December 13, 2025 • 19 mins
Originally aired on December 13, 2025. Doug's interview with Scott Null.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Eight oh two on Sports Talk seven ninety The Duck
Pike Show. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm doing this.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I still I didn't get a chance to look for
whoever asked me to do this. But as soon as
I got the request, I said, there's no way I
can't do it.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
So what I'm gonna do right now is bring in.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Let me find my button here, hold on, I got it,
Franky cap Scott, No, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
My friend?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Oh man, you found your button?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Are you sitting in a duck blind or a deer
stand or what?
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Well?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
You wouldn't be in a duck blind, would you?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
No?
Speaker 4 (00:32):
I mean I've got duck hunting across the road, said
a deer hunt on.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
We duck hunt on it from time.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
That's nice. It's not a bad.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Places, it's not real big, so we try not to
push it real hard.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, that's a good idea. That's because you know what
you're doing.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So let's I got asked to get you on the
phone and kind of go back to July, back to
when you were sitting at the house, got your feet
propped up, and you see a news crawl come across
the bottom of the screen or they break in to
give this horrible news about this horrible flood that's going
(01:10):
on in the Hill country. And after I talked to you,
I talked to Camille and she said, your wife, Camille
for of many years. She said she knew just from
the way you were looking at the TV that it
was she might as well go ahead and pack a
lunch and get your suitcase out, because you weren't staying
at home, were you?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Now? I was, I got I was walking around in
the shop.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, And that's what I.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Do both mornings, when I don't have a deer hune
or a fishing trip wind up, I'll come over to
the shop and kind of wander around and go, Okay,
this one we'll get done today.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
And it was all over everybody's news feeds on social media.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Sure, and then they started talking about how many little
girls were missing, and yeah, I've got a granddaughter of
that age. Yeah, and it it was just somebody that
started hitting me and I start pacing and I was just.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Wandering around in here. And then I found out.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
One of my buddies from high school his niece was
one of the ones that was missing, and size that
hit even harder.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
You know, I'm still wandering around.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Ca Mell came over here and she said, what are
you doing today when you know what you're gonna get
done today? And I says, I don't know. I can't concentrate.
I can't think about getting even done. I keep thinking
about those kids. And she says, you're thinking about going.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Aren't you? And I said, yeah, I am.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
She said, let me go get some stuff packed up,
You go get your what are you gonna do?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
You?
Speaker 4 (02:39):
You know, take just show up And I said, yeah,
I'm just gonna show up with my skids steer.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
She said, we'll go ahead and get the skids steer
on the trailer.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
And I'll go start packing you some stuff up. I said, yeah,
I'll just go up there for three or four days, sure,
and help them move the heavy stuff with the skids steer,
get it out of the way, and then let the
let the searchers do their thing behind that. And yeah,
twenty three days later, I packed up, came home.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Man, are the I'm sure they are, But I have
to ask, are the memories of being up there still
as vivid as they were when you were there?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, that's something never forget. I can't tell
you what I ate for breakfast yesterday.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Sure, I can tell you pretty much everything we did
up there and step bust up the guys. Yeah, everything
is really clear. The people that were there, you know,
the people of Center Point where I went, Uh, just
wonderful folks. I mean they had us back up there
(03:46):
for the first football game of the year. Yeah, they
brought us out onto the field and thanked us, and it.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Was it was a pretty cool deal. A whole bunch
of the guys I worked with showed up.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Did you did you feel a heavy sense of frustration
when you when you didn't find anything, when we didn't
feel like it was enough, or did you ever even
feel that. No, I had my guys going, and yeah,
they were working hard, good time every every day, and
(04:19):
we'd have pep talk in the mornings and yeah, just
tell each other, Yeah, this is what we're doing.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
We're doing it for a good reason.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, no complaints. Who's barking in the background.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
One of the smil's off seasons. That's the lab.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Oh yeah, they got they got the lab penned.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Oh gosh, that's not gonna work out well for him
if that lab changes his mind, is it now?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
She's she's about had enough. And when she has, when
she gets to the points he's had enough of it, Yeah,
she will let him know.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
She'll take off, She'll run real hard, and she'll go
straight to the pond and on and jump in the pond.
And she stands out there about twenty yards into the
pond and goes, y'all can't come get me.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, come on out. You can't swim this far out.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So but now, as far as the frustration stuff, there wasn't.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
I mean, there were times you got so wound up
because you knew.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
But you knew you had a body nearby.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Yeah, and you knew because the cadaver dogs were out
there in force, and the cadaver dogs telling you, yeah,
there's something here you just need now I've told you
where it is. It's kind of like an Easter egg hunt,
where you know, hey, it's.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
In this yard. Yeah, now you just got it. Now
I need you to find it.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Gosh.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
The cool parto was there was so many guys out
there that had the same mentality that I have when
I get my mindset on something, and they had.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
The same mentality. They want to quit, they won't leave.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
I put together a group of guys, I just grab
volunteers and I was. It was all centered at the
fire station, and I would go up there and seem
I can read people pretty well from all my years
and homicides, and I would go up there and just
kind of stand around a little bit in the mornings
(06:17):
when I was getting an assignment.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
For the day and we're you know, where they wanted
my crew to work.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
They would they'd map it out and say, hey, you
know we we.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Could use this area checked and cleared.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
And I would stand up there and pick guys and go, okay,
you know young young military firemen.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Yeah, yeah, I could pick those out.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
And then guys my age or so that were standing
around there and they had a chainsaw under their arm
or they yeah, they had real work gloves, you know,
heavy duty work gloves. They had that farmer rancher look
a bottom. And I'd go, okay, you're you're on my team.
(07:00):
And some of the best I had were like that,
and it was it was it was inspiring to have
that kind of people around you. And I had I
built up a crew and the guys at the headquarters
start calling it the Redneck crew. And because they would
send us to something weird. Yeah, after a while, you know,
(07:24):
they got to where, hey, send them the Redneck crew
over there and see if they can figure this out.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah, and it was.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
If it wasn't such a serious, devastating situation, it would
have been fun. And it sounds weird, but in a
camaraderie way, it was fun to have guys around me
that had the same attitude, the same same thought process,
and Okay, how can we figure this out?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
How can we get this done?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
The fun part, I think would be knowing that it was.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Let me change your word a little bit, instead of fun,
was it rewarding the reward that you knew your team
was gonna get.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
That's what made it fun, isn't it right?
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Yeah? Okay, that that in the carmaraderie. I hadn't felt
camaraderie since I left the police department.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Wow, you're still in touch with some of those guys.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, we've I've got probably i guess three
different group texts that we go back and forth with
and yeah, one of them is it's really fun. My
main crew that I had towards the end, the guys
that stuck it out two three weeks.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Wow, we have the title of our little groups, the
Woo Woo group. It was just one of those at
the end of the day, you know here and so yeah,
it's they're they're just great, great guys, but scattered out
all over Texas and we're trying to get back together.
One of us is gonna come down and fish with
me here for too long?
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah, I mean we're all staying staying in touch.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Pretty well.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Everybody went back to their lives and everybody still got
their mind on it.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Though.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, I'm sure is there at any point did you
just say, what if we could do this but you
weren't able to do that, or did you have all
the resources you really needed?
Speaker 3 (09:20):
It was odd in the very beginning.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
Yes, it was like, man, I wish I had this, Yeah,
I wish I had that. And after my crew had
cleared a couple of the areas, they would send us
into an area that'd map it out, give it to me.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I'd picked my.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
Volunteers and have them, you know, we'd all travel over
to wherever that area was, and it may be five
acres or it may be one hundred acres.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
And then I'd kind of give them an.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Idea of how long it would take us to clear it,
and then my crew cleared it in half the time
that I had estimated, you know, And so they kind
of got an idea that we were running a good group.
Me and one other guy ad them, guy from Poland
there's just solid gold, and we butied up and kind
(10:08):
of put our groups together. And then at that point
they said, whatever y'all need, just call us. And at
one point we were clearing an old nineteen forties gravel
pit and we had to have pumps pump. I told
them we need big pumps, and we pumped this gravel
(10:30):
pit out in a day and a half and by
using truckloaded pumps that they brought to me. Then we
needed to give a fifty thousand pound excavator down to
the bottom of it to clear all the debris, and
they got me a fifty thousand pound excavator. My excavator
guy says, I can't get my ax down in there.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Because it's it's too soft.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
So I called up and I got two eighteen wheelers
loads of those mats that they used to build pipelines,
and they were delivered that afternoon. I asked for an
amphibious excavator on one of my sites where I couldn't get.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
A regular accent.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
A day later, here rolls up on an eighteen wheelers
an amphibious excavator.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Oh my gosh, God, that must have felt so good.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
You know, Yeah, it was good. That was what I
mean by it was rewarding your fun or however you
want to put it. Was. There was other people above
me that were trusting me with it. Yeah, and saying, Okay,
what this dude over here, whatever he asked for, is
getting it done. Go get it, gets it done. Just
get them what they need.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
I know you guys, I know you guys found a
lot of personal items. Did you dig out anything and
look at it and just like make it maybe remind
you of your daughter, grandchildren, or your friend's daughter, anything
like that.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Yeah, just really moved you constantly.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
I mean there was the kid's shoes, those were tough,
and the various stuffed animals and teddy bears and.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Things like that were out there. Yeah, there was a
lot of that.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
There's one I've got And there was a Facebook group
that still is of getting people their belongings back.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
And I turned in tons. I told all my guys,
I said, you.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Find something that looks personal buried up in the mud,
and you know, whatever, whatever it is, just bring it over.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
To me and we'll put it in my truck.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
And they had a spot for us to put things,
and one of them didn't get didn't get picked up,
and I put it out there multiple times. Is a
blue stuffed rabbit, that little blue stuff rabbit sitting sitting
here in my office? Oh man, Yeah, I put it
out several times.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Ye baseball. You know one area, I don't know what
the deal was, but I found like a hundred golf balls.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I was just walking one of the areas after my
guys were cleared it.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
I was going through and double checking and it was
just golf balls just everywhere.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
It was very odd.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
I don't know if somebody that lives down there just
hits balls off into the river or.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
What sounds like.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
You were walking down the right side of the farewell
number three at Blackhawk and a.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Lot of them would have had iHeart logos on them.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Well, I picked one out. I picked out a pretty
good one. Yeah, and it was pretty clean. Yeah, I
picked it out. It's sitting in my truck.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
And I was just thinking, Yeah, it's gonna be my
putt and ball.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
There you go, man oh man, So what what's the
one memory that's gonna stick with you forever, no matter
how fried your brain gets one year old? What's the
one thing that really stands out?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Scott?
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Probably in the evenings and we would all go up
to the headquarters and there's a fellow there named Arturo
who cooked over thirty thousand plates over that three week period. Uh.
He's he's a food network guy, tre Ramon, and he's
been on all these different cooking shows and.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
He's just an unbelievable guy.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
And he did not cook us.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Just bs stuff. In the evenings, it was beef tips
and rights. I mean it was hard meals, really party
gourmet foods.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
And sitting around up there with my guys and the
guys from a couple other crews, and our turro would
always he knew that we would work late. There was
a lot of a lot of people were leaving at
four or five o'clock. It's hot, and they were worn out.
My guys wanted to work till dark.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Wow, And Arturo.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Knew that, and so he would hold back some food
for us. And then sitting around there all the all
the police officers from all over, the firemen from all
over in the country. They were all hanging out up
there because you know, they were they were taking over
the shift for the center point guys, and uh so
they could go get some rest and they come up
(15:11):
there and hang out the headquarters. And it was a
big kumbai I in the evenings.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
And that's the part I guess. It's like the police department.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Everybody was always asking me, you know, what's the worst
thing you ever saw in that? Honestly, I hit kind
of a control at to lead on that, and yeah,
that's what that's how you keep your brain saying. And
but you remember the the.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Good parts and the funny parts, you.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
Know, the things that that happened along the way where
you shake your head and go that that wouldn't happen
in any other situation than you know, uh, you know
a few of the rougher ones stick with you, and
of course you know they're buried, but they're there. And
that's you know, the outdoors is what got me through
the police department, and outdoors gets me through this. You know,
(15:59):
I can come back, go hunting, go fishing, go do
my thing, get reset.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
And I've had.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Several people ask me, spaan you you put.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
A lot into that. He had to take a lot
out of you. If it flooded like.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
That again tomorrow, what would what would your responsibl I
said'd be getting my trailer, getting my get my saws
and heading in that direction.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
And if you, if God forbid that would ever happen again,
I would just I would just text you and say
what time are you leaving?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
You know, I know you you're not gonna stop doing that.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
That's in you, man, and I on behalf of everybody
you helped with whatever you found and whatever you cleared
up there.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Yeah, thank you man. You know that, you know I
mean that.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah? Yeah, uh you mentioned to bite me on the intro. Yeah,
we did our We did.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Our fitting feeding Frenzy in September and John Lopez surprised
me with a plaque and he started, ah, I forgot
it's some kind of an award deal that I forgot the.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Name of it. Now on this just John blank.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
But he made an award and made me a plaque
and he wants to do it as an annual deal
in our charity feeding Frenzy and want to present it
to somebody.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Who you know who exemplified whatever I did.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, well that's that's gonna be. That's a pretty tall
hill to climb, I'm telling you right now.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
We're gonna have a little committee and we're gonna get together.
And you know, we watched our Facebook page, and sure,
you know, we know what what a lot of people
are doing.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
On the on the backside, and we you.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Know, we we've made friends through that Facebook and through
that bite me page, and no doubt a lot of
good people that we've that we've met along the way,
just like you with your listeners. And so we're gonna
we're gonna keep the John wants to make it an
annual thing, keep the tradition going.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
All right.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
It's kind of interesting that it choked I mean, it
takes a lot to choke me up, but he did
it on that one.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Man because they was a total surprise. I had no
idea who were doing that.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Well, I'm happy for you.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
I'm happy for whoever the.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Recipients are and of future awards like that, and mostly
I'm happy for the people they helped. That's that's what's
rewarding to me, is seeing that that there are still
people like you and the people who are going to
win this award in the future that are are willing
to just stop whatever they're doing and go do what
they know is the right thing to do. Thank you,
(18:31):
Scott Man for the bottom of my heart, and everybody
listening to this show, thank you for doing what you
did and and for sharing with us this morning.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Sure my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Man.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
We'll talk soon.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, I hope so hopefully have deer stand somewhere.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeh.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
All right, man, I'm gonna take some time off. I'm
gonna give you a call.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Good, I'm I'm ready, Okay.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Thank you Scott for real, all right, yes, sir, I
else it's one of the nicest guys on the planet,
one of the best guys to have on your team.
If you need something fixed, I don't care what it is.
Eight oh two on Sports Talk seven ninety The Duck
Pike Show. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm doing this.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I still I didn't get a chance to look for
whoever asked me to do this. But as soon as
I got the request, I said, there's no way I
can't do it.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
So what I'm gonna do right now is bring in.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Let me find my button here, hold on, I got it,
Franky cap Scott, No, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
My friend?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Oh man, you found your button?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Are you sitting in a duck blind or a deer
stand or what?
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Well?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
You wouldn't be in a duck blind, would you?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
No?
Speaker 4 (00:32):
I mean I've got duck hunting across the road, said
a deer hunt on.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
We duck hunt on it from time.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
That's nice. It's not a bad.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Places, it's not real big, so we try not to
push it real hard.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, that's a good idea. That's because you know what
you're doing.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So let's I got asked to get you on the
phone and kind of go back to July, back to
when you were sitting at the house, got your feet
propped up, and you see a news crawl come across
the bottom of the screen or they break in to
give this horrible news about this horrible flood that's going
(01:10):
on in the Hill country. And after I talked to you,
I talked to Camille and she said, your wife, Camille
for of many years. She said she knew just from
the way you were looking at the TV that it
was she might as well go ahead and pack a
lunch and get your suitcase out, because you weren't staying
at home, were you?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Now? I was, I got I was walking around in
the shop.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, And that's what I.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Do both mornings, when I don't have a deer hune
or a fishing trip wind up, I'll come over to
the shop and kind of wander around and go, Okay,
this one we'll get done today.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
And it was all over everybody's news feeds on social media.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Sure, and then they started talking about how many little
girls were missing, and yeah, I've got a granddaughter of
that age. Yeah, and it it was just somebody that
started hitting me and I start pacing and I was just.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Wandering around in here. And then I found out.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
One of my buddies from high school his niece was
one of the ones that was missing, and size that
hit even harder.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
You know, I'm still wandering around.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Ca Mell came over here and she said, what are
you doing today when you know what you're gonna get
done today? And I says, I don't know. I can't concentrate.
I can't think about getting even done. I keep thinking
about those kids. And she says, you're thinking about going.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Aren't you? And I said, yeah, I am.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
She said, let me go get some stuff packed up,
You go get your what are you gonna do?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
You?
Speaker 4 (02:39):
You know, take just show up And I said, yeah,
I'm just gonna show up with my skids steer.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
She said, we'll go ahead and get the skids steer
on the trailer.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
And I'll go start packing you some stuff up. I said, yeah,
I'll just go up there for three or four days, sure,
and help them move the heavy stuff with the skids steer,
get it out of the way, and then let the
let the searchers do their thing behind that. And yeah,
twenty three days later, I packed up, came home.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Man, are the I'm sure they are, But I have
to ask, are the memories of being up there still
as vivid as they were when you were there?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, that's something never forget. I can't tell
you what I ate for breakfast yesterday.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Sure, I can tell you pretty much everything we did
up there and step bust up the guys. Yeah, everything
is really clear. The people that were there, you know,
the people of Center Point where I went, Uh, just
wonderful folks. I mean they had us back up there
(03:46):
for the first football game of the year. Yeah, they
brought us out onto the field and thanked us, and it.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Was it was a pretty cool deal. A whole bunch
of the guys I worked with showed up.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Did you did you feel a heavy sense of frustration
when you when you didn't find anything, when we didn't
feel like it was enough, or did you ever even
feel that. No, I had my guys going, and yeah,
they were working hard, good time every every day, and
(04:19):
we'd have pep talk in the mornings and yeah, just
tell each other, Yeah, this is what we're doing.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
We're doing it for a good reason.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, no complaints. Who's barking in the background.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
One of the smil's off seasons. That's the lab.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Oh yeah, they got they got the lab penned.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Oh gosh, that's not gonna work out well for him
if that lab changes his mind, is it now?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
She's she's about had enough. And when she has, when
she gets to the points he's had enough of it, Yeah,
she will let him know.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
She'll take off, She'll run real hard, and she'll go
straight to the pond and on and jump in the pond.
And she stands out there about twenty yards into the
pond and goes, y'all can't come get me.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, come on out. You can't swim this far out.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So but now, as far as the frustration stuff, there wasn't.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
I mean, there were times you got so wound up
because you knew.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
But you knew you had a body nearby.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Yeah, and you knew because the cadaver dogs were out
there in force, and the cadaver dogs telling you, yeah,
there's something here you just need now I've told you
where it is. It's kind of like an Easter egg hunt,
where you know, hey, it's.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
In this yard. Yeah, now you just got it. Now
I need you to find it.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Gosh.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
The cool parto was there was so many guys out
there that had the same mentality that I have when
I get my mindset on something, and they had.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
The same mentality. They want to quit, they won't leave.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
I put together a group of guys, I just grab
volunteers and I was. It was all centered at the
fire station, and I would go up there and seem
I can read people pretty well from all my years
and homicides, and I would go up there and just
kind of stand around a little bit in the mornings
(06:17):
when I was getting an assignment.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
For the day and we're you know, where they wanted
my crew to work.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
They would they'd map it out and say, hey, you
know we we.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Could use this area checked and cleared.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
And I would stand up there and pick guys and go, okay,
you know young young military firemen.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Yeah, yeah, I could pick those out.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
And then guys my age or so that were standing
around there and they had a chainsaw under their arm
or they yeah, they had real work gloves, you know,
heavy duty work gloves. They had that farmer rancher look
a bottom. And I'd go, okay, you're you're on my team.
(07:00):
And some of the best I had were like that,
and it was it was it was inspiring to have
that kind of people around you. And I had I
built up a crew and the guys at the headquarters
start calling it the Redneck crew. And because they would
send us to something weird. Yeah, after a while, you know,
(07:24):
they got to where, hey, send them the Redneck crew
over there and see if they can figure this out.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah, and it was.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
If it wasn't such a serious, devastating situation, it would
have been fun. And it sounds weird, but in a
camaraderie way, it was fun to have guys around me
that had the same attitude, the same same thought process,
and Okay, how can we figure this out?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
How can we get this done?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
The fun part, I think would be knowing that it was.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Let me change your word a little bit, instead of fun,
was it rewarding the reward that you knew your team
was gonna get.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
That's what made it fun, isn't it right?
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Yeah? Okay, that that in the carmaraderie. I hadn't felt
camaraderie since I left the police department.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Wow, you're still in touch with some of those guys.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, we've I've got probably i guess three
different group texts that we go back and forth with
and yeah, one of them is it's really fun. My
main crew that I had towards the end, the guys
that stuck it out two three weeks.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Wow, we have the title of our little groups, the
Woo Woo group. It was just one of those at
the end of the day, you know here and so yeah,
it's they're they're just great, great guys, but scattered out
all over Texas and we're trying to get back together.
One of us is gonna come down and fish with
me here for too long?
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah, I mean we're all staying staying in touch.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Pretty well.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Everybody went back to their lives and everybody still got
their mind on it.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Though.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, I'm sure is there at any point did you
just say, what if we could do this but you
weren't able to do that, or did you have all
the resources you really needed?
Speaker 3 (09:20):
It was odd in the very beginning.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
Yes, it was like, man, I wish I had this, Yeah,
I wish I had that. And after my crew had
cleared a couple of the areas, they would send us
into an area that'd map it out, give it to me.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I'd picked my.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
Volunteers and have them, you know, we'd all travel over
to wherever that area was, and it may be five
acres or it may be one hundred acres.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
And then I'd kind of give them an.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Idea of how long it would take us to clear it,
and then my crew cleared it in half the time
that I had estimated, you know, And so they kind
of got an idea that we were running a good group.
Me and one other guy ad them, guy from Poland
there's just solid gold, and we butied up and kind
(10:08):
of put our groups together. And then at that point
they said, whatever y'all need, just call us. And at
one point we were clearing an old nineteen forties gravel
pit and we had to have pumps pump. I told
them we need big pumps, and we pumped this gravel
(10:30):
pit out in a day and a half and by
using truckloaded pumps that they brought to me. Then we
needed to give a fifty thousand pound excavator down to
the bottom of it to clear all the debris, and
they got me a fifty thousand pound excavator. My excavator
guy says, I can't get my ax down in there.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Because it's it's too soft.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
So I called up and I got two eighteen wheelers
loads of those mats that they used to build pipelines,
and they were delivered that afternoon. I asked for an
amphibious excavator on one of my sites where I couldn't get.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
A regular accent.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
A day later, here rolls up on an eighteen wheelers
an amphibious excavator.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Oh my gosh, God, that must have felt so good.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
You know, Yeah, it was good. That was what I
mean by it was rewarding your fun or however you
want to put it. Was. There was other people above
me that were trusting me with it. Yeah, and saying, Okay,
what this dude over here, whatever he asked for, is
getting it done. Go get it, gets it done. Just
get them what they need.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
I know you guys, I know you guys found a
lot of personal items. Did you dig out anything and
look at it and just like make it maybe remind
you of your daughter, grandchildren, or your friend's daughter, anything
like that.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Yeah, just really moved you constantly.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
I mean there was the kid's shoes, those were tough,
and the various stuffed animals and teddy bears and.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Things like that were out there. Yeah, there was a
lot of that.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
There's one I've got And there was a Facebook group
that still is of getting people their belongings back.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
And I turned in tons. I told all my guys,
I said, you.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Find something that looks personal buried up in the mud,
and you know, whatever, whatever it is, just bring it over.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
To me and we'll put it in my truck.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
And they had a spot for us to put things,
and one of them didn't get didn't get picked up,
and I put it out there multiple times. Is a
blue stuffed rabbit, that little blue stuff rabbit sitting sitting
here in my office? Oh man, Yeah, I put it
out several times.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Ye baseball. You know one area, I don't know what
the deal was, but I found like a hundred golf balls.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I was just walking one of the areas after my
guys were cleared it.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
I was going through and double checking and it was
just golf balls just everywhere.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
It was very odd.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
I don't know if somebody that lives down there just
hits balls off into the river or.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
What sounds like.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
You were walking down the right side of the farewell
number three at Blackhawk and a.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Lot of them would have had iHeart logos on them.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Well, I picked one out. I picked out a pretty
good one. Yeah, and it was pretty clean. Yeah, I
picked it out. It's sitting in my truck.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
And I was just thinking, Yeah, it's gonna be my
putt and ball.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
There you go, man oh man, So what what's the
one memory that's gonna stick with you forever, no matter
how fried your brain gets one year old? What's the
one thing that really stands out?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Scott?
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Probably in the evenings and we would all go up
to the headquarters and there's a fellow there named Arturo
who cooked over thirty thousand plates over that three week period. Uh.
He's he's a food network guy, tre Ramon, and he's
been on all these different cooking shows and.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
He's just an unbelievable guy.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
And he did not cook us.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Just bs stuff. In the evenings, it was beef tips
and rights. I mean it was hard meals, really party
gourmet foods.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
And sitting around up there with my guys and the
guys from a couple other crews, and our turro would
always he knew that we would work late. There was
a lot of a lot of people were leaving at
four or five o'clock. It's hot, and they were worn out.
My guys wanted to work till dark.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Wow, And Arturo.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Knew that, and so he would hold back some food
for us. And then sitting around there all the all
the police officers from all over, the firemen from all
over in the country. They were all hanging out up
there because you know, they were they were taking over
the shift for the center point guys, and uh so
they could go get some rest and they come up
(15:11):
there and hang out the headquarters. And it was a
big kumbai I in the evenings.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
And that's the part I guess. It's like the police department.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Everybody was always asking me, you know, what's the worst
thing you ever saw in that? Honestly, I hit kind
of a control at to lead on that, and yeah,
that's what that's how you keep your brain saying. And
but you remember the the.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Good parts and the funny parts, you.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
Know, the things that that happened along the way where
you shake your head and go that that wouldn't happen
in any other situation than you know, uh, you know
a few of the rougher ones stick with you, and
of course you know they're buried, but they're there. And
that's you know, the outdoors is what got me through
the police department, and outdoors gets me through this. You know,
(15:59):
I can come back, go hunting, go fishing, go do
my thing, get reset.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
And I've had.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Several people ask me, spaan you you put.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
A lot into that. He had to take a lot
out of you. If it flooded like.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
That again tomorrow, what would what would your responsibl I
said'd be getting my trailer, getting my get my saws
and heading in that direction.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
And if you, if God forbid that would ever happen again,
I would just I would just text you and say
what time are you leaving?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
You know, I know you you're not gonna stop doing that.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
That's in you, man, and I on behalf of everybody
you helped with whatever you found and whatever you cleared
up there.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Yeah, thank you man. You know that, you know I
mean that.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah? Yeah, uh you mentioned to bite me on the intro. Yeah,
we did our We did.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Our fitting feeding Frenzy in September and John Lopez surprised
me with a plaque and he started, ah, I forgot
it's some kind of an award deal that I forgot the.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Name of it. Now on this just John blank.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
But he made an award and made me a plaque
and he wants to do it as an annual deal
in our charity feeding Frenzy and want to present it
to somebody.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Who you know who exemplified whatever I did.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, well that's that's gonna be. That's a pretty tall
hill to climb, I'm telling you right now.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
We're gonna have a little committee and we're gonna get together.
And you know, we watched our Facebook page, and sure,
you know, we know what what a lot of people
are doing.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
On the on the backside, and we you.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Know, we we've made friends through that Facebook and through
that bite me page, and no doubt a lot of
good people that we've that we've met along the way,
just like you with your listeners. And so we're gonna
we're gonna keep the John wants to make it an
annual thing, keep the tradition going.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
All right.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
It's kind of interesting that it choked I mean, it
takes a lot to choke me up, but he did
it on that one.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Man because they was a total surprise. I had no
idea who were doing that.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Well, I'm happy for you.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
I'm happy for whoever the.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Recipients are and of future awards like that, and mostly
I'm happy for the people they helped. That's that's what's
rewarding to me, is seeing that that there are still
people like you and the people who are going to
win this award in the future that are are willing
to just stop whatever they're doing and go do what
they know is the right thing to do. Thank you,
(18:31):
Scott Man for the bottom of my heart, and everybody
listening to this show, thank you for doing what you
did and and for sharing with us this morning.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Sure my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Man.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
We'll talk soon.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, I hope so hopefully have deer stand somewhere.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeh.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
All right, man, I'm gonna take some time off. I'm
gonna give you a call.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Good, I'm I'm ready, Okay.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Thank you Scott for real, all right, yes, sir, I
else it's one of the nicest guys on the planet,
one of the best guys to have on your team.
If you need something fixed, I don't care what it is.
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