffic center. Also
in the fantasy football league. Boomer von Cannon, Wait, act,
my man, congratulations on that podcast.

Speaker 4 (24:29):
What did you go do it?

Speaker 19 (24:30):
Right?

Speaker 1 (24:30):
He's already a TV stars already.

Speaker 9 (24:32):
He needs to have you on that podcast. See that's
a great idea, right, might be time for new parashoes, hey, Beth, Yeah,
becaues the Wyney.

Speaker 5 (24:42):
I have a pair of alligator loafers.

Speaker 11 (24:44):
Well, I don't know if he still does, but yes,
as I I was growing up, Yeah, that man had
some alligator loofers and imagine belt.

Speaker 9 (24:52):
He was verified right there, Hey Boomer, he killed the
gator himself.

Speaker 5 (24:56):
That didn't even like.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
Bare hands.

Speaker 9 (25:01):
I'm preciating this choke cold you will never get out of.

Speaker 5 (25:04):
I just leave at that's great.

Speaker 9 (25:06):
I'm an arm let my hand clean off.

Speaker 5 (25:09):
I was a pair of alligator loafers.

Speaker 9 (25:11):
That's the man, hey bo that's Beth Leppard right there,
all right. A few minutes before seven o'clock on WBT,
we're just talking to the Wayneyac about his new podcast
that is now available on Roku.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
On Roku on their Beach Music channel.

Speaker 9 (25:32):
Speaking of streaming services, Spotify, he needs to know about
this the way he act does. Spotify is now going
to put video podcasts on Netflix.

Speaker 11 (25:43):
So all of these podcasts that we have been listening
to over the years, most of them now do have
video components.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Now these number seventy, which, yeah, we need to figure
out how to make this thing happen.

Speaker 11 (25:55):
Now, these video podcasts will be on Netflix, Spotify video
podcast They inked a deal. Two companies have announced a
partnership to bring a select number of podcasts from Spotify
Studios and The Ringer to Netflix's platform. The initial titles
include The Bill Simmons Podcast, The Zach Lowe Show, The

(26:17):
mcshae Show, and The Rewatchables, also conspiracy Theories.

Speaker 9 (26:23):
Is that Todd McShay, I don't know, Tod Todd, Todd,
I have to ask.

Speaker 11 (26:30):
Now, we'll all begin early twenty twenty six, with other
shows to follow and other markets to follow. But so
now streaming services that are audio combining combining powers.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
With the bigger streaming service of.

Speaker 9 (26:46):
TV one day and Wayne's right there on Netflix.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Oh yeah, it would not surprise me.

Speaker 9 (26:50):
So here's the thing, like Spotify, like Taylor Swift album
that just came out, if you download the songs, many
of them have videos with them. And a lot of
these podcasts on Spotify have video components too, like some
of the big ones. But you also on like for example,
Roku back to what your dad was talking about? Roku

(27:12):
has the has the Spotify app on it. I remember
the other day I was thinking, I wonder how many
people listen to podcasts through Roku that don't have a
video component, Like is that even a thing?

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Maybe like while you're doing housework.

Speaker 9 (27:24):
Yeah, I mean I wonder how it must be enough people,
because why else would it be on there.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
I think I'm not cool enough.

Speaker 11 (27:33):
I listen to podcasts, but usually it's when I'm on
a long road trip. I very rarely go watch the video.

Speaker 9 (27:40):
Component you totally don't cut your grass then, because that's
exactly right.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
I definitely do not cut the grass at my house.

Speaker 9 (27:47):
I have listened to probably more podcasts mowing the grass
than anything else. Maybe running.

Speaker 10 (27:51):
I love the time you trim and get the blower
out and adge you and all that stuff. I mean,
you can listen to a whole Joe Rogan, He's not
wrong if I wanted to, you know.

Speaker 9 (27:59):
I mean, or you can. You could. You could listen
to DOUBLEBT on our mobile ass but I'd never say,
oh yeah that too.

Speaker 10 (28:06):
All my TV's are rokup. I never watched the Roku channel. Well,
never even occurs to me to go to the Roku channel.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
You can watch the Wayne as I know it was.

Speaker 9 (28:12):
Why why I'm gonna get it?

Speaker 19 (28:14):
I have it.

Speaker 9 (28:15):
I gonna start watching it now. If you go to
the Roku channel, I can tell you what you're gonna
Team Wolf two. That's gonna say, you know, like like
a never ending story part to all these like movies
that no one else like your Howdie channel. It's like
what is on these things that people are watching. It's
like the second or third row Blockbuster, you know, those
movies that never get touched.

Speaker 11 (28:32):
The ones that they always had a title behind them.
There was always an available video there.

Speaker 9 (28:36):
Nine nine cents you can have and it was collecting
dust because it had never actually been checked out?

Speaker 4 (28:41):
Right, why you're not at the time Now from News
Talk eleven ten and ninety nine three double d BT.

Speaker 5 (28:50):
HBO will show this speeture only at night.

Speaker 4 (28:53):
This is Good Morning BET with Bo Thompson and Beth
Troutman and no sonic men said back to full and
Beck can I foxy.

Speaker 9 (29:06):
Seven eight on WBT. It is the fifteenth of October, Wednesday,
Hump Day coming up in the final hour of the
show today, our good buddy Sean Flynn, the director of
Corporate Communications for the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority the CRVA.
The seventieth anniversary of the Charlotte Coliseum and Ovens Auditorium,

(29:29):
or as we know it these days, the Boplex, the
Bojangles Colosseum and Ovens seventy years flexed to me, it
is a bout. It's bo flex.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
I feel like your garage is called the Bowtplex.

Speaker 9 (29:42):
It is also bo flex.

Speaker 13 (29:44):
Hang on, Yes, we should get you a sign that
says welcome to the Boplex like Jason's basement.

Speaker 9 (29:50):
Oh yeah, I kind of like going over to the
Bowplex and seventy years So I want you to think
about all the things you've seen at the original Charlotte Colisseum,
as as those of us who grew up here. Call
it the original Charlotte Colisseum over on Independence. Now it's
the Boplex. It's been the Independence Arena, that's been Cricket Arena.
It's been a lot of things. And of course there
was the New Charlotte Colisseum that was over on Tayvola Road,

(30:12):
the twenty three thousand plus seat cavernous facility that went
up in eighty eight and went down in two thousand
and six. And yet the original Bojangles Coliseum is still there.
And I know I'm at the Old Coloseum.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
During the New Coloseum, it really was called the old Coliseum,
it was right.

Speaker 9 (30:29):
But they're celebrating seventy years. And I know a lot
of people. I mean, it's a generational thing. I mean,
there are several generations of people listening right now that
can think of the first concert or the first event
or something notable that you saw at the at the Colisseum.
I'm just gonna say the Colisseum because to me, it's
still still the Charlotte Collee big guy, the big guy.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
I will, I will, I will always say this.

Speaker 11 (30:53):
Although we have no physical proof of this, but I
do believe that Bo Thompson and I saw the circus
together at the original coliseum, the Wringling Brothers and Barnumu
and Bailey Circus, because I was pulled out of the
audience to ride in the carriage like behind the elephants.

Speaker 9 (31:08):
Of course you were, and.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
So Bow was too. So we're loo and so we
think we were in the carriage together.

Speaker 9 (31:14):
As your dad not have a video or a picture
of this, well.

Speaker 11 (31:16):
It was nineteen eighty one, maybe two, Yeah, so no,
he may have had his giant camcorder on his shoulder.

Speaker 10 (31:23):
Just too funny if he did, like a picture of
you in the back, you see little Bow on his
giant elephants.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
We were like sitting beside each other, just hanging out.

Speaker 9 (31:29):
It's entirely possible those are. That's my earliest memory of
that place is going to see the circus, because the
circus back in those days, I think they came into
town on the train and then they had like the
animal march to the actual coliseum, and then in the
parking lot they had the tents where all the animals
stayed during the day, so you could go over there.

(31:49):
My mom used to take me and my brother's over
there to go visit the animals, like during the day
before the show happened.

Speaker 5 (31:55):
Sounds like another world.

Speaker 11 (31:56):
I actually have no memory of that. I was just
wondering if you were, because you were. I was wondering
if you were remembering Dumbo and you thought you were.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
No, that was a cartoon.

Speaker 9 (32:08):
This is real life.

Speaker 5 (32:09):
Bet.

Speaker 9 (32:09):
It's like Bill Murray, No, that was lasting. No, and
somebody else has to back me up on this. You
could go over there. I don't think it cost anything.
It's just where they kept the animals. Because the circus
would come to town and it would stay for like
a week. You know, they'd have multiple showings, and so
they had to have the animals somewhere, And this is

(32:30):
back when the circus actually had lots of animals. It
doesn't have animals anymore.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
Really, now thinking about that, it makes me sad. Those
poor animals are riding around on trains and hanging out
in tents.

Speaker 9 (32:39):
Yeah, I mean, and so they would come into town
on a train and then they would they would have
like a parade of the animals to the coliseum. I
guess it was close enough, and then they would have
it was the elephant walk. It was the elephant walk.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
I mean, it really was no memory of that.

Speaker 11 (32:52):
I remember seeing the circus, but I have no Maybe
maybe my parents didn't tell me that that was going
on because they were like, we're not taking her to that.

Speaker 9 (32:58):
Well maybe maybe walking away. Maybe I'm imagining the whole thing,
Like somebody out there, come on, back me up. Did
you go and visit the animals in the tents outside
of the coliseum when they were here?

Speaker 5 (33:09):
I know I did that.

Speaker 11 (33:10):
I did see this in DUMBOO. I did see them
in the train. I saw them building the tent.

Speaker 9 (33:15):
And a movie memory no put into his real life.
You realize what's happening here. She's basically saying that it's
possible that I watched a cartoon movie and then decided
that that's what I did. Bow hit the winning home run.

Speaker 10 (33:30):
Everybody celebrated to put them up on their shoulders and
then simbade them off.

Speaker 9 (33:33):
Held up Simba to the pride.

Speaker 4 (33:34):
Lens did that.

Speaker 5 (33:37):
It took the light tower out completely.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
See other people remember this.

Speaker 9 (33:44):
Well, this is the question as as as tends to
happen on the show. We see the lines lighting up.
Are they going to firm me or tell me that
I'm that I was actually imagining a cartoon. Tell you
the movie that they watched. They also saw Dumbo, now
now it's three wide.

Speaker 11 (33:59):
I think might be just didn't tell me about it
because they didn't want to drive all the way to
Charlotte twice. They were already driving to Charlotte for the circus.
They didn't want to do the parade, the Dumbo parade.

Speaker 9 (34:07):
I just think it's funny that you think that I
saw a cartoon and I decided it was real life.
All right, let's go to Robert online one. Robert, Welcome
to Good Morning BT.

Speaker 14 (34:16):
Good morning.

Speaker 20 (34:17):
Yeah, the elephant walk was a real thing. I've lived
in Charlotte my entire life.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
My Mamma and.

Speaker 20 (34:23):
Papaul used to take me down to see that when
the circus would come to town and they.

Speaker 9 (34:26):
Had the tents outside of the coliseum where you could
go visit the animals.

Speaker 20 (34:29):
Right, yes, if you know the old coliseum there on
Independence Boulevard, there used to be these two big, big
brick columns that were up in the air right there,
and I remember staying there as a little kid and
watching all the animals come in.

Speaker 5 (34:45):
That was cool.

Speaker 9 (34:45):
So you guys were in the same movie.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
So, yeah, Robert, have you seen Dumbo?

Speaker 20 (34:50):
No, I have a long time ago.

Speaker 9 (34:51):
Yeah, Robert, you're supposed to say it was not a cartoon.

Speaker 20 (34:55):
Oh no, it wasn't a cartoon.

Speaker 5 (34:56):
It was real.

Speaker 9 (34:57):
And then that's gonna say it was like Roger Rabbit.

Speaker 21 (34:59):
You know.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
I feel it's so sad that my parents never let
me know.

Speaker 5 (35:02):
That this was the thing.

Speaker 9 (35:03):
What is that called that Mandela effect or whatever?

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Mandela effect?

Speaker 5 (35:06):
All sharing that?

Speaker 9 (35:06):
Robert, Thank you man. Let's go to k online too.
K Hey you're on WBT. Good morning, Good morning, what's up?

Speaker 12 (35:14):
Yeah, actually that is true.

Speaker 15 (35:16):
My first birthday every year was right when the circus
was in Tail and went every year and we saw
the animals come in until they stopped doing it, of course.

Speaker 9 (35:24):
And k not a cartoon, not a car. You are
a real person, Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 14 (35:30):
Kay.

Speaker 9 (35:31):
Let's go to John John's on WBT. John, was it
a cartoon or no?

Speaker 17 (35:36):
Hey, yeah, I remember going to the train station to
watch him come in, and then we'd go to the
parking lot at the old merchandise mark where the animal state.

Speaker 9 (35:45):
Okay, okay, that makes more sense. It was across the
street the tents were because otherwise it would be in
the parking lot and you'd have to not be in
the park. Okay, that makes total sense. And that again, John,
not a cartoon, right.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Did you see Dumbo though?

Speaker 14 (35:59):
John?

Speaker 9 (36:00):
See you're trying to hell. Bet is trying to make
it Roger Rabbit, now you know, all right?

Speaker 5 (36:06):
Real quick?

Speaker 9 (36:07):
One mored Greg, our buddy from Oakhurst Pharmacy. Greg, good morning,
my friend, good morning.

Speaker 22 (36:13):
Hey, definitely not a cartoon. I worked at the coliseum.
I'm a little bit older than you, guys. I worked
at the coliseum for about four years when I was
in my early teens, mid teens, i guess. And when
the circus came to town, is exactly what you said.
They came in on the train. They parked across the street,
and the merchandise a lot, which is huge. You can
hang out there, you go see him and then I
think I saw you in Beth out there at the circus,

(36:34):
because I work every circus show for like four years,
I'm pretty sure I saw you.

Speaker 18 (36:38):
Guys.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
Do you remember when we rode in the cart behind
the elephants?

Speaker 17 (36:42):
Yeah, well it's incredible, y'all.

Speaker 12 (36:43):
You both looked good.

Speaker 17 (36:44):
Of course you look better, but.

Speaker 9 (36:51):
Greg not a cartoon then, no, sir, Thank you, sir.
That's what the segments more about, is Bose validation.

Speaker 10 (36:58):
That's something happened. This is my favorite we've ever done.
I've never seen him trying to get to the phone
so at rapid fire.

Speaker 5 (37:04):
I want six more phone calls.

Speaker 6 (37:05):
I don't even know what time it is.

Speaker 9 (37:06):
Bo, We're not be going to news. We're gonna take
phone calls.

Speaker 5 (37:09):
I mean both promo, Bernie.

Speaker 9 (37:12):
They do say that about our show. It's a great
animated tale.

Speaker 5 (37:16):
Good morning beat.

Speaker 4 (37:17):
This is good morning.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Beauty lock peral.

Speaker 9 (37:26):
Locking kiss. So hang on, let me uh we interrupt,
We interrupt Enrique Iglesias for this special message.

Speaker 4 (37:35):
He's just in from the Bernie News Network.

Speaker 9 (37:39):
We have a very special birthday today.

Speaker 5 (37:41):
That's my wife's birthday today.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
Oh, happy birthday, Emma, and I just wanted.

Speaker 5 (37:46):
To wish her happy birthday? Would juice over? Is that
you singing? Sure? It's I retired and joined the radio team.

Speaker 9 (37:56):
Didn't you name your baby Enrique?

Speaker 5 (37:58):
No, it's it's Pebo.

Speaker 9 (37:59):
And oh suddenly the name is baby Zochi, A little.

Speaker 5 (38:02):
Baby Zochi jambone for short.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Was this y'all's weddings?

Speaker 5 (38:09):
I play this as a joke.

Speaker 9 (38:10):
That's what I want to imagine it being. Man, it
can't be anything else. That's where you're spitting her around
the road. Yes, this is where Emma's driving off the
road right now.

Speaker 5 (38:23):
I'm sure she anticipated either this or creed.

Speaker 9 (38:25):
Is this making it or ruining her birthday?

Speaker 5 (38:27):
Probably a little bit about he is ruining her birthday
and a little bit both.

Speaker 9 (38:30):
Happy birthday, Emma, Happy birthday, Emma.

Speaker 5 (38:32):
We were a trooper.

Speaker 9 (38:34):
We look, this show would not be possible with all
the significant others putting up with our crazy radio lives
right right?

Speaker 11 (38:41):
How great are all of our significant others for putting
up with our schedule? Our random personalities, the weird stuff
we do, and the things we talk about on the.

Speaker 10 (38:51):
Air, or a few times Sandras said something about I
said something on the air. Was her favorite part was
both telling me to shut up. I love him both
told you to shut up.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
How sweet that she listens.

Speaker 9 (39:02):
I could be your hero, Baker.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Craig doesn't know what I do.

Speaker 9 (39:06):
He doesn't know where you go every bore. Were you
at the Jim market out?

Speaker 5 (39:08):
What are you doing?

Speaker 9 (39:10):
Kick botching? What network TV show? Are you hosting? Local
AM radio?

Speaker 21 (39:18):
Really?

Speaker 1 (39:19):
When did that happen?

Speaker 5 (39:21):
Well?

Speaker 9 (39:21):
Happy birthday, Emma.

Speaker 5 (39:23):
Yeah, back to thank you, thank you.

Speaker 12 (39:28):
I love that.

Speaker 9 (39:28):
We just like the song never Left, made it all
about us.

Speaker 11 (39:33):
Speaking of songs, Sival, you know what I think Peeba
Bryson saying that the studio version of this, this is.

Speaker 9 (39:47):
What I thought I was doing when I went to
the circus, I was I was a mouse. This was
actually Bernie's wedding song. It's beautiful, guys, right, Well, if
you are just joining with that, if you do what, everyone's.

Speaker 5 (40:00):
Crying, and I don't think it's because it's a beautiful moment.
It's terrible.

Speaker 9 (40:04):
I mentioned earlier that coming up in the final hour. Today,
Sean Flynn from the CRVA is coming in to talk
about the seventieth anniversary of Bojangles Coliseum, and we were
talking about the first time you ever went and saw
something at the Charlotte Colisseum, and Beth and I both said, oh, easy,
the circus. Then Beth has decided that I saw Dumbo
the movie, the animated cartoon and thought that's what I

(40:26):
was doing, because I said that I used to go
to the circus the actual show, but you could also
go over there and see the animals in the parking
lot as they were waiting to be in the show,
like during the day. That's like you did not do that.

Speaker 11 (40:39):
You just watched Dumbo, said, I didn't have a memory
of that, but I did see Dumbo and that happened, so.

Speaker 9 (40:45):
We can now we can affirm me further by saying
that the text line has just blown up about that.

Speaker 11 (40:51):
Oh we got like three hundred texts saying that you
were absolutely right that the elephants marched from North David.

Speaker 9 (40:56):
I don't care about the rest of this that I'm
right those chegment is not about a you know then
bow was. It's just coded in the rest of the topic.

Speaker 11 (41:05):
So Carl, Carl It just sent the most recent text
and said, I think Bo won the circus segment.

Speaker 9 (41:11):
Thank you, Carl. Here's your crawdam King. Give him his
flowers and his crowd right there. Oh, look at that
for you there, you got it on right now, King
of the Circus.

Speaker 4 (41:24):
This is Good Morning Beat with both thumbson and.

Speaker 9 (41:27):
Beth trout Man, News Talk eleven ten WBT Bowen, Beth
here and Jim Zochi and Bernie and Steve on this Wednesday,
October fifteenth, I wanted to take a moment here to
pay tribute to a voice and a person that many
of you watched when you were growing up, or you've

(41:49):
been in Charlotte for a while now, you may remember
the name Colin Ferguson from Channel nine Eyewitness News. I
saw the Bill Walker, who used to be the longtime
anchor at Channel nine back in the seventies, eighties nineties,
posted this on social media a couple of days ago,
and I honestly wanted to wait and hear what Channel

(42:11):
nine did when they made the official announcement, because Colin
worked for Channel nine for thirty six years. I mean,
he was the morning anchor on their daybreak show and
a reporter, a consumer reporter, And I didn't realize this,
but I was reading up on it last night. He
used to work at Big Ways, the radio station six
ten Big Ways or sixty one Big Ways back in

(42:32):
the day, early in his career in radio. So I
did not know that. But Channel nine last night on
their six o'clock newscast paid tribute to Colin ferguson Excuse
I'm with.

Speaker 5 (42:43):
You us this morning?

Speaker 2 (42:45):
His was a voice you knew you could trust.

Speaker 23 (42:48):
I Colin ferguson Coming up Today on the day Colin.

Speaker 24 (42:51):
Joined WSOC back in nineteen sixty eight. Beck He was
Charlotte's first ever consumer reporter, launching our Action nine segment
nineteen seventy. Later in his career, he reflected on those
early days.

Speaker 23 (43:05):
If we wanted late breaking video of a fire or
an accident from downtown, we sent somebody out with a
polaroid camera and they came back with a little snapshot
and they put that on a little board in front
of a studio camera, and that's late breaking video. They
went to the center of their house and they are
alive today. Colin ferguson Channel nine Eyewitness News reporting from Kershaw,

(43:26):
South Carolina.

Speaker 24 (43:27):
Collin's reporting took him across the Carolinas and sometimes not
far at all. In the eighties, he had a Carolina
Garden segment, often reporting from his own garden right behind
the Channel nine studios.

Speaker 23 (43:40):
Corn as tall as I am, and zucchini over here
as big.

Speaker 9 (43:45):
As baseball bats.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
But on the anchor desk, Cullen was a calm and
steady presence.

Speaker 23 (43:51):
I'm Colin Ferguson, and this just in.

Speaker 24 (43:54):
He was on the air when Hurricane Hugo hit Charlotte
in nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 23 (43:58):
The eye of the hurricane right now is moving over
the Charlotte area, and when gusts are up to ninety
miles an hour with sustained winds around a forty five
to fifty miles an hour, moving around Charlotte this morning
has not been easy.

Speaker 5 (44:12):
You'll find lines just about everywhere.

Speaker 23 (44:15):
This is what it looked like at the cic Dry
Ice Company on North Davidson Street. Line were stretched for
as near as as much as six blocks.

Speaker 24 (44:23):
Colin was as genuine off the air as he was on,
as kind as he was smart. He cared about our
community and spent thirty six years telling its stories.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Listen to how he said he would want to be remembered.

Speaker 23 (44:38):
I would hope that people felt that guy was an
honest reporter who and anchor.

Speaker 5 (44:44):
He certainly tried to get it right.

Speaker 9 (44:47):
So that's the piece that Channel nine ran on their
six o'clock newscast last night. Colin Ferguson thirty six years
at Channel nine retired in two thousand and five. He
had retired to Black Mountain, North Care died on October eleventh,
at the age of eighty two. But when I was
growing up, we were a GMA family. My family, my

(45:08):
parents always had it on Good Morning America, so you
would watch Joan London and David Hartman, and then they
had the news. Anchor from ABC was Steve Bell, big industrial,
powerful voice. But then when they did the local cut
ends during GMA, I was getting ready to go to school,
there would be Colin Ferguson and just one of those voices.
Growing up in this town. I saw that a couple

(45:30):
of days ago. Here I did not know him, he
wouldn't remember me. But when I was in boy Scouts,
in the troop that I grew up in. His two sons,
Doug and Bo Ferguson were in that troop, and so
I knew them, and his dad had this big blue
van that was big enough that you could pile a
bunch of the boy Scouts on a trip and get
him from point A to point B, and he would

(45:51):
he would always drive to and from, you know, Scout trips.
And so the first time I ever toured a broadcast
facility radio or TV was when Colin arranged for the
Scout Troop to tour Channel nine back in the eighties sometimes.
So I mean, that's the first time I ever walked
in a TV station, and you can imagine for somebody

(46:11):
like me, I was wowed by it and the whole idea.
I'm sure it contributed in some point to some fashion
into me doing what I'm doing now. But that was
the extent that I knew Colin Ferguson. I knew his sons,
and I knew he would come and, you know, as
a parent help with the Scout Troop. But you heard
in the piece there was was very well liked and
active in the community and passed away at the age

(46:33):
of eighty two. So I saw that and I wanted
to just make mention of it today because I you know,
I try to make we like to make reference and
salute people in the Charlotte Broadcast community community, no matter
where it is, when things like.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
This happened, Yeah, we'd like to honor them.

Speaker 11 (46:51):
I mean, he was he was one of the Channel
nine anchors when anchors in this town were superstars. You know,
when if you saw an anchor out in out in
the in the world, in the wild, you would you
would be starstruck.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
I saw Debbie Fobbian once in the mid nineties.

Speaker 11 (47:09):
You know, it was a big deal when she replaced
Meg MacDonald on WSOC, and they all worked with Cullen
and they were just huge community superstars at the time.
And Cullen was certainly one of those. I mean, his
face to this day, you may not recognize his name,
but if you if you see his picture, you will
absolutely recognize his face if you grew up here, because

(47:30):
he was such a part of our lives, a part
of our mornings, a part of the just the fabric
of what our days were.

Speaker 10 (47:38):
And so many worked for decades that those years like decades.
Some of the names you just mentioned, like Bill Walker
and Debbie Fabian and Meg McDonald's, so many others from
all the different channels, So obviously do it with Bobby
and Men and WBTV and Paul Cameron, people like that,
And so you're right. They become such a fabric of
the community at a time where watching the big network
channels like boways talking about you know the national ones, but.

Speaker 9 (47:59):
You know the big network news that was a big deal.
The news, the sports, those were like coveted. Those were
the local stars for a long long time. And it
was Scott Wickersham and Erica Bryant. Erica narrated that story
you just heard. Erica worked with him on daybreak Back
at the end of his career in the early two thousands.
And I mentioned Colin retired in two thousand and five.

(48:21):
The guy that replaced him was Wickersham.

Speaker 11 (48:23):
Got Wickersham his wife, Scott his I think now might
be his ex wife, but she was the co host
with me at Fox News Rising.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
So they were on competing channels in the mornings when
Scott first.

Speaker 9 (48:37):
The trouble began. Yeah, it's so rest in peace to
Colin Ferguson and our thoughts and prayers to his family.
Like I said, I knew bow and Doug and his wife,
Gay through Scouts and so there's a little bit of
a personal connection for me there too. But like Beth said,
I mean, back in those days, the anchors in this
town and really any town in America, local TV was

(48:59):
different then. The anchors were big stars.

Speaker 11 (49:01):
Oh just I mean just such huge. It's kind of
you know, if you watch the movie Anchorman, it is
kind of that. It is, but in a real serious way.

Speaker 25 (49:10):
I have a radical idea. And the door swings both ways.
We could reverse the particle clow through the game. How
we'll cross the streets. He's welcome, Brett twitterbll.

Speaker 5 (49:27):
We hear each other.

Speaker 9 (49:29):
He's a friend.

Speaker 4 (49:29):
We are.

Speaker 9 (49:31):
That's right, Bo and Beth. Here time to cross the
streams and bring on our good friend. Brett Winterble from
the Brett Winterble Show every weekday from three until six.
Hope you're doing well? Yeah, doing great? How are you
doing well as well? And I want to go back
in time to yesterday afternoon, Michael Whatley on The Brett
Winterble Show.

Speaker 16 (49:50):
Looking at what we saw in the last forty eight
twenty four hours, watching what President Trump was able to
put together, this this hamma us, when your reaction to
all of the stuff that you've seen in this last
twenty four to forty eight hours.

Speaker 17 (50:07):
It is absolutely remarkable what happens when you have a
president who is going to use the full force of
the United States, the force that we have militarily, the
force that we have in terms of being the bright
shining light on a hill and focusing on getting those
hostages released, being able to pull the rest of the
world along, and getting their support for this deal. Nobody

(50:31):
else could have gotten this done other than President Trump.

Speaker 9 (50:33):
Senate candidate Michael Wattley right there, of course, former head
of the GOP And you know, Brett, we were talking
as I was on your show yesterday about you know
how President Trump got this done, and you were referencing
our conversation with Mick mulvaney, people who have been around
President Trump and have watched him closely and got the
vantage point that not many people do in the public

(50:54):
about you know, how he gets the deal done, because
this one, I think will probably be the biggest one
of his entire two presidencies.

Speaker 26 (51:03):
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. One of the things
that's important to understand is you've got this superstructure of
all these Arab countries who have bought in on this.
So while it's going to be precarious for a period
here because nobody is going to be really spending a
whole lot of time looking at what's happening in Gaza

(51:25):
and the different sort of iterations. I do feel confident
about this. But this is where it's very dangerous because
you're starting to see a little sectarian violence, You're starting
to see executions in the streets, and we have to decide, Okay,
which group are we going to send in. We don't
want to send the IDF, and if we don't have to,

(51:46):
we don't want to send American troops, And if we
don't have to, we've got to get a regional grouping there.
And I think this is a This is probably the
hardest part of the deal. The deal was probably you know,
difficult to put together, obviously, but this is the thing
now that we've got to focus on.

Speaker 11 (52:04):
Well, yeah, and it's all centering around the fact that
the bodies of some of the former hostages haven't been returned.
And we heard in an interview yesterday with Donald Trump,
and you know, he was saying, look, we're gonna go
in with force if we have to. And I wonder
if Hamas is listening, you know, does Hamas hear that
and say, wait a minute, we've got it. We've got

(52:24):
some powerful people trying to make sure that the right
thing happens.

Speaker 26 (52:29):
I look, and I think if you were going to
go in there with a military strike of any kind,
what you have got to do is you've got to
get this coalition of these other Arab countries. And I
think the number one, number one thing you have to
do is to destroy the tunnel system. If you don't

(52:50):
destroy the tunnel system, we're going to come back again
and again, ten fifteen, twenty years, and we have got
to either flood those We've either got to flood those tunnels,
or we've got to you know, destroy those tunnels with
bunker busting stuff that we saw, you know, over and
over in Iran. So I think that's the that's the
imperative right now.

Speaker 9 (53:09):
Yeah, to Beth's point, Trump was asked about the fragility
of the situation yesterday Hamas this is what he said, briefly,
I would.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Take Hamas to disarm, and can you guarantee.

Speaker 6 (53:21):
That is going to happen?

Speaker 27 (53:22):
We're going to disarm, And because they said they were
going to disarm, and if they don't disarm, we will
disarm them.

Speaker 9 (53:28):
How you do that, I don't have to explain that
to you. But if they don't disarm, we will disarm them.
They know I'm not playing games. So it gives you
some insight into his mindset. Right now. What is coming
up on the Brett Winnable Show today?

Speaker 26 (53:41):
I got Coach Doherty coming by right about four five,
and all the stories that are moving inside and outside
and stuff that we don't even know about yet because
it's only what five minutes of eight, And I can't
wait to see what the storyline looks like today because
it's going to be fascinating, I'm sure absolutely.

Speaker 9 (54:00):
And now now Bill Belichick has spoken out since all
the circus of last week, so I'm curious as to
what Doherty thinks about where he is on that right now.
Good stuff appointment listening this afternoon. We always appreciate it,
my friend, Thank you, party people, yes, sir, Party on
Wayne and party on Garth. And when we come back,
former we have a former Chief of Army Public Affairs,

(54:22):
Major General John Meyer is going to join us. Because
you may be following this story with Pete Hegsath and
the press access to the Pentagon that has escalated and
the deadline was actually yesterday.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
The deadline was yesterday.

Speaker 11 (54:35):
And this is a gentleman who knows the ins and
outs of how the press situation worked within the Pentagon,
so he can give us a look on the inside
of how this is moving and.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
How it used to move before this.

Speaker 9 (54:46):
Also Scott Huffman from Winthrop University, Next Hour, and like
I mentioned in the Final Hour today, Sean Flynn of
the c RVA about the seventieth anniversary of the bo
Jangles Coliseum or to you old schoolers, the original Charlotte
Coliseum from News.

Speaker 4 (55:01):
Hockey eleven ten and ninety nine three WBT. This is
Good Morning BT with Bo Thompson and Beth Troutmick.

Speaker 9 (55:14):
Seven minutes past eight o'clock on WBT on this Wednesday morning,
October fifteenth. No doubt you've been following the saga at
the Pentagon with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth updating the
rules for media members there to cover goings on at
the Pentagon. This was yesterday as President Trump and Secretary

(55:37):
Hegseth were asked about where this is.

Speaker 21 (55:40):
Will you consider removing new restrictions on the press that
reported the Pentagon.

Speaker 9 (55:44):
And have you spoken to Secretary Hegseth about this?

Speaker 27 (55:46):
I have, Well, he's finding I mean, I think I
can speak for him and let him speak for himself,
but I think he finds the press to be very
disruptive in terms of world peace and maybe security for
our nation.

Speaker 9 (56:00):
Press is very dishonest. Not you, but the press is
very dishonest.

Speaker 28 (56:04):
You have something to say, Well.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
Very much appreciate the question, because it was interesting to watch.

Speaker 28 (56:08):
We had a chance to go alone on the historic
trip of Middle East, piece which our generation of veterans
never dreamed.

Speaker 9 (56:15):
Would be possible.

Speaker 28 (56:16):
So you would think that the Pentagon Press Corps, of
all press corps would be front and center across the
board on wanting to give credit to the president for
forging this kind of peace and understand instead what they
want to talk about as a policy about them, which
simply says, maybe the policy should look like the White
House or other military installations where you have to wear

(56:39):
a badge that identifies that your press, or you can't
just roam anywhere you want. It used to be miss President,
the press could go anywhere pretty much anywhere, in the Pentagon.

Speaker 3 (56:47):
The most classified area in the world.

Speaker 28 (56:51):
Or also that if they sign onto the credential line,
they're not going to try to get soldiers to break
the law by giving classified information.

Speaker 9 (56:58):
So it's common sense stuff, mister President.

Speaker 28 (56:59):
We're trying to make sure national security is respected, and
we're proud of the policy.

Speaker 29 (57:04):
It bothers me to have soldiers and even you know,
high ranking generals walking around with you guys on their
sleeves because they can make a mistake, and a mistake
can be tragic.

Speaker 9 (57:16):
They can do it innocently too. They can, you know,
and they're not press people.

Speaker 30 (57:20):
They don't really deal with the press, so they're not'm
really necessarily good at it, although I think it's mostly
instinctual one way or the other.

Speaker 9 (57:27):
Area the good at things or you're not. But I
could see you being bothered by that.

Speaker 31 (57:31):
And so you have them in an area and you
treat them fairly, but they're not allowed to go into
much like somebody's office and sit with them for ten hours,
you know, how can.

Speaker 9 (57:43):
So that was yesterday. The deadline has come and gone
for media outlets to assign a pledge to abide by
the new updated rules as put in place by Secretary Hegseth.
We have on the WBT hotline right now, former Chief
of Army Public Affairs, Major General John Meyer is with us.
Good morning sir, Good morning Boe. How are you doing

(58:06):
doing well? And got Beth Troutman here with me, and
we thought that we would get somebody on here who
might have a better perspective to make sense of all
this than we do. This is an interesting story to
watch from afar. But I know from your standpoint and
your background, you probably have a different perspective on this.

Speaker 14 (58:25):
I do have a different perspective on it, and I
heard what you just played, and how do to support
that supposition? Basically, Secretary Headsef said, reporters cannot obtain or
solicit any information the Department Offense does not explicitly authorize.
That's just not a smart policy. It's going to cause

(58:47):
all kinds of problems. It runs counter to the Constitution's
guarantee of freedom of the press. It undercuts the First
Amendment protections. It stifles the flow of information, fixed journalist's
ability to keep the nation in the world informed of
important national security matters. Additionally, it lacks transparency and accountability

(59:10):
taxpayers fund the military. They have a right to know.
The more informed people are, the better they can make
an opinion or form a decision. It has the feel
to me of a cover up. It shields a department
offense from scrutiny, and most importantly, it eliminates the relationship

(59:31):
building with the media. When I was a Chief of
Army Public Affairs, one of the success stories was you
need to build a relationship with the media where there's
trust on both sides. And if you build that relationship
and there's trust and you work with each other, usually
get a balanced story. And that's what you can expect

(59:55):
from a journalist. You want to balance story. So in
my opinion, I think this is going to cause more
problems than not, and it's unnecessary and it's not accurate
the way the media is being portrayed in the Pentagon.
They do not just roam the halls of the Pentagon

(01:00:15):
needlessly in my judgment, Well that was.

Speaker 11 (01:00:17):
That was one of the questions because you worked as
the chief of public Affairs for the United States Army
when you were working with the press, what was the access,
you know, how was the how did the process work,
and how is the story that's now being told about,
you know, press access, How does it differ from what
you experienced?

Speaker 14 (01:00:39):
The media in the Pentagon is being portrayed as running
rapid with no restrictions. That's just not true. They have
to be approved to receive a badge to get into
the Pentagon and work in the Pentagon. They cannot have
access to any classified information, and there's certain rules and
regulations they have to follow, and those rules in regulation

(01:01:01):
have been in place for decades across multiple administrations and
both parties. The media just doesn't walk in the hall
and walk into your door and after nine to eleven
doors are not open, All the doors are shut, all
the doors are locked, and you have to press a
button to get in. So what bothers me is the

(01:01:24):
media is being portrayed in an erroneous manner in my judgment.

Speaker 9 (01:01:30):
We're talking to former Chief of Army Public Affairs, Major
General John Meyer here on WBT talking about the Pete
Hegseth situation with the new rules for or i guess,
updated rules for media members covering goings on at the Pentagon.
Now ABC News, CBS, CNN, NBC, and Fox, where Hegseth

(01:01:51):
of course used to work, issued a joint statement yesterday
afternoon condemning the new rules and refusing to sign the paperwork.
They said, quote today virtually going virtually every other news
organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon's new requirements,
which would restrict journalist's ability to keep the nation and
the world informed of important national security issues unquote. So

(01:02:13):
General Meyer, if I mean it appears that only one outlet,
it's a Oan, has agreed to this. All the rest
of them, including Fox, have said no. So what do
you think happens now if this goes forward as it is?
I mean, I assume they're going to have some sort
of negotiation. But if they're all locked out, and they

(01:02:34):
remain locked out, then what sort of scenario do you
think that presents?

Speaker 14 (01:02:39):
Not a good scenario because the media is still going
to cover the Pentagon, so they're now going to have
to get their information from sources. The Secretary of Defense
may not prefer. This is in my judgment, this is
going to cause more leaks to occur, and as a

(01:02:59):
senior leader in the department, you don't like leaps. But
the whole thing is this, you, as the Secretary of Defense,
want to get out the most favorable story about your
organization as you can. So if you don't tell your
side of the story, if you don't give journalists the
opportunity to research and talk to people, they don't have

(01:03:23):
an obligation to print your side of the story. So
this is just going to make it more difficult. He's
going to get more frustrated. And what they should be
doing is they should be doing developing a relationship with
the military with the media where they can have access
and you can have restrictions on the kind of access.

(01:03:44):
And I don't support the supposition that generals are walking
around with journalists hanging all over them and they don't
know what they're doing. When I was Chief of Ripublic Affairs,
I got the Army leadership to agree to put every
new general through a three hour media training course where
we had set them down and had different kind of

(01:04:06):
interviews and talked to them about how to develop a
relationship with the media and train them how to get
the story out, how to handle an adversarial story. So,
in my judgment, his policy is going to cause more
problems than they have before.

Speaker 11 (01:04:23):
Were you surprised that this was a policy that Pete
Hagsath himself came up with, given that he used to
be a member of the media.

Speaker 14 (01:04:31):
Not really, because in late January his office removed four
news outlets from their Pentagon workspace and they replaced them
with outlets more favorable with more favorable coverage to the
Trump administration. In May, secretary has said restricted journalists from
most hallways of the Pentagon without an escort. He hasn't

(01:04:54):
given a Pentagon press briefing in four months, and his
secretary that handles his press work has not conducted a
briefing in two months. On the other hand, his boss,
President Trump, does a media event almost every day on
any subject. So you have two extremes there. I think

(01:05:17):
the President does too many interviews and his message order
gets lost cause it's so frequent, and the secretary gives
way too few. There's a balance in between there that
has worked in the past very effectively in my judgment.

Speaker 9 (01:05:34):
Well, we appreciate your judgment and your perspective and exactly
why we wanted to talk to you. And we like
talking to people who've been in these rooms, in these
areas that get talked about that many of us don't
have access to doing what we do. Beth and myself
so former Chief of Army Public Affairs and Major General
John Meyer. It's an honor to have you on and
thank you for your service.

Speaker 19 (01:05:54):
Sir.

Speaker 14 (01:05:56):
Thank you all very much, and you all have a
good day.

Speaker 9 (01:05:58):
This is good BT News Talk eleven ten, WBT eight
twenty five on a Wednesday morning with Bowen Beth here
in the ty Boyds studio. Reminder, Octoberfest continues this weekend,
every Saturday and Sunday night in October. Coming up on Saturday,
Mark Brandon and Jeff Atkinson. Saturday night, six o'clock. That's

(01:06:20):
the tandem, the trio, the trio, the three of them
that are going to be there at six o'clock on
Facebook Live. Then next night prod Squad PM. That'll be
Nick and Isaac and Lonnie afternoon the back half of
the WBT production team, Bernie and Steve and Nick held
down the fort on Saturday nights.

Speaker 13 (01:06:39):
I'll probably stop in and say hey to just a
I owe Nick, I mean he I was late. I
was late, was late to my own October Fest. Steve
had to filibuster there for about fifteen minutes with Nick
and No.

Speaker 5 (01:06:51):
I just very appreciative of you guys. So I feel
like I kind of own Nick, And then ISAC's been
haunding to me to hop in there.

Speaker 9 (01:06:55):
So don't forget and don't forget. Saturday, October twenty fifth
is WBT Ladies Night, Beth and Sharon and Anna and
Pam the Jam.

Speaker 11 (01:07:03):
That's always a fun night. Ladies Night's always fun. We
forget that we actually have an audience. We act like
we're on just a FaceTime call with each other.

Speaker 9 (01:07:10):
Well, you guys have the biggest audience traditionally easily. Oh yeah,
so I'm not surprised by that. But that is coming
up on Saturday, the twenty fifth, in the final October
Fest will be the twenty sixth. That'll be Pete Calendar
and TJ Ritchie together on Sunday night when we come
back in the nine o'clock hour. Of course, we got
Scott Huffman coming up from Winthrop University in just a

(01:07:31):
few minutes. All things politics in the nine o'clock hour today.
Good friend of the show and director of corporate Communications
for the CRVA, Sean Flynn Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority. This
year is the seventieth anniversary of what many of us
called the Charlotte Coliseum originally over on Independence and now

(01:07:52):
of course it's called the Bojangles Coliseum.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
I always called it that.

Speaker 11 (01:07:55):
I mean, what's the new coliseum was built, we called
it the old Coliseum, and now it's the Plex.

Speaker 13 (01:08:00):
Call it Bojangles, bo Jangles, Bojangles, you said, I like
the way you said it before, Bojangles bo Jangle.

Speaker 5 (01:08:07):
It's like a DJ.

Speaker 9 (01:08:10):
It's the bo Plex.

Speaker 13 (01:08:11):
There's there.

Speaker 11 (01:08:12):
There are so many, and I know that all of
you out there probably have incredible memories of going to
see shows like Elvis play there, Kiss, deaf Leppard, I believe,
but all kinds.

Speaker 9 (01:08:24):
Of that was an interesting it's your favorite interesting jump
you just made there, Elvis, Elvis, and who was the
second one? You said?

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
I forgot already kiss Welcome.

Speaker 9 (01:08:36):
It's in my world Elvis Kiss. And of course next
is deaf Lapping.

Speaker 1 (01:08:40):
Of course is obvious.

Speaker 9 (01:08:41):
The governor would say Deaf Leppard, big fan.

Speaker 1 (01:08:44):
But we can't wait to hear people's memories of the
Bow Plex.

Speaker 11 (01:08:47):
But also, you know, I mean, it's just been a
staple in most of our lives for those of us,
especially who grew up here.

Speaker 9 (01:08:53):
And by Boplex we also mean ovens, ovens, Auditorium. That's
what they call the whole complex over there now because
now they're connected, but they've always been beside each other.
And so keep those memories coming of your first show
or your favorite show at Ovens or so many the
Charlotte Colisseum now Bojangles Colisseum. And we'll talk to Sean
next hour about the seventieth anniversary of one of Charlotte's

(01:09:15):
most iconic buildings, or two of them.

Speaker 4 (01:09:18):
This is Good Morning, BET.

Speaker 9 (01:09:22):
News Talk eleven ten, nine to nine, three WBT eight
thirty eight on your Wednesday Morning, Bo and Beth and
on the WBT Hotline.

Speaker 14 (01:09:30):
Right now.

Speaker 9 (01:09:30):
He joins us once a week talk about political headlines.
Longtime political science professor at Winthrop University, Scott Huffman is
back with us.

Speaker 3 (01:09:39):
Good morning, sir, Good morning, hope, y'all are well.

Speaker 9 (01:09:42):
We are doing well, and I think the natural place
to start with anybody that we talk about anything political
this week has to go back to the historic agreement
President Trump brokering this and with the Middle East piece
that we believe is it's in place. The question is
is will it hold? But the twenty hostages were released,

(01:10:04):
and that is a monumental achievement in of itself. It's
an interesting thing to watch sort of play out because
you know, politics is politics, and we know that it's
not often that you get former presidents of different parties
saying complimentary things about current ones and that kind of thing.
But you know, this is one of those moments where
people like Bill Clinton are saying positive things and former

(01:10:27):
President Biden about the agreement that President Trump was able
to secure. And when you look back on the history
of this presidency, I don't think it's hyperbole to say,
even though he's only you know, months into his second term,
this could be the defining moment of his presidency. Maybe not,
but it's not an out there thought to think that.

Speaker 18 (01:10:51):
And and this is an accomplishment. You know, it's a
very difficult region. Obviously, you know this has been happening
for a few thousand years, but you know, we see
it a defined part of Jimmy Carter's presidency. And of
course that that the piece of cords then didn't hold,
and we're hoping that these will. This really was an

(01:11:13):
agreement that a president like Biden couldn't have gotten because
Biden was pushing Benjamin NT Yahoo to have a ceasefire
first before they sat down to agreement, and that is
something that not Yahoo would not agree to under any circumstances.
And so this is sort of something that only a

(01:11:34):
president going into it like Trump was could get this.

Speaker 5 (01:11:40):
Now.

Speaker 18 (01:11:40):
It allowed you know, not Yahoo to you know, continue
to bombard in Gazzo, which you know was it was
kind of the main thing people were upset about. But
that was really the only path as long as maybe
as long as Benjamin nat Yahoo uh, you know, was
in charge. And so really only Trump could have could
have gotten this done in this way right now. And

(01:12:02):
it may be again, like you said, we're not even
a year into the presidency.

Speaker 11 (01:12:06):
What did you think, as a political science professor of
the speech that President Trump made at the Kanesset after
the ceasefire and the peace agreement deal was was was finalized.

Speaker 18 (01:12:20):
Well, you know, he again he focuses a lot on ISRAELI,
doesn't you know, say a whole lot about you know,
what's happening in God that he has you know, come
out and said again in social media this time that
hamas you know, better step up and do what it's promised.
There's some logistic difficulties going on there he he has

(01:12:44):
traditionally tried to take credit for bringing peace and situations
where he really wasn't the main operator. This time he
kind of was.

Speaker 9 (01:12:55):
Yesterday, President Trump. I mean, you talk about it, is
itinerary in the last to several days with everything that
happened in the Middle East, and then you're hearing stories
about how fast he had to move to get back
to the White House yesterday and yesterday afternoon awarding the
Congressional Medal of Freedom to the Presidential Medal of Freedom
to Charlie Kirk posthumously, posthumously, and Bernie, I did not

(01:13:19):
tell you I need number three.

Speaker 5 (01:13:20):
Here.

Speaker 9 (01:13:20):
This is President Trump talking about Charlie Kirk yesterday, the
wisdom that he noticed in Charlie Kirk. And this was
a guy that was barely thirty years old.

Speaker 30 (01:13:30):
He was so wise beyond his years. You know, I
talked to him sometimes and said, this guy is like
a young guy. He was really a wise man. From
the time Charlie worked on my presidential campaign in twenty sixteen,
and he was there right from the beginning. He liked me,
I don't know, I have no idea. Why what the
hell was he thinking? He said, you're gonna win, sir.

(01:13:52):
I said, you know, I'm running against seventeen senators and
a lot of tough people and governors. We have all
these people. And he said, no, you're going to win, sir.
He said, not going to be close. And he made
it happen. He helped make it happen.

Speaker 9 (01:14:07):
And tell you that, the more we learn about Charlie Kirk,
doctor Huffman, the more you realize how much, especially from
the standpoint of attracting younger voters to the fray, how
much Charlie Kirk apparently did have an effect on President Trump.
Trump's election.

Speaker 18 (01:14:25):
Well, he definitely reinvigorated young conservatives and young people across
the spectrum were becoming more and more disengaged in politics.
They saw I'm sorry, I don't mean to hurt anybody species.
They saw the baby boomers being in charge, not giving
up power, and not speaking to the issues that they

(01:14:46):
felt were important. People like Charlie Kirk came in and
sort of reignited the passions on the conservative side, and
especially among conservative young men who were probably the most disengaged,
because you know, women on both sides tend to be
more politically engaged. You know, here in South Carolina in

(01:15:07):
a lot of states, obviously we see higher turnout among women.
But you know, conservative men had been becoming more and
more alienated, and people like Charlie Kirk got him engaged
and got him to the polls, most of them for
the first time in their lives, even though they were
in their late twenties early thirties.

Speaker 9 (01:15:25):
So speaking of women, I want to ask a follow
up question about this meeting yesterday, And obviously his Charlie
Kirk's widow spoke yesterday, Erica Kirk, accepting the Presidential Medal
of Freedom on Charlie's behalf. But she said something, and
I've wondered about something that I want to ask you,
because a political science professor is like the perfect person

(01:15:46):
to ask about this hypothetically. You'll see where I'm going.

Speaker 4 (01:15:50):
This is good morning, Beatty.

Speaker 21 (01:15:52):
There was no limit, no limit to what he would
have sacrificed to defend freedom for all, And if the
moment had come, he probably would have run for president,
but not out of ambition. He would only have done
it if that was something that he believed that his
country needed. From a servant's heart standpoint, and Charlie lived

(01:16:13):
only thirty one short years.

Speaker 9 (01:16:15):
That's Erica Kirk. Yesterday at the White House as President
Trump awarded obviously a post death, the Presidential Medal of
Freedom to Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated several weeks back.
And I thought that was an interesting moment because I
want to ask our guest right now, who is a
political science professor, doctor Scott Huffman at Winthrop University. So

(01:16:38):
the notion of Charlie Kirk running for president had he lived,
I'm curious as to how much of a formidable candidate
you think he would have been. But I have one
further on that one once you answered this that I
want to add there too, But the idea that Charlie
Kirk would have been one of those who competed to
be or to take the baton, so to speak, President Trump,

(01:17:00):
because we still don't know who that person it's going
to be. What are your thoughts on that notion?

Speaker 18 (01:17:06):
He would not have been the person to kind of
be in line to take the baton in twenty twenty eight,
He very much could have been a little further on
the thing he might have run for in twenty twenty
eight is there'll be an Arizona Senate race in twenty
twenty eight, and the last Arizona Senate race was stunningly close.

(01:17:27):
Of course, most Senate races are at least outside of
you know, the South, but it was incredibly close, and
it looks, you know, like twenty twenty eight could be
a replace, So that actually would have been something he
could have done. Now, the congressional district, I'm not sure
which district he was in in Arizona. You know, there

(01:17:48):
are several red ones, but he was there near Phoenix,
so I'm not sure, but he definitely could have been
somebody who could have sort of stepped past the state
legislature towards a run like governor or senator, which then
would have catapulted him to a position where, you know,

(01:18:09):
certainly within a decade or so, absolutely running for president.
And certainly if he ran for anything at presidential level
or anywhere else, he would pull the field further to
the right and kind of force them to be on
topic on key conservative issues. So he really would have
impacted any race that he got in.

Speaker 9 (01:18:30):
Now are you saying that, because because I'm thinking here,
at thirty one years old, you got to be thirty
five to run for president, You're saying that. So you're
saying that at a base level because of his age limit.

Speaker 18 (01:18:41):
No, No, actually, at a base level because there are
people ahead of him with more experience, he would sort
of be the voice that pulled them. That sort of
drove much of what they were saying. In the same
flip side as Bernie Sanders, the exact opposite, extremely old,
but his rhetoric when he was running for the Democrat
nomination completely changed how every other Democratic candidate had to run.

(01:19:07):
And then when Charlie Kirk was fully of age, in
a little more experience, oh, he'd have been formidable.

Speaker 15 (01:19:13):
Then.

Speaker 9 (01:19:13):
Okay, so here's my follow up. And I've not heard
this talked about yet. It's something I've been thinking though
Erica Kirk is thirty six years old. Could you see
Erica Kirk being either a candidate or I was thinking
more of a vice presidential like a running mate for
a candidate. Do you think she has because she's taken
over a turning point? Do you think she has any
kind of political future after all of this.

Speaker 18 (01:19:36):
Absolutely, she probably has a political future, either as a
candidate or as a not spokesperson. But somebody who is
a surrogate going around I think even if she is
not selected, you know, as a VP candidate, which is
is actually pretty unlikely, but not impossible. I mean, this
is the twenty twenties, she will be a major surrogate

(01:20:01):
because if she continues to take the helm of Turning
Point and make it grow the same way her husband was,
then it'll be vital for her to be a surrogate
for whatever Republican presidential candidate is running in twenty twenty eight.
Could she be tapped at some point? Absolutely? Could she

(01:20:22):
be on her own a viable candidate for a statewide
national office in twenty twenty eight, you bet.

Speaker 11 (01:20:31):
From Since we're talking about Charlie and Erica Kirk, they certainly,
as you mentioned earlier, had a profound impact on young voters,
particularly young conservative voters. Politico broke a story yesterday really quickly.
I'd be remiss if we didn't ask you about this.
Thousands of private messages from young GOP leaders who were

(01:20:51):
making jokes about things from and this is directly from
the political article, jokes about.

Speaker 1 (01:20:56):
Gas chambers, slavery, and even ray.

Speaker 11 (01:21:00):
And I think that as people saw this story come
across the wires yesterday, I think people were shocked by
some of the messages that have been released from these
young GOP leaders.

Speaker 18 (01:21:13):
Yeah, and these are vile. There's no context in which
they're not vile. Also, people they were called the young Republicans,
so people kind of focus on the young. That means
age forty and under. These are not thirteen year old
kids on their xbox talking into a headset trying to
be edge lords. The people who were involved in this

(01:21:34):
that I could find their ages were thirty years older.
They're abouts And they were not just saying vaguely racist
things trying to be funny, which is bad enough. They
were doubling down with white supremacists code like fourteen eighty eight.
Fourteen is for the fourteen white supremacist words quote we
must secure the existence of our people and a future

(01:21:56):
for our white children, you know, which was the founder
of the terrorist group the Order said in eighty eight.
Of course the eighth letter of the alphabet HH Hyle Hitler.
So fourteen eighty eight is white supremacist code. You can't
pass that off as somebody just trying to be super edgy.
These the things they said were vile, and they are

(01:22:18):
not teenagers. They were fully formed. Well, I don't know
about fully formed, but they were fully adults in their
late twenties early thirties.

Speaker 9 (01:22:27):
Scott Huffman, we got to stop it there. We appreciate
your time as always a professor of political science at
Winthrop University. Real quick, just for housekeeping purposes here, I
was asking you about Charlie Kirk and his age. He
would have turned thirty two yesterday, and so you have
to be thirty five by inauguration day to be president.

(01:22:48):
So that would have put him at thirty five in
October of twenty twenty eight, so he would have been
old enough. I does have to be inaugurate, I asked
the question. Then I started thinking, well, that's not even
where I was going. But I at least wanted to
get the math back in the he's doing math. Hey,
you know, college was a long time ago, but that's
why we talked to professors.

Speaker 5 (01:23:04):
Now.

Speaker 9 (01:23:05):
It's good to talk to you, sir. We'll talk to
you next week, all right, great, look forward to it, Yes, sir,
take care. When we come back, we're going to take
a decidedly different turn and we're going to talk to
a guy who is a member of the CRVA. He's
the director of Corporate Communications for the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority.
They're celebrating seventy years of Bojangles Colisseum and more specifically

(01:23:27):
the bo Plex, which includes the old Charlotte Colisseum as
many of us grew up with it being and Oven's Auditorium.
If you have memories of those buildings, things you saw there,
favorite thing. First thing, we're going to get into that
and some details of their celebration coming up.

Speaker 4 (01:23:40):
Okay, well we'll take this home run through them with
a fine tooth comb, cross the t's and dot the
floor case chase from Me's talk eleven ten and ninety
nine three WPT.

Speaker 3 (01:23:52):
Come on, cut it, here's some special boy.

Speaker 4 (01:23:55):
This is Good Morning Bet with Bo Thompson and Beth Troutman.

Speaker 7 (01:23:59):
All Right, that was a lot of fun right there.

Speaker 3 (01:24:01):
We're going for the whole buffet crap.

Speaker 9 (01:24:09):
Yeah, it's kind of a metaphor for the whole show.
But actually this hour and if you've been listening today specifically,
it's literal, as Brett Jensen would say, it's literal. We've
been talking about the circus. I made the passing comment
about what about seven o'clock, said, Hey, coming up In

(01:24:30):
the final hour of the show, we have the director
of corporate Communications for the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, our
good friend Sean Flynn, coming in, and we're going to
talk about the seventieth anniversary of an iconic set of
buildings in Charlotte, North Carolina. That those being the Bojangles
Coliseum and Ovens Auditorium, now today known as the Boplex.

(01:24:52):
If you grew up here, it was the original Charlotte
Coliseum and Ovens. But I said, let's talk about memories.
Let's talk about the things you think of when you
think of those two buildings, And immediately Beth and I
talk about the circus.

Speaker 11 (01:25:05):
We believe, Sean, that we met first at the circus
because bo and I were both chosen from the audience
to ride in the little carriage behind the elephants in
the early eighties with at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum
and Bailey Circus. So we believe that that's actually the
first time we met was in a cart behind an

(01:25:26):
elephant behind.

Speaker 3 (01:25:26):
Wow, it's a full circus moment.

Speaker 1 (01:25:30):
Wealth pleased.

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):
So I am a little concerned that you guys brought
had that music coming on when introducing me. I'm like,
are you calling me a clown?

Speaker 1 (01:25:39):
No, I'm sat at all.

Speaker 9 (01:25:41):
We're saying, welcome to the clown. Car join us, will you? Yes, Well,
look it's good to see you. We've had you in
here over the years. You've been you worked with Holy
Angels for a while. You also, way back in the day,
were a news anchor and reporter to yourself, well, now
it's Spectrum, and then it was Time Warner Cable News
in a ridge, it was News fourteen Carolina.

Speaker 3 (01:26:02):
Wow, that's impressive that you can remember all of that.

Speaker 9 (01:26:04):
You were one of the charter members. Close to close
to it, close to it.

Speaker 3 (01:26:08):
I do call myself a survivor or recovering keeping news reporter.

Speaker 1 (01:26:12):
Well, and so you say that about myself, I'm a
recovering news anchor.

Speaker 9 (01:26:15):
Yes, And we all seem to wind up here. So
you've been with the CRVA for a while now, and
like I said, director of Corporate Communications. So for those
who don't know, what does that title entail.

Speaker 3 (01:26:28):
So I've been blessed to never have a job. I've
always been in great places where I've gotten paid to
do what I love to do, which is tell stories.
Interesting enough, I started back in college way over at
U see Santa Barbara, I started in radio, So coming
in here this full circus moment for me. I love
radio radios where it's at. I love this show. You

(01:26:50):
guys are fantastic. I mean, you really bring it. Put
a smile on my face every morning. So it's it's
fantastic love listening to you'all. So what I do over
at the CRVA is I help tell their story I
am able to. I do a lot of internal communications,
but I do media relations, so I get to hang
out with folks like you. Still I get to work
on a lot of our sustainability advocacy programs things like that.

(01:27:15):
So most importantly, I guess I'm a part of this
big team that really promotes Charlotte's not only to the
millions of visitors who come here every year, but also
to the residents. And talk about how important what it
is that the tourism industry does not only for those
who come here, but for those who live.

Speaker 19 (01:27:31):
Here, right.

Speaker 11 (01:27:32):
I mean, it brings, of course money into our area,
but it also I mean you all remind us, the
folks who live here, of all the incredible things that
we can do and should be doing here in Charlotte,
celebrating our city. But there are so many fun opportunities,
and so many of them have happened at the Boplex.
You brought us a T shirt that has lists and

(01:27:53):
lists of things that have happened over the last seventy
years in that beautiful facility, and I forgot about half
of these.

Speaker 3 (01:28:02):
It is amazing to think of the people, the performers,
the athletes who have been in those venues. It's I mean,
just think about who dedicated. You have Reverend Billy Graham.
Within the same week, you had Billy Graham and Elvis performing.
You know when we held a celebration a couple of
weeks ago, you had city Councilman James Mitchell who was

(01:28:25):
showing everybody this picture of him playing a high school
basketball game when he was at West Charlotte High School
and he was getting dunked on by James Worthy and
you see a counselman Mitchell. The picture of him is like, Wow,
that guy's good.

Speaker 9 (01:28:39):
That guy's really good.

Speaker 1 (01:28:40):
He's going to be something.

Speaker 9 (01:28:41):
Some James Worthy I just dunked on Smudgie.

Speaker 3 (01:28:44):
That's pretty much it. And the thing about it is
that venue and what the CRVA, does we talk about
our whole mission is to make memories for our guests. Yeah,
and that's what the Boplex is. There are so many
memories there or whether it's a show, a first show,
whether it is a basketball game, whether it's a high
school graduation. It's just I mean, I've only been in

(01:29:08):
Charlotte for twenty two years now, and I have so
many lifetime memories that were created in those venues.

Speaker 9 (01:29:14):
Well, I mean, Sean reaches out to me. He says,
I'd like to come on and talk about the Bowplex.
And I said, okay, the Bowplex. I mean it must
be an incredible play.

Speaker 1 (01:29:23):
No, I was waiting for that actually, first segment in
he got it in.

Speaker 3 (01:29:30):
I know it was coming.

Speaker 9 (01:29:31):
It's like when I drive up to a Bojangles they
say it's bow time. I said, well, okay, Then he.

Speaker 1 (01:29:35):
Says it sure is.

Speaker 9 (01:29:36):
It is.

Speaker 3 (01:29:36):
It's always bow time.

Speaker 5 (01:29:38):
But I want to talk.

Speaker 9 (01:29:38):
About the history of the building. You know, everybody who
grew up here and even those who've been here in
recent years, you have your your first thing you ever
saw at the at the old Charlotte Colisseum now the
bow Jangles Coliseum or ovens. Maybe your favorite thing, but
everybody's got a story and you don't have to be
an old timer to have one. You could have been
here in the last couple of years and seen a

(01:29:58):
really cool thing. And because you know, it just recently
became that the two buildings are now connected, which is
why we call it the bow Plex now. But we're
going to talk about the ongoing celebration for the seventieth
year and some memories, and you can chime in on
this too if you want to. Seven oh four five,
seven oh eleven ten. That's a text line. That's the
call in line driven by Liberty View at GMC. I

(01:30:22):
know Boomer's probably seen some stuff at the at the Bowplex.
A few shows and concerts and basketball games, yes, in
wrestling match there we go in monster trucks and hockey
graduation roller derby.

Speaker 5 (01:30:35):
What a place where I graduated high school?

Speaker 9 (01:30:37):
You know that site there that a building. That structure
served as the architectural model for the Houston Astrodome. They
modeled the Astrodome after what we had.

Speaker 1 (01:30:47):
It was one of the first, really, it was all
the first.

Speaker 9 (01:30:51):
So you're saying that we're kind of a big deal
that the Bow Jangles call us m is the Astrodome's
mini me, right, But yet the mini me came.

Speaker 5 (01:30:59):
First, Say Houston, who's your dad? God?

Speaker 9 (01:31:01):
This is dead.

Speaker 19 (01:31:11):
We have had a wonderful and glorious week again here
in Charlotte. We've already finished a month of meetings. And
I wish you could have been here on Thursday night
when the invitation was given and more than a thousand
people came out of these stands to give themselves to
Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and Master. None of

(01:31:35):
us that were in that service will ever forget the
moving of the Holy Spirit that night, and night after
night we have seen the hand of God here in
this great colosseum. Now we have one more week, one
more week. The crusade definitely ends a week from tonight.

Speaker 9 (01:31:57):
Nineteen fifty eight. That's Billy Graham at the Charlotte Coliseum
what is now known as the bo Jangles Coliseum, and
he would go on to appear there a few more times.
But nineteen fifty eight, that's the audio from Billy Graham,
the late Billy Graham, at a building we're talking about
today with our friend Sean Flynn from the CRVA, the

(01:32:18):
Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, the old Charlotte Colisseum, the original
bo Jangles Coliseum is seventy years old, as is Oven's Auditorium.
But we mentioned some of the iconic people that have
been there. There are few that you could mention that
would rival that voice right there. And I had that
piece of audio back from when Reverend Graham passed away

(01:32:40):
several years ago, and we went through all that old audio.
But I got to learn about all of the times
that he had used that building for his ministry.

Speaker 3 (01:32:49):
Yeah, it is a special place, and he even talked
about during the when he was dedicating that building that
Charlotte has arrived as a big city now and apparently
we needed these facilities to be that big city. Interesting
sidebar note, I actually went to Billy Graham's final crusade
in New York City, so I definitely have a connection
to him and what he's done for this community.

Speaker 9 (01:33:11):
And of course the Billy Graham Library and just one
of the you can't talk about Charlotte, North Carolina and
not mention doctor Graham and the BGEA, and we're talking
about Boplex Memories. The Boplex which is now known as
the bow Jangles Coliseum and the connected Ovens Auditorium that

(01:33:32):
was a few years back during the renovations. But we're
having people call in today with memories of the buildings
because seven decades of existence. Real quick, let's go to
Sam online one. Sam wants to say hello this morning,
We've got Sean Flynn and Bowen Beth here on WBT.

Speaker 7 (01:33:47):
Sam, Hey, good morning, good thanks for doing this.

Speaker 5 (01:33:50):
This is awesome.

Speaker 7 (01:33:51):
So my family owned Ernie's records, which you got.

Speaker 11 (01:33:54):
Okay, sometimes I thought that's who this was Ernie's record, Sam,
how cool to hear.

Speaker 9 (01:33:59):
From you talk about Charlotte institutions.

Speaker 7 (01:34:02):
Well, we're kind of old, so there.

Speaker 9 (01:34:06):
A good time.

Speaker 7 (01:34:07):
So we sold Kaleidoscope tickets for the conv was who
produced all the concerts in Charlotte at that time, so
we got to go to every concert. The only person
I think I never saw was probably Elvis Presley, saw
Jimmy Hendrix there Chicago, I mean, even Barry Manilow, you
know whatever, I mean, whatever, But I remember my parents

(01:34:31):
have a picture. We went and saw Glenn Campbell. He
actually had a cast on his army. He did a
concert at Ovens, and then my parents had a picture.
They went there and saw Ronald Reagan. I don't know
what for, but he was there speaking. I guess maybe
so many great memories. We lived near there on Commonwealth
when we were growing up, and the coolest thing was

(01:34:51):
we would go sledding on the parking lot of Bojangles
or calls Charlotte cost him at that time great sledding
because of the hill and it was just a cool
place to Yeah. I mean that's like a different memory,
but it's just been there forever and I couldn't imagine
it not being a part of Charlotte.

Speaker 32 (01:35:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:35:06):
Yeah, Well, Sean was talking about how it was, you know,
the look of it is still to this day. I mean,
so many different arenas and and and and huge. I
mean just think about all the different stadiums that we've
seen over the years that they've built these taj mahals
of of gatherings. But then the Charlotte Colisseum, the Bojangles
Coliseum still has that unique look to it. And we

(01:35:29):
were mentioning that the astrodome was in part taken from
a design that was originally done for the smaller Charlotte Colosseum.
So I still drive by it and you can't. You
can't not look. It's just a it's an impressive architectural building.

Speaker 11 (01:35:45):
Well, and when you drive by it, and Sam, you
probably have this experience because you've been there so many times.
When you drive by it, I can smell it. I
can smell what it felt like to be inside.

Speaker 3 (01:35:55):
Yes, hopefully that's.

Speaker 1 (01:35:59):
Yes, yes, but then.

Speaker 9 (01:36:02):
Yes, it's gonna say it's probably it's probably like an
interesting combo of a lot of smells.

Speaker 1 (01:36:08):
Well, it's kind of.

Speaker 11 (01:36:09):
It's got the it has the smell of popcorn and
the pretzels and the concession stands and sweat and ice
and all of the things that have been there over
the years. There's something really nostalgic about the smell of it.
They should make that into a candle. You should have
a Charlotte Collis.

Speaker 18 (01:36:25):
I burned that one.

Speaker 9 (01:36:26):
I don't know about that. That sounds like a candle.
You might have been able to buy it Ernie's back
in the day.

Speaker 7 (01:36:31):
Yes, probably, so I would say some incense.

Speaker 9 (01:36:34):
Uh huh, because you know you had some incense, you
had you had the the tie dies I think for
a while. I mean Ernie's was mostly music. But I've
told people before Ernie's was the only place in Charlotte
that would give me money for used cassette singles.

Speaker 12 (01:36:48):
Uh.

Speaker 9 (01:36:49):
Dan Dan Phipps used to give me a quarter for
a cassette singles. And I'm telling you, man, I brought
him like boxes and he's like, oh, it's you again.

Speaker 7 (01:36:56):
Yeah, it's funny. And we still Yeah, we're still all together,
except for of course the only passed away twenty years ago.
But it's we're still all hanging out together.

Speaker 18 (01:37:05):
Were brothers.

Speaker 9 (01:37:05):
Tell them, we said, tell everybody. We said, hello, we
appreciate you going.

Speaker 7 (01:37:09):
Thank you for sharing the memories of it. Yes, sir,
So the coliseum today, it's awesome.

Speaker 12 (01:37:13):
So bo.

Speaker 3 (01:37:14):
It was back in two thousand and nine that the
Charlotte Historic Landmarks Commission actually made that the exterior of
that building a historic landmark. So that's one of the
reasons why it stays that same historic icon iconic image.

Speaker 12 (01:37:27):
Love it.

Speaker 11 (01:37:27):
I've always loved especially when there's an event going on,
because there's so much glass you can see the activity
that's going on inside and it makes you wish.

Speaker 1 (01:37:35):
That you had tickets to whatever.

Speaker 11 (01:37:36):
I mean, it was a brilliant design when they first
put it up because of that feature.

Speaker 1 (01:37:41):
You want to be inside of it, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:37:43):
And he also brought up Ronald Reagan speaking there. If
you think about all the past presidential recent presidential, all
of the candidates have come there and been a part
of that. This venue is not just about sports. It's
not just about graduations. I mean they even during COVID
they opened up testing for giving out vaccinations. It's always
just been a part of the community.

Speaker 5 (01:38:05):
Threat.

Speaker 9 (01:38:06):
You know, they built that huge twenty three thousand plus
seat New Charlotte Coliseum back in nineteen eighty eight and
it was all spiffy ready to go for the first
exhibition Hornets game, and then it wasn't played there, and
people who were here know why. And it was played
at the old Colisseum because well, you had to have

(01:38:26):
a place to go back to. We'll talk about that
story and more with Sean Flynn here celebrating seventy years
of the iconic venues Oven's Auditorium and what is now
the Bojangles Colisseum.

Speaker 1 (01:38:37):
Do you let the ladies play ice hockey with you?
I want to play ice hockey.

Speaker 12 (01:38:40):
There are a few girls that come out.

Speaker 1 (01:38:42):
Yeah, that would be so much fun.

Speaker 9 (01:38:44):
Think you just got a new one. Yes, after the show,
Beth goes out in the street, just gone what for what?

Speaker 19 (01:38:51):
That's gone wild?

Speaker 9 (01:38:54):
Speaking of cars dived check we're playing hockey, we're doing
traffic reports, we're multitasking, which is what we do on
this show.

Speaker 11 (01:39:01):
And we stay young by just you know, having fun conversations.

Speaker 9 (01:39:05):
And why do we do all these things at once
because we have short attentions fans, This is good morning,
beat Hello out.

Speaker 5 (01:39:15):
There, we're on the air.

Speaker 9 (01:39:17):
It's hockey night tonight. Tension goes, the whistle blows and
the puck goes.

Speaker 3 (01:39:22):
Down the ice.

Speaker 5 (01:39:23):
Good morning.

Speaker 22 (01:39:24):
The goalie jumps and the players bumping, the fans all
go insane.

Speaker 5 (01:39:29):
Someone roars, Bunny stores at the good.

Speaker 9 (01:39:31):
Old hockey game. Oh, the good hockey game.

Speaker 5 (01:39:35):
Here's the best game.

Speaker 9 (01:39:37):
First time I heard this.

Speaker 5 (01:39:38):
Best game you can name? Is the good old hockey games?

Speaker 9 (01:39:42):
Is that a Checkers game? So I knew Sean would
would love this song. And we can't talk about seventy
years of the Bojangles Coliseum without talking about the Charlotte Checkers.
And by the way, in studio with us, if you're
just joining us from the CRVA, the Charlotte Regional Visitors
authority is the director of corporate Communications. Longtime friend of

(01:40:04):
the show Sean Flynn talking about seventy years of the
two iconic buildings, the Bojangles Coliseum and of course Ovens Auditorium.
Together they make the Boplex. But you gotta you really
kind of got to start with the Charlotte Checkers if
you're going to talk about that building, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:40:20):
The Checkers their primary tenant over there, and they are
such a important part of this community. My first interactions
with them were they they helped me out with a
nonprofit fundraiser I was trying to do, and they did
this with so many different organizations. Love the Checkers, Love
the family that they have over there. Tara just you know,
retired after leading that organization for a couple decades, and

(01:40:42):
Sean and Paul just a great group of people. I
personally have so many memories there. During the break, we
were chatting that my first real date with my now
wife was at a Charlotte Checkers game. I think Beth
has a similar story.

Speaker 11 (01:40:58):
Yes, one of my most memorable, one of the very
first dates my husband and I had with each other
was at a Checkers game.

Speaker 3 (01:41:06):
Who knew so many people thought that was a romantic
night out to watch men fight each other.

Speaker 1 (01:41:12):
Well it was for me. It was the nachos we
were sharing at the ka nachos.

Speaker 11 (01:41:16):
I have to read since we're talking about hockey, I
have to read this text from one of our listeners.
She said, my family moved to Charlotte in the fifties
from Saint Catherine's, Ontario, Canada. My father, Jim McNulty, played
hockey for the Charlotte Clippers, which was the original name
of the team. We have so many lifetime memories from
hockey games, concerts, circuses, the Globe Trotters, everything playing there too.

Speaker 3 (01:41:40):
Yeah, and it's such a great organization. I will tell
you one of my most impactful moments was, you know,
I've been on the show a couple times talking about
a couple of different things, but you know, you're all there.
When my youngest son was going through cancer treatment and
the Checkers found out about that by visiting him in
the hospital, Chubby was there. Was great. This is seven

(01:42:01):
some odd years ago, and so they reached out and
they knew my older son at the time, who was nine,
was playing hockey, and so they asked him to come
out on the ice and skate with the team for
the national anthem, and I was being really strong supporting
my family there in the hospital and watching my son
out there. The national anthem comes and I was just waterworks.

(01:42:21):
It just I lost it. But those are the types
of memories that everyone makes. I mean the text line
you were talking about, how many people are just texting
in talking about how many amazing memories they have. And
by the way, congratulations, I'm finally getting a text link.

Speaker 1 (01:42:38):
Welcome baby you we are so excitry century, first century.
And speaking of that, listen to this.

Speaker 11 (01:42:44):
So speaking of meeting wives and husbands or dates at
the Charlotte Coliseum, this Texter didn't leave a name with us,
but they said they moved to Charlotte in nineteen fifty five.
He met his wife on stage at Oven's Auditorium at
the sixty fourth versary of eleven ten.

Speaker 9 (01:43:02):
WBT sixty four. Yeah, there you go, yes, Ovens.

Speaker 3 (01:43:07):
And you also you mentioned Harlem Globetrotters. So the Globetrotters
next year are going to be celebrating their one hundredth year.

Speaker 14 (01:43:13):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:43:14):
And they they performed, Yeah, sure, they played performed at
at Bojingle's Coliseum. That first year in nineteen fifty five.

Speaker 11 (01:43:21):
Well, they've played there's so many. I mean, my parents
took us to see the Globetrotters there when I was
a kid and had to explain to me that it
wasn't a real game.

Speaker 1 (01:43:29):
They were like, this was like.

Speaker 9 (01:43:30):
Wrestling, speaking of, speaking of, we have to go down
that road too. And you know, I saw David Copperfield there. Yes, actually,
wait a minute, wait a minut minute, I saw Copperfield
at Ovens. Yes, now that I think about it, I
was there too. I saw that.

Speaker 3 (01:43:48):
I see you together before you knew each other.

Speaker 1 (01:43:50):
It's it actually is. It is ridiculous. We might have
sat beside each other.

Speaker 9 (01:43:57):
We could have because that was when, you know, David
copperfel used to do his big TV special and then
he'd go and do it at various cities across the country.
And I remember I was sitting in fear in the
crowd there at Ovens because David Copperfield would choose people
yes to be in the he did do like the
he'd do the big disappearing act things that was the
main part of the show. But in the beginning he'd

(01:44:18):
almost do like a comedy act where he'd go and
he'd bring people on stage, and I did not want
to go on stage. Oh I did.

Speaker 11 (01:44:25):
I did get up there, but I totally would He
hypnotized people or something at the at the top of
the show.

Speaker 9 (01:44:31):
So I remember being at Ovens and being, oh, my gosh,
please don't like it, like almost dug down because I
didn't want.

Speaker 5 (01:44:35):
To go up.

Speaker 1 (01:44:35):
I was jumping up and down.

Speaker 9 (01:44:36):
Way you wanted to be sold in half.

Speaker 3 (01:44:38):
Yeah, that doesn't sprid me.

Speaker 9 (01:44:39):
No, not at all. So we're talking about the seventieth
anniversary of the bow Jangles Colisseum and Ovens Auditorium, the
Boplex as they call it. I mentioned a story that
I was half right about a few minutes ago about
the new Colisseum and the old Colisseum. It's funny how
we did a show one day about the Mandela effect.
Is that what it's called the mandel where people tell

(01:45:00):
stories and then overtime the stories take different shapes and
then they so you, even as a storyteller, you you
make yourself believe that's how it happened.

Speaker 11 (01:45:08):
Or it could be that we've been bumped onto a
different quantum timeline.

Speaker 9 (01:45:12):
That's right, there's no access for you on this squadron.

Speaker 5 (01:45:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:45:17):
And by the way, you know one of our famous
taglines here at the station, WBT, brand new text line,
but the phone line is as old as the Charlotte Coliseum.

Speaker 1 (01:45:25):
That's so true.

Speaker 4 (01:45:26):
Good morning, this is good morning BT.

Speaker 9 (01:45:34):
Ah see, I hear this music, and I'm taking back
to my days as a young man pro wrestling fan,
when people who are around here know that Jim Crockett
and Francis Crockett ran the Charlotte Knights and what then
was the National Wrestling Alliance and what later became Ted

(01:45:57):
Turner's WCW. But back in the those days, names like
Rick Flair and Dusty Rhodes and Tully Blanchard and the
Andersons and all these guys used to Basically, Charlotte was
the hub for pro wrestling in the Southeast, and so
so many shows pro wrestling shows over the years were
at the then Charlotte Coliseum. I know the first time

(01:46:18):
I ever saw a pro wrestling card, it was at
that building, and I probably saw I don't know, at
least six or seven and then several more at the
new Coliseum. But you can't talk about that building. Sean
Flynn from the CRVA and not talk about pro wrestling.

Speaker 3 (01:46:32):
Yeah, definitely a part of the fabric of not only
the community but the Boplex. So so many amazing memories.
I know best been over here during the breaks talking
about all the people who've been texting in. Even got
an old time wrestling fan.

Speaker 11 (01:46:48):
Well this one is from Chris. Yes, he said, good morning.
Some of my fondest memories setting up the wrestling room
at the wrestling ring at the Coliseum with his grandfather,
Luke Bill.

Speaker 3 (01:47:02):
That funny. What's funny is Beth and I were like, oh,
let's look up clondyke Bill. Bow's like, yeah, of course.

Speaker 9 (01:47:07):
Clondike ol Now never saw him, but I've definitely heard
of him. My era was Flair and Dusty and the
Legion of Doom and all those guys. But good times,
great oldies. So what else we go? We got to
call her real quick, Ken, real quick, Kid's get Ken
on here line one, Ken, You're on WBT.

Speaker 8 (01:47:26):
Morning, Bow and Beth, good to talk to you again. Hey, Ken,
nothing gets me excited And it says more about Charlotte
than the Coliseum. And my wife used to work at
Duke Power and one of the original designers brought in
the blueprints to let her and two other people see
them one day, and he said it's the only time

(01:47:48):
he ever brought them in to show them the original
blueprints of the Colisseum, and that was a big deal.

Speaker 1 (01:47:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:47:55):
And one other thing, I have a Charlotte Clipper program
from the seventh hockey game ever played. That's coliseum.

Speaker 9 (01:48:03):
Holy moly, good Clippers.

Speaker 8 (01:48:05):
Yeah, that's that's one of my prospositions.

Speaker 9 (01:48:08):
And and Sean, you should know that Ken from time
to time will bring some of this memorabilia that he
has by and leave it for us. And we've seen
some of it up close. So when he says he's
got something, he's got something he might need to show
that to you.

Speaker 3 (01:48:20):
Yeah, we'd love to see that. And this is exactly
what I'm talking about. This venue has. Everybody has a menu,
a memory there. Yeah, and that's what it's all about
and making more memories in the years to come.

Speaker 9 (01:48:31):
Hey, Ken, thanks for calling man, good to hear from.

Speaker 19 (01:48:33):
You.

Speaker 17 (01:48:33):
Have a good day.

Speaker 9 (01:48:34):
Let's give Let's give Ovens a little a little love
here Ovens Auditorium. How about this. I'm gonna play some
audio from two thousand and four. Thank you, very much.

Speaker 32 (01:48:44):
Lots of requests this evening from the Charlottians, and I'm
gonna play as many as we can until they turn
the power off on us this evening.

Speaker 9 (01:48:56):
This was two thousand and four, Bruce Hornsby.

Speaker 1 (01:48:58):
I was gonna say, it is this Larry Buck at.

Speaker 9 (01:49:01):
That Ovens Auditorium. I think I've seen him there twice.
But you know, Ovens great venue for concerts.

Speaker 3 (01:49:06):
Yeah, Charlottians love, Yeah, they are Charloatian tis.

Speaker 18 (01:49:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:49:10):
No, I've seen River Dance there. The Singing Christmas Tree, Yes, wicked.

Speaker 2 (01:49:16):
Wicked, wicked.

Speaker 11 (01:49:17):
I saw the Ley Miz there when I was in
eighth grade. I saw George Carlin there. Probably it must
have been like the summer of two thousand, maybe the
summer of ninety nine, somewhere in that, in that range.
But the Singing Christmas Tree, oh my gosh, that was
such a big deal in the Charlotte area around the
holiday time.

Speaker 9 (01:49:36):
Here's the story that I mentioned earlier. I got it
partly right, but it's still it's still connected to the
old Charlotte Coliseum. So the new Charlotte Coliseum opened on
Tybola Road back in nineteen eighty eight. The forty thousand
pounds scoreboard at the New Charlotte Coliseum collapsed to the
floor on August twelfth, nineteen eighty eight. They were getting
set for the preseason of the Charlotte Hornets, brand new

(01:49:58):
franchise back then, and so it destroyed the floor. Now,
luckily didn't hit anybody. Nobody was there when it happened.
But it was a big deal because this was the
new building and the new scoreboard fell and was destroyed.
Had to have a new one brought in. But come
to the rescue, or the original Charlotte Colosseum came to
the rescue and brought their old floor to the New

(01:50:20):
Colisseum so they could play that first game. It was
an exhibition game, and if I remember correctly, it was
for like a pre Olympic deal because that was the
nineteen eighty eight eight Olympics were coming up, and then
after that the Charlotte Hornets. But they had to use
the first basketball game that's ever played at the new Colisseum.
They had to borrow the old floor from the original
Colisseum because the scoreboard crashed.

Speaker 3 (01:50:40):
I love that we called the new Colisseum the New Colisseum.
That's no longer there and the old colosse time is
the old Colisseum.

Speaker 1 (01:50:46):
Still standing, still standing.

Speaker 3 (01:50:48):
You know what I like to say about like the
bout Flex and the Bow Jingles Coliseum is it's kind
of like new cars. I enjoy all the features of
a new car, but there's something about getting in an
old classic and hearing that engine roar and feeling the
steering wheel and the tire. There's something special about driving.
And that's the way I feel when I'm in the
coliseum there. Yeah, there's something really special.

Speaker 1 (01:51:10):
Well, you guys have done that.

Speaker 11 (01:51:12):
It really now that it has been connected, that little
connector space, what has been built there, that's a really
spectacular space now for people to go and attend an event.

Speaker 3 (01:51:21):
Well, it's really opened up a lot of different options.
There's a lot of community events there. It's also increased
overall net promoter scores there, so fans enjoy coming there
because part of that was they renovated it expanded the bathrooms,
there's a new entry point, things like that, so it's
definitely enhanced the overall facility.

Speaker 5 (01:51:41):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:51:42):
One thing we haven't talked about the Marquee, the old
Marquee two years ago and it was sad when it
got taken down for that view, but it now lives
on the other side and there's we're putting up messaging
there specialized for each of the concerts and things like that,
so it's moved on.

Speaker 5 (01:52:00):
That's awesome.

Speaker 9 (01:52:01):
Did they ever show Dumbo at Evans Auditorium? Probably you
had to be here for that one. Yeah. Well, Sean,
it's been great to have you here, so much more
to learn about the seventieth anniversary of the Boplex and you,
of course with the CRBA. Always good to have you
in studio.

Speaker 3 (01:52:21):
Thank you so much for having here. Enjoy your plex.

Speaker 9 (01:52:24):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:52:25):
Oh, you've been listening to Good Morning BT.

Speaker 9 (01:52:28):
Here us live weekday mornings six to ten on WBT
AM n FM eleven ten, nine to nine point three.

Speaker 1 (01:52:34):
You can listen to us anytime right here at WBT
dot

Speaker 9 (01:52:37):
Com or wherever you get good podcasts.

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Good Morning BT | BoPlex Turns 70 | Hegseth vs. Media | Remembering Cullen Ferguson

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Good Morning BT | BoPlex Turns 70 | Hegseth vs. Media | Remembering Cullen Ferguson