February 1, 2024 • 10 mins
Congressional candidate Rodney Govens and Steve Grappe of Stand Up Arkansas and the Rural Caucus introduce Rodney's docu-podcast Riding With Rodney, a study of Arkansas’ 1st Congressional Dist. & its 31 counties. Rodney invites us to virtually “ride along” for his 2024 campaign. Also: The water-system outage happening in West Helena. Donate to Rodney's campaign here.
Podcast production paid for by Committee to Elect Rodney Govens.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hi, y'all.
Welcome aboard.
My name is Steve Grappe.
I'm with Stand Up Arkansas.
And today, we're here with congressionalcandidate Rodney Govens out of
the first congressional district.
Hi, Rodney.
How you doing today?
Another beautiful day in paradise.
How are you doing, man?
I'm doing great.
I'm glad to have you here.
Let's talk about riding with Rodney.
(00:21):
You have a new program.
Y'all are going to launchhere in the next week or so.
I understand.
Give me the basis of whatthis program is about.
So you got a lot of characteraround Arkansas and the rural areas.
And people seem to forget that, right?
We start talking at these high levelsand we start talking about issues and
(00:41):
problems and taxes and everything,but people forget about the character.
And the cultural, differences, growing upin Elaine, Arkansas is vastly different
than growing up in mountain home.
And we need to celebrate that we needto celebrate our uniqueness what
makes us all Arkansans also makes usdifferent and we need to celebrate those.
(01:01):
We don't spend enough time on that.
So that's what riding withRodney is actually going to do.
We're actually going to ridearound and look at and analyze.
And talk about right and learnwhat historical significant
locations you have what culturallysignificant places you have.
I want to know about every singlenook and cranny in every town.
(01:24):
I want to know whatmakes Elaine so special.
I want to know what makesCraighead county in their minds,
more special than Lonoke county.
And then vice versa.
I want to know, down in LonokeCounty, what makes Lonoke County
so unique, especially fromthe agricultural perspective.
I want to know everything aboutChicot County that I can learn.
So this is like that riding around withcelebrities or celebrities in cars or
(01:48):
whatever that is that Jerry Seinfeldhad, but we're bringing this local.
With a lot less fanfare, cause ifthis is the mug that you're going to
get, we're going to be struggling.
But yeah it's a similar premise, excepta lot less jokes, more serious topics.
We're still going to be alittle bit lighthearted.
And it's probably gonna be a lotlike James Corden's, a karaoke car
situation, depending on the playlist.
(02:09):
It all depends on what'son my music list that day.
I guess that's really gonna comedown to who you're riding with.
That's it.
That's it.
Tell me about where y'allbeen so far in the district.
I know you've been at this forabout six or eight weeks, maybe.
Tell me where y'all been.
Man, we've been to, ten plus counties.
20 plus cities cities like Helena, WestHelena, of course, Elaine, Arkansas.
(02:31):
We've also been down to Eudora.
We've been over to Lake Village.
We've been to Star City.
We've been to Harrison multiple times.
And of course we've been to Jonesboroand some of the bigger areas.
And we've got a, we've got a laundrylist of places that we're going to
be visiting across these 31 counties.
So when can we expect to see Riding withRodney and how often is it coming out?
(02:52):
Give us some details about asviewers, what we can expect.
We're expecting a weekly content,where I'm going to a new city.
With a new narrator every singleweek, because we want to be
able to digest that content.
I want, the citizens of Harrisonto watch this and see what makes
Elaine Arkansas so special, right?
(03:14):
I want the people in Eudora tosee that although we share a
lot of issues across the gambit.
Harrison, Arkansas especiallywhen you start talking about the
Buffalo national river, right?
Citizens in Eudora probably haven'teven visited the Buffalo national
river ever in their life, but theyneed to understand the significance
of that river because it is a funriver to float every Memorial day.
(03:37):
So you're also trying tocreate some synergy and some
interconnectedness within the districtbetween your cities and towns.
So people can be moreaware of their neighbors.
Is that what I'm hearing?
1, 000,
percent
and,
and
and it's
2 fold.
right?
Number 1.
It's hard for me to empathizewith the Buffalo National River
situation if I don't know anythingabout it and I'm not exposed to it.
(04:01):
It's hard for me to care aboutpublic education when my kids
go to private school, right?
So I want to bring all of this tothe forefront so that we can actually
talk about it and we can actuallyfeel some of the pain on issues.
And also celebrate some of thesuccesses on our uniqueness as well.
I didn't hear you say thisexplicitly, but this is implied.
(04:24):
This also becomes a listening tour.
If you're running forCongress, is that important?
And is that important to you?
And is that part of this program?
That's the second part, right?
Because I told you theprogram's twofold, right?
Too often, we've got legislators,we've got politicians that talk at us.
They effectively tell us what weshould and shouldn't care about.
It should actually be the reverse, right?
(04:46):
It should be, we have issuesspecific to Arkansas that my
congressional representatives shouldcare more about than some of the
issues they have over in Arizona.
Right issues are issues and we havesome of the same issues across every
geographical area in this country,but there are specific issues that I
want to talk to my congressional repabout that don't have anything to do
(05:10):
with some of the national hot buttontopics, and they're impossible to talk
to these guys don't even come home.
Steve.
I don't know.
I don't know where mycongressional representative is.
I'm still looking for him.
We appreciate what you're doing.
So any, any last messages youwant to give to people out there,
ways to get in touch with you?
What if somebody wants to sign up?
Do you have a specific means to say,hey, I want to drive around Sherwood
(05:34):
and tell you about where I grew up?
I know that's not the first congressionaldistrict, someone might be in Humnoke or
Possum Grape or Paragould, Pocahontas.
Osceola Trumann.
I can name a whole bunch of townsI'd love to know more about.
Oh yeah.
Shouts out to, to, former mayor PipTerry right down there in Humnoke, man.
Me and me and mayor Terry go way back.
But in order to get in touch withus, you can go and email us at
(05:57):
hello at Rodney for congress.
org and tell, tell my campaign team,tell me, Hey, I want to do this with you.
I want to tell you exactly why.
My area is so special to meand why you should care about
this area just as much as I do.
Man, this is a wonderful thing.
I cannot wait to see these videos.
Can't wait to see all thedifferent places around Arkansas.
(06:18):
And the first district andthe Delta is often forgotten.
Yes.
In Arkansas.
So this will also serve to bring someattention to that area of the state.
In places where people in Little Rock orWest Arkansas or Northwest Arkansas may
not realize what's going on in the Delta.
That's right.
That's right.
And we, and this is the biggestgeographical district in Arkansas.
When you start looking athow much land it covers.
(06:40):
You're talking about 31 countiesall the way from Boone, all the
way over to, the West Memphis area,all the way down to Chicot County
with Lake village and Eudora.
That's a lot of land to cover.
So when you sit back and you look at it, Ineed to be able to explain to the citizens
of Eudora, why you need to care about theBuffalo national river, because it may not
be the river that you care about, but Ibet you care about government overreach.
(07:04):
Tell me what's going onin the first district.
Man, a lot of stuff's going onin the first district, right?
The latest issue that came up isHelena West helena is without clean
potable drinking water right now.
We've got the National Guard deployed.
I think they've got a 2000 gallonwater buffalo deployed down there,
but that's not going to be enough.
We definitely need to, we need toreevaluate the infrastructure down there.
(07:27):
There's a lot of blame to pass around.
Everybody's going to owna little bit of that.
But right now the focus is makingsure that those children have clean,
potable drinking water so that theycan cook, they can eat, they can drink.
They can take showers the whole gambit.
That's the latest.
Now, is it in this the secondtime this has happened in a year?
The second time in recent months.
(07:49):
Yeah.
But when you actually look at it overa decade, Steve the, this it's happened
more than just a handful of times and,it goes into infrastructure and it goes
into, and money and resources, right?
Not only do you have to have the moneyand the funds available, but you also have
to be able to spend that money wisely.
And there's a, like I said, there'sa lot of blame to go around state
(08:11):
legislators, federal legislators,local, legislators, local leadership.
But at the end of the day, we really wantto focus on just making sure that we get
them back up and drinking clean water.
And then once we can go ahead and get,some stuff in place to move forward
and progress and permanently fix theproblem, then we're going to really start
hammering and asking some questions.
Anything you got plannedto help out over there.
(08:34):
Anything that Citizens can lookforward to, stepping up and helping.
Yeah, we're going to be asking and we'reorganizing that now my campaign team is
going to be working on that, right nowwe're going to be organizing drives to
provide water, bring water down there.
Pallets, slates of water.
Now our campaign team did reach outto walmart and walmart foundation and
(08:56):
there is some work being done there.
So that's a good sign because whatthey did for flint, michigan, if we
can just pick that up and airliftit over to Helena, west Helena,
we're going to be in great hands.
So shouts out to walmart for takingour call and helping us with that.
We've also reached out to a lot of thelocal leadership around and just made
sure that there's some awareness, right?
And that's the biggest thing thatwe can bring to the areas awareness
(09:18):
because when you go and talk to theaverage Arkansan right now, and this
issue has been going on for a few days.
They have no idea.
They have no idea what'sreally going on down there.
And I think k.
A.
I.
T.
And T.
H.
V.
actually covered it already,but I haven't seen KATV.
We've got to get more awareness.
We got to get people downthere to understand the gravity
of the situation because
(09:38):
babies don't have clean,drinkable water right now.
If people wanted to reach out to thecampaign, what's the best way for him
to get in touch with your campaign?
Or do you have a websiteor anything they can go to?
All of our contact informationis located on our website.
You can reach us at Rodney for congress.
org.
That's all one word, no numbers.
(09:59):
So it's R O D N E Y F O R C O N G RE S S dot O R G, Rodneyforcongress.
org.
And maybe an email address or somethingpeople can contact you through?
Yeah, our email addresses should all belisted there on the website, but the main
email address to remember anytime you wantto get ahold of anybody at the campaign is
(10:19):
going to be hello At Rodney for congress.
org.
Keep it simple.
I live by the kiss method.
That's easy to remember.
Okay.
Again, thanks Rodney.
And we'll be looking forward toriding with Rodney on a weekly
basis coming out of the campaign.
Absolutely.
Rodney for congress.
org y'all everybody.
Thanks for being here today.
Thanks a lot, everybody.
Bye.
Hi, y'all.
Welcome aboard.
My name is Steve Grappe.
I'm with Stand Up Arkansas.
And today, we're here with congressionalcandidate Rodney Govens out of
the first congressional district.
Hi, Rodney.
How you doing today?
Another beautiful day in paradise.
How are you doing, man?
I'm doing great.
I'm glad to have you here.
Let's talk about riding with Rodney.
(00:21):
You have a new program.
Y'all are going to launchhere in the next week or so.
I understand.
Give me the basis of whatthis program is about.
So you got a lot of characteraround Arkansas and the rural areas.
And people seem to forget that, right?
We start talking at these high levelsand we start talking about issues and
(00:41):
problems and taxes and everything,but people forget about the character.
And the cultural, differences, growing upin Elaine, Arkansas is vastly different
than growing up in mountain home.
And we need to celebrate that we needto celebrate our uniqueness what
makes us all Arkansans also makes usdifferent and we need to celebrate those.
(01:01):
We don't spend enough time on that.
So that's what riding withRodney is actually going to do.
We're actually going to ridearound and look at and analyze.
And talk about right and learnwhat historical significant
locations you have what culturallysignificant places you have.
I want to know about every singlenook and cranny in every town.
(01:24):
I want to know whatmakes Elaine so special.
I want to know what makesCraighead county in their minds,
more special than Lonoke county.
And then vice versa.
I want to know, down in LonokeCounty, what makes Lonoke County
so unique, especially fromthe agricultural perspective.
I want to know everything aboutChicot County that I can learn.
So this is like that riding around withcelebrities or celebrities in cars or
(01:48):
whatever that is that Jerry Seinfeldhad, but we're bringing this local.
With a lot less fanfare, cause ifthis is the mug that you're going to
get, we're going to be struggling.
But yeah it's a similar premise, excepta lot less jokes, more serious topics.
We're still going to be alittle bit lighthearted.
And it's probably gonna be a lotlike James Corden's, a karaoke car
situation, depending on the playlist.
(02:09):
It all depends on what'son my music list that day.
I guess that's really gonna comedown to who you're riding with.
That's it.
That's it.
Tell me about where y'allbeen so far in the district.
I know you've been at this forabout six or eight weeks, maybe.
Tell me where y'all been.
Man, we've been to, ten plus counties.
20 plus cities cities like Helena, WestHelena, of course, Elaine, Arkansas.
(02:31):
We've also been down to Eudora.
We've been over to Lake Village.
We've been to Star City.
We've been to Harrison multiple times.
And of course we've been to Jonesboroand some of the bigger areas.
And we've got a, we've got a laundrylist of places that we're going to
be visiting across these 31 counties.
So when can we expect to see Riding withRodney and how often is it coming out?
(02:52):
Give us some details about asviewers, what we can expect.
We're expecting a weekly content,where I'm going to a new city.
With a new narrator every singleweek, because we want to be
able to digest that content.
I want, the citizens of Harrisonto watch this and see what makes
Elaine Arkansas so special, right?
(03:14):
I want the people in Eudora tosee that although we share a
lot of issues across the gambit.
Harrison, Arkansas especiallywhen you start talking about the
Buffalo national river, right?
Citizens in Eudora probably haven'teven visited the Buffalo national
river ever in their life, but theyneed to understand the significance
of that river because it is a funriver to float every Memorial day.
(03:37):
So you're also trying tocreate some synergy and some
interconnectedness within the districtbetween your cities and towns.
So people can be moreaware of their neighbors.
Is that what I'm hearing?
1, 000,
percent
and,
and
and it's
2 fold.
right?
Number 1.
It's hard for me to empathizewith the Buffalo National River
situation if I don't know anythingabout it and I'm not exposed to it.
(04:01):
It's hard for me to care aboutpublic education when my kids
go to private school, right?
So I want to bring all of this tothe forefront so that we can actually
talk about it and we can actuallyfeel some of the pain on issues.
And also celebrate some of thesuccesses on our uniqueness as well.
I didn't hear you say thisexplicitly, but this is implied.
(04:24):
This also becomes a listening tour.
If you're running forCongress, is that important?
And is that important to you?
And is that part of this program?
That's the second part, right?
Because I told you theprogram's twofold, right?
Too often, we've got legislators,we've got politicians that talk at us.
They effectively tell us what weshould and shouldn't care about.
It should actually be the reverse, right?
(04:46):
It should be, we have issuesspecific to Arkansas that my
congressional representatives shouldcare more about than some of the
issues they have over in Arizona.
Right issues are issues and we havesome of the same issues across every
geographical area in this country,but there are specific issues that I
want to talk to my congressional repabout that don't have anything to do
(05:10):
with some of the national hot buttontopics, and they're impossible to talk
to these guys don't even come home.
Steve.
I don't know.
I don't know where mycongressional representative is.
I'm still looking for him.
We appreciate what you're doing.
So any, any last messages youwant to give to people out there,
ways to get in touch with you?
What if somebody wants to sign up?
Do you have a specific means to say,hey, I want to drive around Sherwood
(05:34):
and tell you about where I grew up?
I know that's not the first congressionaldistrict, someone might be in Humnoke or
Possum Grape or Paragould, Pocahontas.
Osceola Trumann.
I can name a whole bunch of townsI'd love to know more about.
Oh yeah.
Shouts out to, to, former mayor PipTerry right down there in Humnoke, man.
Me and me and mayor Terry go way back.
But in order to get in touch withus, you can go and email us at
(05:57):
hello at Rodney for congress.
org and tell, tell my campaign team,tell me, Hey, I want to do this with you.
I want to tell you exactly why.
My area is so special to meand why you should care about
this area just as much as I do.
Man, this is a wonderful thing.
I cannot wait to see these videos.
Can't wait to see all thedifferent places around Arkansas.
(06:18):
And the first district andthe Delta is often forgotten.
Yes.
In Arkansas.
So this will also serve to bring someattention to that area of the state.
In places where people in Little Rock orWest Arkansas or Northwest Arkansas may
not realize what's going on in the Delta.
That's right.
That's right.
And we, and this is the biggestgeographical district in Arkansas.
When you start looking athow much land it covers.
(06:40):
You're talking about 31 countiesall the way from Boone, all the
way over to, the West Memphis area,all the way down to Chicot County
with Lake village and Eudora.
That's a lot of land to cover.
So when you sit back and you look at it, Ineed to be able to explain to the citizens
of Eudora, why you need to care about theBuffalo national river, because it may not
be the river that you care about, but Ibet you care about government overreach.
(07:04):
Tell me what's going onin the first district.
Man, a lot of stuff's going onin the first district, right?
The latest issue that came up isHelena West helena is without clean
potable drinking water right now.
We've got the National Guard deployed.
I think they've got a 2000 gallonwater buffalo deployed down there,
but that's not going to be enough.
We definitely need to, we need toreevaluate the infrastructure down there.
(07:27):
There's a lot of blame to pass around.
Everybody's going to owna little bit of that.
But right now the focus is makingsure that those children have clean,
potable drinking water so that theycan cook, they can eat, they can drink.
They can take showers the whole gambit.
That's the latest.
Now, is it in this the secondtime this has happened in a year?
The second time in recent months.
(07:49):
Yeah.
But when you actually look at it overa decade, Steve the, this it's happened
more than just a handful of times and,it goes into infrastructure and it goes
into, and money and resources, right?
Not only do you have to have the moneyand the funds available, but you also have
to be able to spend that money wisely.
And there's a, like I said, there'sa lot of blame to go around state
(08:11):
legislators, federal legislators,local, legislators, local leadership.
But at the end of the day, we really wantto focus on just making sure that we get
them back up and drinking clean water.
And then once we can go ahead and get,some stuff in place to move forward
and progress and permanently fix theproblem, then we're going to really start
hammering and asking some questions.
Anything you got plannedto help out over there.
(08:34):
Anything that Citizens can lookforward to, stepping up and helping.
Yeah, we're going to be asking and we'reorganizing that now my campaign team is
going to be working on that, right nowwe're going to be organizing drives to
provide water, bring water down there.
Pallets, slates of water.
Now our campaign team did reach outto walmart and walmart foundation and
(08:56):
there is some work being done there.
So that's a good sign because whatthey did for flint, michigan, if we
can just pick that up and airliftit over to Helena, west Helena,
we're going to be in great hands.
So shouts out to walmart for takingour call and helping us with that.
We've also reached out to a lot of thelocal leadership around and just made
sure that there's some awareness, right?
And that's the biggest thing thatwe can bring to the areas awareness
(09:18):
because when you go and talk to theaverage Arkansan right now, and this
issue has been going on for a few days.
They have no idea.
They have no idea what'sreally going on down there.
And I think k.
A.
I.
T.
And T.
H.
V.
actually covered it already,but I haven't seen KATV.
We've got to get more awareness.
We got to get people downthere to understand the gravity
of the situation because
(09:38):
babies don't have clean,drinkable water right now.
If people wanted to reach out to thecampaign, what's the best way for him
to get in touch with your campaign?
Or do you have a websiteor anything they can go to?
All of our contact informationis located on our website.
You can reach us at Rodney for congress.
org.
That's all one word, no numbers.
(09:59):
So it's R O D N E Y F O R C O N G RE S S dot O R G, Rodneyforcongress.
org.
And maybe an email address or somethingpeople can contact you through?
Yeah, our email addresses should all belisted there on the website, but the main
email address to remember anytime you wantto get ahold of anybody at the campaign is
(10:19):
going to be hello At Rodney for congress.
org.
Keep it simple.
I live by the kiss method.
That's easy to remember.
Okay.
Again, thanks Rodney.
And we'll be looking forward toriding with Rodney on a weekly
basis coming out of the campaign.
Absolutely.
Rodney for congress.
org y'all everybody.
Thanks for being here today.
Thanks a lot, everybody.
Bye.
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