November 18, 2025 • 37 mins
Delegate Geno Chiarelli, R, Monongalia, 78, on a recent economic development trip to Lisbon, Portugal.
Founder and President of the Forgotten Flag Foundation Chris Staud on their organization- to promote Unity and Patriotism through the proper display of the flag
Founder and President of the Forgotten Flag Foundation Chris Staud on their organization- to promote Unity and Patriotism through the proper display of the flag
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is the Talk of the Town from Morgantown to Klucksburg.
If it's happening, we're talking about it. Call the show
toll free at one eight hundred seven sixty five eight
two five five. Now Here is your host for the
Talk of the Town, Mike Nolting.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well, good Tuesday morning, and welcome to Talk of the Town.
Just a few clouds and thirty three degrees in the
University City.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
I'm Mike Nolton.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
You'll find me out on x as your news guy,
and our producer this morning is the voice of the
Clay Bettel CBS Ethan Collins. And also we've got the
text line for you today. That number is three oh
four Talk three oh four. Well, welcome to the program.
A couple of things I guess to get caught up
(00:49):
on right off the bat.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
You know, there's a company called cloud Flair.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Never heard of it until just about soh let's see
it's nine oh six. That would be about two twenty
one minutes ago. Would be the first time I've heard
of that company. Now, large portions of the Internet struggling
right now to load because of an issue at cloud Fair.
At just about eight forty five this morning, they released
(01:15):
this statement that they saw a spike in unusual traffic
to one of Cloudfair's services beginning at last night, just
before midnight. Now they don't know yet the cause of
the spike in unusual traffic. Now they're all hands on
deck to make sure all traffic is served without airs,
(01:37):
and after that they're going to turn their attention to
investigating the cause of the unusual spike in traffic and
they will post updates to the cloudfair status dot com
website as those updates are available. I can tell you
from here I've experienced kind of hit and miss internet connectivity.
(01:59):
One minute that I can get on Metro newswvmetronews dot com.
If I try to refresh that page, maybe it won't go,
can't get into x at all. But nevertheless, that is
an error or an outage caused by some unusual traffic
(02:20):
at the Cloudfare Internet provider.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
They are working on that issue.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
And that you'll be able to get updates at cloudfairstatus
dot com or I'm sure if you watch your local
law watchwvmetronews dot com they will keep you up to date.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Well.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Last night at the Mountain Layer inside the gold Ballroom
just About fifty people got together to talk about proposed
increases to the Public Employees Insurance Agency policies. The pei
A Finance Board was on hand, a few of them virtually,
but certainly were several on hand. Daily, co President of
(03:03):
West Virginia of Education West Virginia, addressed the crowd and
Daily told the members, don't be mad at the finance Board.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
These people are doing what they can.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Our problem is really with the state legislature that's told us.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
For the last year that our last five years, we're.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Going to find a solution to this problem and we're
going to quit burdening you with premium increases year over
a year now. There was one elected official in the
crowd last night. That was State Senator Jay Taylor from
Taylor County. And I think that there were some other
(03:43):
local representatives that had commitments last night that were not
able to be there, But certainly the retirees had the
loudest voice at the podium last night, and one of
the retirees called for a cost of living increased system
similar to what state troopers have as part of codified
(04:05):
state law. That was the other thing about the spousal
the additional charge for the spousal addition to the plans
was that was codified in law and didn't have anything
to do with the PEIA Finance Board, but certainly heard about.
One retiree from Taylor County recently turned one hundred years old,
(04:28):
has been retired for forty plus years and she has
weathered the storm. Forty nine and a half percent increases
over the last three years and everything that is coming
now and what most of the retirees will tell you
that they really have, they've got, they've got nothing to
(04:50):
fall back on, and when these increases happen, it is
an erosion of their wages that continues to erode and
they really have no to replace that, and as they
get older, the prospects are even more bleak. So the
PEIA Finance Board they'll be voting on that measure coming
(05:12):
up next month in the month of December. Now at
the bottom of the hour, the Ukrainian Mountaineers Association and
the WVU Army ROTC are hosting Senior Lieutenant MICHAELA.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Melnik.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
He's a hero of the twenty twenty three Ukrainian counter offensive.
He's going to share his thoughts and provide some updates
on conditions in the battlefield and thought it was really
interesting to speak with Lieutenant Melnik yesterday on the program,
and one of the things that he talked about is
(05:49):
the fact that the conventional conflicts of infantry units clashing
head to head really aren't happening. It's more or less
units that are presiding over what he called a kill zone,
and the primary tools of battle are drones, and the
idea is that the kill zone is where you want
(06:12):
to down the drones before they get into your airspace
or cause damage to your infrastructure. That's primarily the battle there.
Thought it was interesting that the infantry Bradley fighting vehicle
is making a comeback in the Ukrainian Russian conflict. That
I also found to be very interesting. Nevertheless, he'll be
(06:35):
in the Rhododendron room at the Mountain Lair at nine
point thirty this morning that is open to the public
and he's going to be talking about the battlefield conditions,
his experiences, and don't forget that he lost both legs
in that campaign, and he'll be talking to ROTC cadets
there at the Mountain Lair. One of the big takeaways
(06:58):
I got from that was that the the United States
needs to evolve military tactics, that our tactics are too
conventional and do not incorporate drone warfare enough, so be
interesting to see what he has to say. Coming up
next to a few members of the House of Delegates
recently returned from an economic mission to Lisbon, Portugal. We'll
(07:22):
be speaking with the delegate representing the seventy eighth district,
Geno Shiarelli. Coming up next, we'll find out more about
that trip and exactly what is in Portugal. You know what,
there might be a lot more similarities than what you think.
Few clouds thirty three in more Contown. Welcome to the program.
(07:43):
We'll be back after this on AM fourteen forty FM
one four point five WAJR.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
We are talking about your town. Now back to the
talk of the town.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
A good Tuesday morning, just a few clouds and thirty
three degrees in the University city. But the bad news
is the rain is coming this afternoon and ninety percent
chance of rain and a high temperature of forty four degrees,
so it sounds like it could very likely be a cool,
wet fall afternoon across Morgantown. On the phone, Delegate Geno
(08:26):
Shiarelli is with us and good morning Gino.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
How are you doing great?
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Mike, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Absolutely pleasure to have you on GENO. Now.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Recently, you and a group of other House members returned
from a trip to Lisbon, Portugal.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Who all went and why Portugal?
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Sure? So the members that went on the trip were myself,
Ryan Browning, Jonathan Kyle, Eric Moore, and Mike Hornby and
we attended the Web Summit, which is an annual tech
AI conference that happens every year. There there were over
seventy thousand people there representing all degrees all types of
(09:07):
companies in the field, from the you know, major fortune
five hundred companies down to startups that are still in
the seating phase. Everybody is offering their vision, economic outlooks.
Everybody is showcasing their startup companies. This is one of
the best places to do it because Lisbon has been
deemed the effectively the startup capital of the world, so
(09:28):
it attracts people from all all corners.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
Of the planet.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Wow, that's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I did some research on Portugal found out that you
know what, our weather patterns are kind of the same.
The top industry in the country of Portugal happens to
be forestry another kind of parallel that we have just
seemed like there we have a lot more in common
than we don't. Did you get that impression being on
the ground.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
I think that there are certain elements that we can
relate to. I think that the nature of the way
that the country has set up, the way that the
ecosystem fueled by combination of factors including high concentration of
engineering graduates, strong culture of innovation, support of policy environment
with with with visa opportunities and tax incentives for entrepreneurs.
(10:20):
There are a lot of reasons why people want to
go there to work on their startups. We met quite
a number of people from the United States. We were
speaking to one this young lady from Taiwan, and as
soon as we told her that we were from West Virginia,
she says, oh, my gosh, I went to Marshall. So
it really does bring in people from everywhere. And despite
(10:42):
being somewhere that felt different in a lot of ways,
it felt like we were right at home in a
lot of ways. It really reinforced how small the world is.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So we've got Delli get Gino Sheiarelli with us fresh
back from an economic mission to Lisbon, Portugal. So you
and your group a laws when you're there with that
large amount of companies and people representing technological interests, and
then you take a look back at a few of
the most recent legislative sessions, some of the things that
(11:12):
we've done to increase economic development, like the microgrid build
and some other things along the way.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
What are you looking for and how do you sell
West Virginia.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Well, what we're looking for is we sort of tailor
our approach depending on what level the company was in.
While we were there, the startup companies that were looking
to grow were divided into three categories. There was alpha, data,
and growth. The alpha ones were early on. They've raised
somewhere between I think two hundred and fifty thousand to
one point five million dollars. They're looking at just getting started.
(11:47):
They have something of some veracity, they're looking to make
some sort of wave, and they're looking to grow beyond that.
The beta stage is a little bit farther on that.
They've raised upwards of seven point five million dollars. A
little bit farther along, we talked to a number of
companies that were already exploring the United States. They're looking
for the best way to expand their own personal market.
And then the growth stages are effectively startups that are
(12:10):
ready to become full on enterprises. Lisbon and the Company
and Web Summit has created, I believe ten or so
what they call unicorns, big massive explosions in these companies
that just take off there. I think that they're worth,
you know, collectively, like thirty five billion euros. So that
there was every different to every company in all these
(12:32):
stages was looking for something a little bit different. So
we would go into the into these booths, we would
speak with the owners. Some had very very thick language barriers,
but everybody really spoke some degree of English. So we
were able to have this conversation with everybody. We look
at how can we help you get to the United States,
How can we help you grow your business? And most importantly,
how can we help you find a home here in
(12:53):
the States. In West Virginia specifically.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Well, what do they tell you they need? How do
we get them over here?
Speaker 4 (12:58):
Well, I think a lot of people. One of the
biggest things that I one of the biggest conversations that
I had with people, because I was specifically looking into
health tech, was a lot of them are looking for
FDA approval. A lot of them are looking for FDA clearance,
and a lot of these most of the startups that
I spoke to, they had FDA clearance well their country's
version of the FDA. They had clearance in their own country,
(13:20):
whether it's Columbia or Brazil or wherever. Most of the
companies that I talked to were already in pretty well
with their own governments. So one of the hurdles that
they have to face when it comes to FDA clearance
here is when they present the FDA with research. The
FDA wants to see research done on Americans. They want
to see American data, whether it's you know, women's health
(13:41):
or rural healthcare. They want to know what the ramifications
are of that when it comes to citizens here. So
a lot of companies are looking to do research. I
know companies that have already worked with UPMC in the
past and McGee Women's which is just about hour and
a half or so north of us here in Morgantown.
There's some that are involved with Harvard, there are some
that are involved in Texas. Some are already in conversations
(14:03):
with the Department of Defense here so if they want
FDA clearance, they have to manufacture here. So basically it
is not a one size fits all approach. But we
met with these companies companies individually and typically, no matter
what they need, we have some sort of angle to
offer them. And we were more than happy to welcome
(14:23):
that because, as we know, the more jobs that we
have here, the better in a position that we are.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
You know, Geno, former Governor Jim Justice used to refer
to the state as the diamond and the rough. And
the reason that I bring that up is because you
ran into the lady there from Taiwan who went to Marshall.
You've got the cyber security Center being built on the
campus of Marshall, Vantage Ventures on the campus of West
(14:49):
Virginia University, and there's talk of another cybersecurity announcement coming
here to Morgantown. So when you go to these conferences,
you've got a lot to talk.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
To people about.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And I guess the question here is does higher education
play a role in creating a landing zone for one
of these companies to set down roots.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
It absolutely does. I think the resources that are available
to universities, I think the programs that they have set
up and are continuing to set up. One of our
biggest sales was when it comes to these companies because
there was so much tech, because there was so much
AI and web based companies. We go to them and
say we are at the ground floor when it comes
to technology and this higher end tech stuff. We want
(15:38):
you to come here and be a part of the
initial growth explosion.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
We want to.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Explore these types of these types of jobs. We want
to do this type of industry. We have a ton
of opportunity here and we want to do everything that
we can. And I think if it involves partnering university,
I don't see how path forward to a lot of
this stuff doesn't involve our great universities.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Now, you know what, I don't expect Geese Company to
build a twenty five story high rise in Charleston anytime soon.
But in your estimation, how realistic is it that something
would come from a trip like this.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Well, I'd say of there were hundreds and hundreds of
companies there. We've networked probably with our group about between
one hundred and fifty or two hundred or so. I
would say of those two hundred that we establish a
connection with, some are farther along in the process. Some
are just starting out, so some are looking at, you know,
let's reconnect in five or so years. But of all
(16:33):
the ones that we talk to, there are five to
six where there are some very very promising leads. They
really are interested. They're far long enough in the process
where we can say we can spring into action. Now
we can help you take a look at the United States.
We want you to come here. So I would say
it's more more realistic than not to say that we
might see some of these companies start to come over
(16:54):
to the United States West Virginia specifically within the next
year or so.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Take us behind the curtain. When you get a lead
like that that looks to be relatively viable, is there
someone at WVU or Marshall that you kind of maybe
not hand that person off to, but introduce them to them.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Well, we have a scheduled debrief later today. We're going
to get all the members that went on the trip
together on a zoom call. We're gonna go over and
catalog everything. We're gonna let everybody know. We're basically we're
going to compare notes, talk about everybody that we talked to,
and then from there, we're going to begin network great
and we're going to talk about who do we need
to hand off to this person, who do we need
to loop in from this innovation area, Who do we
(17:37):
need to Is there an investor that we could talk
to today today at three o'clock. Actually, we're having our
debrief and then we're going to come up with an
action plan from there, and I imagine we're going to
have some zoom calls set up with these companies by
the end of this week, if not beginning of next.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Okay, good deal. Delegate Genociarelli from mon County. Hey, Geno,
really do appreciate your time, and let's get together and
do it again soon.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Call me anytime.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yes, sir, you take care of have a great day.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Ginoshirelli, representing the eighty second District, certainly appreciate his time.
An update from the top of the show, cloud Fare,
an internet provider, is experiencing an outage this morning that
is making some portions of the Internet difficult to load,
so you might not be able to get to your
(18:25):
favorite website now. Some of the most recent information here
says that websites like x and chat GPT are being affected,
primarily by this outage, and the company in a statement
says that last night before midnight, they started to get
some suspicious traffic at a very high volume that led
(18:49):
to some errors across their system due to that increased traffic.
Right now they are focused on getting that system up
and running again and the capacity back to a one
hundred percent. And the company says in a statement that
was released at just about eight forty five this morning,
that once they get this system back up and running,
(19:12):
it will be all hands on deck to get to
the source of that suspicious increased traffic that hit that
system just before midnight last night.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
So we'll keep you posted there.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Coming up next, I'm going to speak with Chris Stodd
with the Forgotten Flag Foundation.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
This is a great story, folks.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Let me tell you the Forgotten Flag Foundation has the
mission of promoting unity, patriotism, and purpose and they do
it through ensuring that flags are properly displayed at in
communities throughout the area.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Join the conversation at one eight hundred and seven sixty
five eight two five five.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
This is the talk of the town.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Well, good Tuesday morning.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Just a few clouds at the moment, thirty three degrees
in the University City. Now, Metronewsaki Weather says that weather
picture is going to change drastically as we move into
the afternoon.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
We'll pick up a ninety.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Percent chance of rain, plenty of clouds, a high of
forty four degrees. We'll keep our eyes on that. Right now,
we've got Chris Stoud in the studio. Now get your
name correct, stud Stodd. Okay, all right, Chris Dodd. Chris
is with the Forgotten Flag Foundation, And before we went
to break, let you know that they promote unity, patriotism,
(20:49):
and purpose through the proper display of flags.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Chris, welcome to the program. Glad to have you here.
How this all gets started, Well, the story.
Speaker 6 (20:59):
Goes back to nineteen ninety seven. I returned from my
first duty overseas from South Korea, and I went from
E one to E four in one year. And when
I got to Fort Carson, Colorado, I wanted to make
a sergeant.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
So there's a couple of ways to do that.
Speaker 6 (21:15):
You have to, of course, get promotion points through physical
fitness or you know, rifle qualifications. So I walked by
this portrait of a soldier on squadron headquarters and said
soldier the month I'm like, wow, that sounds pretty cool.
I said, let me go talk to the first sergeant
about it. So knocked on Top's office, Come on in.
(21:37):
So I start talking to him. He's like, it's hard
to win, and if you win, you know you have
a good chance of making sergeant. And I said, well,
I'm going to win. So he gave me this study
guid It was like two inches thick, and I'm like, man,
I'm not good at this stuff. So it took me
a couple of weeks to I thought. I memorized the
whole book and I was fairly confident when I went in,
(21:57):
so knocked on the door. From the door there's a
table full of sergeant majors, all nids. Didn't know one
of them. Of course, I'm in my class a's I
do on my drilling ceremony. Go sit down at attention,
and I'm like, I got this. So the first question
right out of the gate was specialist odd, how many
trucks are there on a military post.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 6 (22:20):
I'm like, I'm starting to think how many battalions divisions?
And I'm like, I come up with this number, thirteen
five hundred, I said, I'm like close. He says, I
thought I was close. He goes, you're not even close.
I said, hire it lowers, like the price is right.
So he goes way way lower. So I'm like, well,
what is it. He goes, there's one. I said, geez.
In my mind, I'm like, I'm already out of this
(22:42):
first question, out of the gate.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
I'm done.
Speaker 6 (22:44):
So he goes, you know what a truck is? I'm like, sorry, Major,
I'm thinking I'm gonna try to be ask this guy.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
You know what I mean? I said, I think, I'm
not even sure.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
He goes, well, there's one truck and it's on the
squadron or post head corps on top of the flagpole,
and it's the.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Ball on top of the flagpoles called a truck.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
So he continues to drill me. He goes, do you
know what's in there? I'm like, Sergeant Major, I don't
know at this point in time. Well, he goes, there's
a match. There's a bullet and a razor blade. Then
he goes, you know what that's for. I'm like, I
don't know, story Major, So he goes, back in the
old days, if your ford was taken over the last
(23:24):
soldier would go to the flag pole, lean the flagpole over,
and inside of that truck was that match, bullet.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
And razor blade. He said.
Speaker 6 (23:31):
The soldier would take the razor blade out, take the
flag off the pole, shred it, take the match, burn it,
and then use the bullet to either defend himself or
you know, commit suicide. So I'm like, wow, that's the
coolest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
But I never thought it'd be a.
Speaker 5 (23:48):
Truck, never in a million years.
Speaker 6 (23:50):
And like what I was telling you is, I speak
in front of a lot of veterans, and it's amazing
how many people don't know that part of history, you know,
in the military. So I just was enamored with military
history and flags and basically that's where, you know, the
mindset was where I just loved the country and I
(24:11):
knew at some point in time in my life that
I wanted to give back. And it only took me
thirty years to figure that out, but fortunately we got
to that point.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, and I believe that was in Canaansburg and that
flagpole ninety five feet tall. If I've got my facts right,
I've lost my notes here, but I think it was
put up in nineteen fifty three and you happened to
see that and kind of rubbed you the wrong way.
Speaker 6 (24:40):
It was about this time of year. I'll never forget it.
I woke up and looked over in the distance. There
was an industrial complex right in the front of Stairs
as Chocolate and Cannesburg.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
I'm not sure people.
Speaker 6 (24:51):
I'm sure people have been to Stairs is, but it's
been around for a long time. It's called Penn Transformer
and they actually build wordheads. They used to build warhead
in World War Two, so they actually would black out
the windows in Cannonsburg because they were scared to get
bombed from you know, from overseas. But I woke up
and the leaves have just fallen off the tree, like
(25:11):
we had the strong.
Speaker 5 (25:12):
Winds the past couple of days. And I looked over.
Speaker 6 (25:14):
It's probably about one hundred and fifty yards from my house,
and I saw this abandoned flagpole and it hit me
like a bolt of lightning.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
This is what I want to do.
Speaker 6 (25:22):
And I remember driving I used to work in Morgantown
at that time, when I was commuting to UH to Morgantown,
and I had all these ideas, like a roll decks
in my mind, and I got into the office and
I started taking notes, and I started calling people up
and just talking to him a thousand miles an hour.
They're like, what is this guy thinking right now? And
(25:43):
I remember, I'll never forget. I called people that I
thought would want to be on the board, and they
had every excuse not to do it. You know, They're like, well,
I have to get my dog groomed on these days.
And I'm like, you just tell me you don't want
to do it. So that push that pushed me even
more so. Once I saw that flag pole, I gathered
my thoughts. I went to the mayor of Cannabisburg, Dave Rome,
(26:06):
and partnered with him, and he was a tremendous help.
There's no way we could have done it without him.
And so he got a meeting with Penn Transformer. We
had ten minutes to kind of talk them into doing
this project with us, and we went in there and
two hours later we're out on the job site where
(26:27):
the flag poles at. He has landscaping companies and removing trees.
So at that point I'm like, well we're going to
move forward. So almost story short, in less than ninety days,
we raised thirty thousand dollars and had that flag restored
and we had it dedicated on Flag Day this year,
June fourteenth.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
That's amazing. That's amazing. With a truck too.
Speaker 6 (26:49):
With a truck and exactly what is it that truck
is in that truck Now, it's going to go in
every truck that we put in this country.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
I'll tell you that right now.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
I'll tell you what. We're gonna take a real quick
break when we come back.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
We're going to find out from Chris what is next
for the Forgotten Flag Foundation. We'll do that next on
Talking to Town and fourteen forty f M. One O
four point five W A Jr.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Now back to the Talk of the town.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Good morning, it is a Tuesday, nine forty six.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
We've got Chris Stodd with us from the Forgotten Flag Foundation.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
And one thing I think.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
It's important to bring up at this point because you know,
I'll tell you what. We live in a world where
it can be dangerous to have an opinion. Uh, this
is a political we're promoting unity and patriotism here Chris
Stodd with us here this morning. Good morning, Chris, morning, Yeah, No,
talk about that message of unity.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I think it's important right now.
Speaker 6 (27:53):
So it's it's been very botherisome for me these past
couple of years, I would say ten or so to
see the country divide internally strictly, we're doing it to
ourselves and it comes from the political tone from both sides.
And I think everybody through the election cycle and another
(28:14):
election cycle which it gets, seems to get worse and
worse and worse. And I think it starts with the politicians.
I believe that they have to change their tone where
they can have an intelligent conversation on any subject for
that matter. But when we start this foundation, I definitely
want to have that tone in front of any group,
Republican Democrat, we're talking to kids. We want to be
(28:36):
politically neutral and stay on those three things that we
want to do as far as the foundation, which is
taking care of veterans, community outreach, and raise patriotism.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
But you've just reached me because I can't think of
anything it could be more unifying than our flag.
Speaker 6 (28:51):
You would be surprised. You would be surprised. And that's
what we're going to fix. I can guarantee you that.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Okay, well, good, well, then tell us what's next.
Speaker 6 (28:59):
So what's next to this is our first we haven't
even been a corporation for less than four months. We
have our five oh one C three paperwork submitted. We
should have approval in January, so that's going to be
a huge step for us moving forward raising funds. We've
done so many projects in the past three weeks.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
That's been unbelievable.
Speaker 6 (29:19):
In conjunction with Veterans Day, we were in the Veterans
Day Parade in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
We were invited to do that.
Speaker 6 (29:25):
We've done several community outreach programs for Carmichael's School district
for the sixth graders. They do such a great job
up there. That whole faculty seems to have those kids
in the right place, and we were fortunate enough to
go help them do a field of flags a couple
of weeks ago on a Friday, we put up about
(29:46):
six hundred flags in front of the school for the
sixth graders. Actually, we did an essay contest. The two
winners got to ride with us in the Veterans Day
Parade and our duce and a half on the parade
route and went and picked up those essays. I'll never forget.
It was a Friday before we were doing the event,
and in my mind, I had no idea how many
essays we were going to get, and I was scared
(30:08):
to pick up one or two.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
That was my biggest concern.
Speaker 6 (30:11):
And I went there and got thirty six essays from
those sixth graders. Really, and that just told me again,
there's always something that pushes me more and more and more.
It's divine intervention. And I could sit here for days
and tell you about what's happened to me.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Well, tell me what those kids are saying in those essays.
Speaker 6 (30:27):
They're saying a lot of them go and do their
research on the flag, what the red, white and blue means.
That's a lot of them, but a lot of them
have service members, whether it be grandparents, aunts, uncles, you know,
even brothers and sisters that served in the military, and
they'll go into detail on what that meant to them
and what the flag means to them. And that those
(30:47):
are the ones that really get to me because they
have the mindset on what that red, white and blue
means to this country. But I was pleasantly surprised to
see where the tone was at, and I think we
need to do nothing but move that tone forward. We
want to get it outside of Pennsylvania, move it into
West Virginia and start getting to some of these school
districts involving these kids.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Moving forward.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
I think that the message of patriotism, unity and then
surrounding that with the flag is a perfect message of
not only patriotism and unity, but personal.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Pride for these students, pride in their country, their community.
Speaker 6 (31:25):
And I think the good news is I think the
era is pointing up on that.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
We still have a lot of work to do, but.
Speaker 6 (31:32):
The tones definitely better and where I thought it was
going to be in a worse place, Yeah, but unpleasantly surprised,
and we still, like I said, there's a lot of
work to do.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Still sure sure, Now, I'm not trying to write a
check for your organization, but it is Flag Day kind
of like maybe your Memorial Day, Christmas Day, race Day,
for lack of a better word.
Speaker 6 (31:54):
Right, Flag Day is especially in Cannonsburg. There's really, you know,
not much going on. Fourth of July is banking Cannonsburg.
But the flag we dedicated this year on June fourteenth
was a Flag Day dedication and it seems that we
had that day to ourselves, and it was such an
incredible experience.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
I'll just give you a quick story.
Speaker 6 (32:17):
Our guest of honor was one hundred and one years
old the week of our dedication, so I'll never forget.
I just got done and finished with a Memorial Day
parade in Cannonsburg, and this gentleman's grandson called me. He goes, Chris,
you're never going to believe this. I said, Greg, I don't.
I mean, I'll believe anything. So he goes my grandfather.
You know, he worked at Penn Transformer when he got
(32:37):
back from World War Two. The flagpole that I saw
that was needed to restored. When it was first built
in nineteen fifty three, it actually had an iron like
a metal eagle on top of the flagpole instead of
the truck. So Penn Transformer got tired of the flag
furling up on the wing and getting ripped that they
decided to cut the eagle off and put the.
Speaker 5 (32:58):
Truck on top of the flagpole around the truck.
Speaker 6 (33:01):
So he says, my grandfather, when he worked a Penn Transformer,
went out to the dumpster one day and that eagle
was in the dumpster and he said, it's in his yard,
right now, So the guest of honor had that original
eagle that was on top of that flag pole in
nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 5 (33:18):
He had it, So what are the chances of that happening?
So I went up and he'd let me.
Speaker 6 (33:23):
He goes, you tell Chris, I'm going to give him
that eagle. So went to his house and I tried
to unscrew it and it wouldn't come off the pole.
So I got a saws all and I said, take
your grandfather away. I didn't want to see the.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
sALS all on the taken down the eagle.
Speaker 6 (33:37):
So finally got the eagle off off the pole and
I took it over to him. He was a little
short Italian guy, just I mean he was sharp as attack,
sharp as attack. I took it over to him and
he goes, is that bullet hole still in that eagle?
I'm like a bullet hole? I said, what are you
talking about? And I looked over on the left leading
edge of the eagle. He said, my buddy shot that
back in nineteen fifty six with a twenty two, and
(33:58):
I'm like, unbelievable.
Speaker 5 (33:59):
So we have that eagle.
Speaker 6 (34:01):
It's in our office in Cannonsburg and we also have
the original ball that was on top of the flag
pole that we restored and actually has a big den
in it with a whole where lightning hit it. That's
pretty cool. So we have those both in the office.
But yeah, so that's kind of a story. I could
sit here and, like I said, and tell you one
hundred more things that that are so ironic. But it
(34:22):
is happening for a reason. I believe it's divine intervention.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
You're on your way to earning a PhD in flag
pole flag restoration, and that's.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
A good thing.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
Yeah, it's I'll tell you what.
Speaker 6 (34:34):
I'm very fortunate to be doing what I'm doing. I
have an awesome team. These guys and girls are so
passionate and share the same passion that I have. We
have about we have six people that are on our board.
Actually my brother Mark Stodd, who lives in Morgantown. He's
an advisor for us. So we have awesome people and
(34:54):
I thank God every day for him.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Okay, now, Chris, might be some folks that would like
to make contact with you.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
How can they get in touch with you?
Speaker 6 (35:02):
They can go to our website which is Forgotten Flag
Foundation dot org and on our website there, there's my
personal phone number you can give me a call on.
We have our address to our office in South Point
to see you next building. They can mail questions too.
They can email me personally on my foundation email. There's
also a donate tab there as well. And then we're
(35:23):
also going to opening up a online shop where you
can order forgotten Flag Foundation gear straight from the merchandise
company and be mailed to your house. So that's we're
in the process of making that happen right now and
I'm hoping to have it done here with the next
week or so.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
So I just kind of an off topic question, how
awkward is it maybe to go up to somebody knock
on the door of business and say, hey, can I
help you with your flag?
Speaker 6 (35:50):
And we you know, here's my opinion on that. I'm
happy that they have the flag up. Some people just
don't know the protocols on how to fly a flag.
So I'm not going to be a flag nazi. I'm
not going to be that person. So we're actually starting
a program to where or we'll carry flags in our
(36:10):
vehicles and if we see a company like McDonald's or
whoever has a tattered flag we'll go in there. Instead
of us telling them, hey, your flag's tattered, you need
to fix it, we'll take in a flag and give
them a flag to fix the problem.
Speaker 5 (36:24):
So there's a solution to the problem. So we've already
addressed that.
Speaker 6 (36:27):
I just don't want to be that person that's knocking
on the door and be you know that guy I
got you.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Hey, Chris, thanks for coming here, sir, Thank you very much.
All Right, Forgotten Flag Foundation dot org. Check them out.
Appreciate your time. Thirty three few clouds. We'll be back
to wrap things up after this. On top of the
town AM fourteen forty f M. One oh four point
five w A j R. M.
This is the Talk of the Town from Morgantown to Klucksburg.
If it's happening, we're talking about it. Call the show
toll free at one eight hundred seven sixty five eight
two five five. Now Here is your host for the
Talk of the Town, Mike Nolting.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well, good Tuesday morning, and welcome to Talk of the Town.
Just a few clouds and thirty three degrees in the
University City.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
I'm Mike Nolton.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
You'll find me out on x as your news guy,
and our producer this morning is the voice of the
Clay Bettel CBS Ethan Collins. And also we've got the
text line for you today. That number is three oh
four Talk three oh four. Well, welcome to the program.
A couple of things I guess to get caught up
(00:49):
on right off the bat.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
You know, there's a company called cloud Flair.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Never heard of it until just about soh let's see
it's nine oh six. That would be about two twenty
one minutes ago. Would be the first time I've heard
of that company. Now, large portions of the Internet struggling
right now to load because of an issue at cloud Fair.
At just about eight forty five this morning, they released
(01:15):
this statement that they saw a spike in unusual traffic
to one of Cloudfair's services beginning at last night, just
before midnight. Now they don't know yet the cause of
the spike in unusual traffic. Now they're all hands on
deck to make sure all traffic is served without airs,
(01:37):
and after that they're going to turn their attention to
investigating the cause of the unusual spike in traffic and
they will post updates to the cloudfair status dot com
website as those updates are available. I can tell you
from here I've experienced kind of hit and miss internet connectivity.
(01:59):
One minute that I can get on Metro newswvmetronews dot com.
If I try to refresh that page, maybe it won't go,
can't get into x at all. But nevertheless, that is
an error or an outage caused by some unusual traffic
(02:20):
at the Cloudfare Internet provider.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
They are working on that issue.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
And that you'll be able to get updates at cloudfairstatus
dot com or I'm sure if you watch your local
law watchwvmetronews dot com they will keep you up to date.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Well.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Last night at the Mountain Layer inside the gold Ballroom
just About fifty people got together to talk about proposed
increases to the Public Employees Insurance Agency policies. The pei
A Finance Board was on hand, a few of them virtually,
but certainly were several on hand. Daily, co President of
(03:03):
West Virginia of Education West Virginia, addressed the crowd and
Daily told the members, don't be mad at the finance Board.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
These people are doing what they can.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Our problem is really with the state legislature that's told us.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
For the last year that our last five years, we're.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Going to find a solution to this problem and we're
going to quit burdening you with premium increases year over
a year now. There was one elected official in the
crowd last night. That was State Senator Jay Taylor from
Taylor County. And I think that there were some other
(03:43):
local representatives that had commitments last night that were not
able to be there, But certainly the retirees had the
loudest voice at the podium last night, and one of
the retirees called for a cost of living increased system
similar to what state troopers have as part of codified
(04:05):
state law. That was the other thing about the spousal
the additional charge for the spousal addition to the plans
was that was codified in law and didn't have anything
to do with the PEIA Finance Board, but certainly heard about.
One retiree from Taylor County recently turned one hundred years old,
(04:28):
has been retired for forty plus years and she has
weathered the storm. Forty nine and a half percent increases
over the last three years and everything that is coming
now and what most of the retirees will tell you
that they really have, they've got, they've got nothing to
(04:50):
fall back on, and when these increases happen, it is
an erosion of their wages that continues to erode and
they really have no to replace that, and as they
get older, the prospects are even more bleak. So the
PEIA Finance Board they'll be voting on that measure coming
(05:12):
up next month in the month of December. Now at
the bottom of the hour, the Ukrainian Mountaineers Association and
the WVU Army ROTC are hosting Senior Lieutenant MICHAELA.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Melnik.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
He's a hero of the twenty twenty three Ukrainian counter offensive.
He's going to share his thoughts and provide some updates
on conditions in the battlefield and thought it was really
interesting to speak with Lieutenant Melnik yesterday on the program,
and one of the things that he talked about is
(05:49):
the fact that the conventional conflicts of infantry units clashing
head to head really aren't happening. It's more or less
units that are presiding over what he called a kill zone,
and the primary tools of battle are drones, and the
idea is that the kill zone is where you want
(06:12):
to down the drones before they get into your airspace
or cause damage to your infrastructure. That's primarily the battle there.
Thought it was interesting that the infantry Bradley fighting vehicle
is making a comeback in the Ukrainian Russian conflict. That
I also found to be very interesting. Nevertheless, he'll be
(06:35):
in the Rhododendron room at the Mountain Lair at nine
point thirty this morning that is open to the public
and he's going to be talking about the battlefield conditions,
his experiences, and don't forget that he lost both legs
in that campaign, and he'll be talking to ROTC cadets
there at the Mountain Lair. One of the big takeaways
(06:58):
I got from that was that the the United States
needs to evolve military tactics, that our tactics are too
conventional and do not incorporate drone warfare enough, so be
interesting to see what he has to say. Coming up
next to a few members of the House of Delegates
recently returned from an economic mission to Lisbon, Portugal. We'll
(07:22):
be speaking with the delegate representing the seventy eighth district,
Geno Shiarelli. Coming up next, we'll find out more about
that trip and exactly what is in Portugal. You know what,
there might be a lot more similarities than what you think.
Few clouds thirty three in more Contown. Welcome to the program.
(07:43):
We'll be back after this on AM fourteen forty FM
one four point five WAJR.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
We are talking about your town. Now back to the
talk of the town.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
A good Tuesday morning, just a few clouds and thirty
three degrees in the University city. But the bad news
is the rain is coming this afternoon and ninety percent
chance of rain and a high temperature of forty four degrees,
so it sounds like it could very likely be a cool,
wet fall afternoon across Morgantown. On the phone, Delegate Geno
(08:26):
Shiarelli is with us and good morning Gino.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
How are you doing great?
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Mike, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Absolutely pleasure to have you on GENO. Now.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Recently, you and a group of other House members returned
from a trip to Lisbon, Portugal.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Who all went and why Portugal?
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Sure? So the members that went on the trip were myself,
Ryan Browning, Jonathan Kyle, Eric Moore, and Mike Hornby and
we attended the Web Summit, which is an annual tech
AI conference that happens every year. There there were over
seventy thousand people there representing all degrees all types of
(09:07):
companies in the field, from the you know, major fortune
five hundred companies down to startups that are still in
the seating phase. Everybody is offering their vision, economic outlooks.
Everybody is showcasing their startup companies. This is one of
the best places to do it because Lisbon has been
deemed the effectively the startup capital of the world, so
(09:28):
it attracts people from all all corners.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
Of the planet.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Wow, that's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I did some research on Portugal found out that you
know what, our weather patterns are kind of the same.
The top industry in the country of Portugal happens to
be forestry another kind of parallel that we have just
seemed like there we have a lot more in common
than we don't. Did you get that impression being on
the ground.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
I think that there are certain elements that we can
relate to. I think that the nature of the way
that the country has set up, the way that the
ecosystem fueled by combination of factors including high concentration of
engineering graduates, strong culture of innovation, support of policy environment
with with with visa opportunities and tax incentives for entrepreneurs.
(10:20):
There are a lot of reasons why people want to
go there to work on their startups. We met quite
a number of people from the United States. We were
speaking to one this young lady from Taiwan, and as
soon as we told her that we were from West Virginia,
she says, oh, my gosh, I went to Marshall. So
it really does bring in people from everywhere. And despite
(10:42):
being somewhere that felt different in a lot of ways,
it felt like we were right at home in a
lot of ways. It really reinforced how small the world is.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So we've got Delli get Gino Sheiarelli with us fresh
back from an economic mission to Lisbon, Portugal. So you
and your group a laws when you're there with that
large amount of companies and people representing technological interests, and
then you take a look back at a few of
the most recent legislative sessions, some of the things that
(11:12):
we've done to increase economic development, like the microgrid build
and some other things along the way.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
What are you looking for and how do you sell
West Virginia.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Well, what we're looking for is we sort of tailor
our approach depending on what level the company was in.
While we were there, the startup companies that were looking
to grow were divided into three categories. There was alpha, data,
and growth. The alpha ones were early on. They've raised
somewhere between I think two hundred and fifty thousand to
one point five million dollars. They're looking at just getting started.
(11:47):
They have something of some veracity, they're looking to make
some sort of wave, and they're looking to grow beyond that.
The beta stage is a little bit farther on that.
They've raised upwards of seven point five million dollars. A
little bit farther along, we talked to a number of
companies that were already exploring the United States. They're looking
for the best way to expand their own personal market.
And then the growth stages are effectively startups that are
(12:10):
ready to become full on enterprises. Lisbon and the Company
and Web Summit has created, I believe ten or so
what they call unicorns, big massive explosions in these companies
that just take off there. I think that they're worth,
you know, collectively, like thirty five billion euros. So that
there was every different to every company in all these
(12:32):
stages was looking for something a little bit different. So
we would go into the into these booths, we would
speak with the owners. Some had very very thick language barriers,
but everybody really spoke some degree of English. So we
were able to have this conversation with everybody. We look
at how can we help you get to the United States,
How can we help you grow your business? And most importantly,
how can we help you find a home here in
(12:53):
the States. In West Virginia specifically.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Well, what do they tell you they need? How do
we get them over here?
Speaker 4 (12:58):
Well, I think a lot of people. One of the
biggest things that I one of the biggest conversations that
I had with people, because I was specifically looking into
health tech, was a lot of them are looking for
FDA approval. A lot of them are looking for FDA clearance,
and a lot of these most of the startups that
I spoke to, they had FDA clearance well their country's
version of the FDA. They had clearance in their own country,
(13:20):
whether it's Columbia or Brazil or wherever. Most of the
companies that I talked to were already in pretty well
with their own governments. So one of the hurdles that
they have to face when it comes to FDA clearance
here is when they present the FDA with research. The
FDA wants to see research done on Americans. They want
to see American data, whether it's you know, women's health
(13:41):
or rural healthcare. They want to know what the ramifications
are of that when it comes to citizens here. So
a lot of companies are looking to do research. I
know companies that have already worked with UPMC in the
past and McGee Women's which is just about hour and
a half or so north of us here in Morgantown.
There's some that are involved with Harvard, there are some
that are involved in Texas. Some are already in conversations
(14:03):
with the Department of Defense here so if they want
FDA clearance, they have to manufacture here. So basically it
is not a one size fits all approach. But we
met with these companies companies individually and typically, no matter
what they need, we have some sort of angle to
offer them. And we were more than happy to welcome
(14:23):
that because, as we know, the more jobs that we
have here, the better in a position that we are.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
You know, Geno, former Governor Jim Justice used to refer
to the state as the diamond and the rough. And
the reason that I bring that up is because you
ran into the lady there from Taiwan who went to Marshall.
You've got the cyber security Center being built on the
campus of Marshall, Vantage Ventures on the campus of West
(14:49):
Virginia University, and there's talk of another cybersecurity announcement coming
here to Morgantown. So when you go to these conferences,
you've got a lot to talk.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
To people about.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And I guess the question here is does higher education
play a role in creating a landing zone for one
of these companies to set down roots.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
It absolutely does. I think the resources that are available
to universities, I think the programs that they have set
up and are continuing to set up. One of our
biggest sales was when it comes to these companies because
there was so much tech, because there was so much
AI and web based companies. We go to them and
say we are at the ground floor when it comes
to technology and this higher end tech stuff. We want
(15:38):
you to come here and be a part of the
initial growth explosion.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
We want to.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Explore these types of these types of jobs. We want
to do this type of industry. We have a ton
of opportunity here and we want to do everything that
we can. And I think if it involves partnering university,
I don't see how path forward to a lot of
this stuff doesn't involve our great universities.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Now, you know what, I don't expect Geese Company to
build a twenty five story high rise in Charleston anytime soon.
But in your estimation, how realistic is it that something
would come from a trip like this.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Well, I'd say of there were hundreds and hundreds of
companies there. We've networked probably with our group about between
one hundred and fifty or two hundred or so. I
would say of those two hundred that we establish a
connection with, some are farther along in the process. Some
are just starting out, so some are looking at, you know,
let's reconnect in five or so years. But of all
(16:33):
the ones that we talk to, there are five to
six where there are some very very promising leads. They
really are interested. They're far long enough in the process
where we can say we can spring into action. Now
we can help you take a look at the United States.
We want you to come here. So I would say
it's more more realistic than not to say that we
might see some of these companies start to come over
(16:54):
to the United States West Virginia specifically within the next
year or so.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Take us behind the curtain. When you get a lead
like that that looks to be relatively viable, is there
someone at WVU or Marshall that you kind of maybe
not hand that person off to, but introduce them to them.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Well, we have a scheduled debrief later today. We're going
to get all the members that went on the trip
together on a zoom call. We're gonna go over and
catalog everything. We're gonna let everybody know. We're basically we're
going to compare notes, talk about everybody that we talked to,
and then from there, we're going to begin network great
and we're going to talk about who do we need
to hand off to this person, who do we need
to loop in from this innovation area, Who do we
(17:37):
need to Is there an investor that we could talk
to today today at three o'clock. Actually, we're having our
debrief and then we're going to come up with an
action plan from there, and I imagine we're going to
have some zoom calls set up with these companies by
the end of this week, if not beginning of next.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Okay, good deal. Delegate Genociarelli from mon County. Hey, Geno,
really do appreciate your time, and let's get together and
do it again soon.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Call me anytime.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yes, sir, you take care of have a great day.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Ginoshirelli, representing the eighty second District, certainly appreciate his time.
An update from the top of the show, cloud Fare,
an internet provider, is experiencing an outage this morning that
is making some portions of the Internet difficult to load,
so you might not be able to get to your
(18:25):
favorite website now. Some of the most recent information here
says that websites like x and chat GPT are being affected,
primarily by this outage, and the company in a statement
says that last night before midnight, they started to get
some suspicious traffic at a very high volume that led
(18:49):
to some errors across their system due to that increased traffic.
Right now they are focused on getting that system up
and running again and the capacity back to a one
hundred percent. And the company says in a statement that
was released at just about eight forty five this morning,
that once they get this system back up and running,
(19:12):
it will be all hands on deck to get to
the source of that suspicious increased traffic that hit that
system just before midnight last night.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
So we'll keep you posted there.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Coming up next, I'm going to speak with Chris Stodd
with the Forgotten Flag Foundation.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
This is a great story, folks.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Let me tell you the Forgotten Flag Foundation has the
mission of promoting unity, patriotism, and purpose and they do
it through ensuring that flags are properly displayed at in
communities throughout the area.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Join the conversation at one eight hundred and seven sixty
five eight two five five.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
This is the talk of the town.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Well, good Tuesday morning.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Just a few clouds at the moment, thirty three degrees
in the University City. Now, Metronewsaki Weather says that weather
picture is going to change drastically as we move into
the afternoon.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
We'll pick up a ninety.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Percent chance of rain, plenty of clouds, a high of
forty four degrees. We'll keep our eyes on that. Right now,
we've got Chris Stoud in the studio. Now get your
name correct, stud Stodd. Okay, all right, Chris Dodd. Chris
is with the Forgotten Flag Foundation, And before we went
to break, let you know that they promote unity, patriotism,
(20:49):
and purpose through the proper display of flags.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Chris, welcome to the program. Glad to have you here.
How this all gets started, Well, the story.
Speaker 6 (20:59):
Goes back to nineteen ninety seven. I returned from my
first duty overseas from South Korea, and I went from
E one to E four in one year. And when
I got to Fort Carson, Colorado, I wanted to make
a sergeant.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
So there's a couple of ways to do that.
Speaker 6 (21:15):
You have to, of course, get promotion points through physical
fitness or you know, rifle qualifications. So I walked by
this portrait of a soldier on squadron headquarters and said
soldier the month I'm like, wow, that sounds pretty cool.
I said, let me go talk to the first sergeant
about it. So knocked on Top's office, Come on in.
(21:37):
So I start talking to him. He's like, it's hard
to win, and if you win, you know you have
a good chance of making sergeant. And I said, well,
I'm going to win. So he gave me this study
guid It was like two inches thick, and I'm like, man,
I'm not good at this stuff. So it took me
a couple of weeks to I thought. I memorized the
whole book and I was fairly confident when I went in,
(21:57):
so knocked on the door. From the door there's a
table full of sergeant majors, all nids. Didn't know one
of them. Of course, I'm in my class a's I
do on my drilling ceremony. Go sit down at attention,
and I'm like, I got this. So the first question
right out of the gate was specialist odd, how many
trucks are there on a military post.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 6 (22:20):
I'm like, I'm starting to think how many battalions divisions?
And I'm like, I come up with this number, thirteen
five hundred, I said, I'm like close. He says, I
thought I was close. He goes, you're not even close.
I said, hire it lowers, like the price is right.
So he goes way way lower. So I'm like, well,
what is it. He goes, there's one. I said, geez.
In my mind, I'm like, I'm already out of this
(22:42):
first question, out of the gate.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
I'm done.
Speaker 6 (22:44):
So he goes, you know what a truck is? I'm like, sorry, Major,
I'm thinking I'm gonna try to be ask this guy.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
You know what I mean? I said, I think, I'm
not even sure.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
He goes, well, there's one truck and it's on the
squadron or post head corps on top of the flagpole,
and it's the.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Ball on top of the flagpoles called a truck.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
So he continues to drill me. He goes, do you
know what's in there? I'm like, Sergeant Major, I don't
know at this point in time. Well, he goes, there's
a match. There's a bullet and a razor blade. Then
he goes, you know what that's for. I'm like, I
don't know, story Major, So he goes, back in the
old days, if your ford was taken over the last
(23:24):
soldier would go to the flag pole, lean the flagpole over,
and inside of that truck was that match, bullet.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
And razor blade. He said.
Speaker 6 (23:31):
The soldier would take the razor blade out, take the
flag off the pole, shred it, take the match, burn it,
and then use the bullet to either defend himself or
you know, commit suicide. So I'm like, wow, that's the
coolest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
But I never thought it'd be a.
Speaker 5 (23:48):
Truck, never in a million years.
Speaker 6 (23:50):
And like what I was telling you is, I speak
in front of a lot of veterans, and it's amazing
how many people don't know that part of history, you know,
in the military. So I just was enamored with military
history and flags and basically that's where, you know, the
mindset was where I just loved the country and I
(24:11):
knew at some point in time in my life that
I wanted to give back. And it only took me
thirty years to figure that out, but fortunately we got
to that point.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, and I believe that was in Canaansburg and that
flagpole ninety five feet tall. If I've got my facts right,
I've lost my notes here, but I think it was
put up in nineteen fifty three and you happened to
see that and kind of rubbed you the wrong way.
Speaker 6 (24:40):
It was about this time of year. I'll never forget it.
I woke up and looked over in the distance. There
was an industrial complex right in the front of Stairs
as Chocolate and Cannesburg.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
I'm not sure people.
Speaker 6 (24:51):
I'm sure people have been to Stairs is, but it's
been around for a long time. It's called Penn Transformer
and they actually build wordheads. They used to build warhead
in World War Two, so they actually would black out
the windows in Cannonsburg because they were scared to get
bombed from you know, from overseas. But I woke up
and the leaves have just fallen off the tree, like
(25:11):
we had the strong.
Speaker 5 (25:12):
Winds the past couple of days. And I looked over.
Speaker 6 (25:14):
It's probably about one hundred and fifty yards from my house,
and I saw this abandoned flagpole and it hit me
like a bolt of lightning.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
This is what I want to do.
Speaker 6 (25:22):
And I remember driving I used to work in Morgantown
at that time, when I was commuting to UH to Morgantown,
and I had all these ideas, like a roll decks
in my mind, and I got into the office and
I started taking notes, and I started calling people up
and just talking to him a thousand miles an hour.
They're like, what is this guy thinking right now? And
(25:43):
I remember, I'll never forget. I called people that I
thought would want to be on the board, and they
had every excuse not to do it. You know, They're like, well,
I have to get my dog groomed on these days.
And I'm like, you just tell me you don't want
to do it. So that push that pushed me even
more so. Once I saw that flag pole, I gathered
my thoughts. I went to the mayor of Cannabisburg, Dave Rome,
(26:06):
and partnered with him, and he was a tremendous help.
There's no way we could have done it without him.
And so he got a meeting with Penn Transformer. We
had ten minutes to kind of talk them into doing
this project with us, and we went in there and
two hours later we're out on the job site where
(26:27):
the flag poles at. He has landscaping companies and removing trees.
So at that point I'm like, well we're going to
move forward. So almost story short, in less than ninety days,
we raised thirty thousand dollars and had that flag restored
and we had it dedicated on Flag Day this year,
June fourteenth.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
That's amazing. That's amazing. With a truck too.
Speaker 6 (26:49):
With a truck and exactly what is it that truck
is in that truck Now, it's going to go in
every truck that we put in this country.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
I'll tell you that right now.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
I'll tell you what. We're gonna take a real quick
break when we come back.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
We're going to find out from Chris what is next
for the Forgotten Flag Foundation. We'll do that next on
Talking to Town and fourteen forty f M. One O
four point five W A Jr.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Now back to the Talk of the town.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Good morning, it is a Tuesday, nine forty six.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
We've got Chris Stodd with us from the Forgotten Flag Foundation.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
And one thing I think.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
It's important to bring up at this point because you know,
I'll tell you what. We live in a world where
it can be dangerous to have an opinion. Uh, this
is a political we're promoting unity and patriotism here Chris
Stodd with us here this morning. Good morning, Chris, morning, Yeah, No,
talk about that message of unity.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I think it's important right now.
Speaker 6 (27:53):
So it's it's been very botherisome for me these past
couple of years, I would say ten or so to
see the country divide internally strictly, we're doing it to
ourselves and it comes from the political tone from both sides.
And I think everybody through the election cycle and another
(28:14):
election cycle which it gets, seems to get worse and
worse and worse. And I think it starts with the politicians.
I believe that they have to change their tone where
they can have an intelligent conversation on any subject for
that matter. But when we start this foundation, I definitely
want to have that tone in front of any group,
Republican Democrat, we're talking to kids. We want to be
(28:36):
politically neutral and stay on those three things that we
want to do as far as the foundation, which is
taking care of veterans, community outreach, and raise patriotism.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
But you've just reached me because I can't think of
anything it could be more unifying than our flag.
Speaker 6 (28:51):
You would be surprised. You would be surprised. And that's
what we're going to fix. I can guarantee you that.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Okay, well, good, well, then tell us what's next.
Speaker 6 (28:59):
So what's next to this is our first we haven't
even been a corporation for less than four months. We
have our five oh one C three paperwork submitted. We
should have approval in January, so that's going to be
a huge step for us moving forward raising funds. We've
done so many projects in the past three weeks.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
That's been unbelievable.
Speaker 6 (29:19):
In conjunction with Veterans Day, we were in the Veterans
Day Parade in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
We were invited to do that.
Speaker 6 (29:25):
We've done several community outreach programs for Carmichael's School district
for the sixth graders. They do such a great job
up there. That whole faculty seems to have those kids
in the right place, and we were fortunate enough to
go help them do a field of flags a couple
of weeks ago on a Friday, we put up about
(29:46):
six hundred flags in front of the school for the
sixth graders. Actually, we did an essay contest. The two
winners got to ride with us in the Veterans Day
Parade and our duce and a half on the parade
route and went and picked up those essays. I'll never forget.
It was a Friday before we were doing the event,
and in my mind, I had no idea how many
essays we were going to get, and I was scared
(30:08):
to pick up one or two.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
That was my biggest concern.
Speaker 6 (30:11):
And I went there and got thirty six essays from
those sixth graders. Really, and that just told me again,
there's always something that pushes me more and more and more.
It's divine intervention. And I could sit here for days
and tell you about what's happened to me.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Well, tell me what those kids are saying in those essays.
Speaker 6 (30:27):
They're saying a lot of them go and do their
research on the flag, what the red, white and blue means.
That's a lot of them, but a lot of them
have service members, whether it be grandparents, aunts, uncles, you know,
even brothers and sisters that served in the military, and
they'll go into detail on what that meant to them
and what the flag means to them. And that those
(30:47):
are the ones that really get to me because they
have the mindset on what that red, white and blue
means to this country. But I was pleasantly surprised to
see where the tone was at, and I think we
need to do nothing but move that tone forward. We
want to get it outside of Pennsylvania, move it into
West Virginia and start getting to some of these school
districts involving these kids.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Moving forward.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
I think that the message of patriotism, unity and then
surrounding that with the flag is a perfect message of
not only patriotism and unity, but personal.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Pride for these students, pride in their country, their community.
Speaker 6 (31:25):
And I think the good news is I think the
era is pointing up on that.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
We still have a lot of work to do, but.
Speaker 6 (31:32):
The tones definitely better and where I thought it was
going to be in a worse place, Yeah, but unpleasantly surprised,
and we still, like I said, there's a lot of
work to do.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Still sure sure, Now, I'm not trying to write a
check for your organization, but it is Flag Day kind
of like maybe your Memorial Day, Christmas Day, race Day,
for lack of a better word.
Speaker 6 (31:54):
Right, Flag Day is especially in Cannonsburg. There's really, you know,
not much going on. Fourth of July is banking Cannonsburg.
But the flag we dedicated this year on June fourteenth
was a Flag Day dedication and it seems that we
had that day to ourselves, and it was such an
incredible experience.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
I'll just give you a quick story.
Speaker 6 (32:17):
Our guest of honor was one hundred and one years
old the week of our dedication, so I'll never forget.
I just got done and finished with a Memorial Day
parade in Cannonsburg, and this gentleman's grandson called me. He goes, Chris,
you're never going to believe this. I said, Greg, I don't.
I mean, I'll believe anything. So he goes my grandfather.
You know, he worked at Penn Transformer when he got
(32:37):
back from World War Two. The flagpole that I saw
that was needed to restored. When it was first built
in nineteen fifty three, it actually had an iron like
a metal eagle on top of the flagpole instead of
the truck. So Penn Transformer got tired of the flag
furling up on the wing and getting ripped that they
decided to cut the eagle off and put the.
Speaker 5 (32:58):
Truck on top of the flagpole around the truck.
Speaker 6 (33:01):
So he says, my grandfather, when he worked a Penn Transformer,
went out to the dumpster one day and that eagle
was in the dumpster and he said, it's in his yard,
right now, So the guest of honor had that original
eagle that was on top of that flag pole in
nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 5 (33:18):
He had it, So what are the chances of that happening?
So I went up and he'd let me.
Speaker 6 (33:23):
He goes, you tell Chris, I'm going to give him
that eagle. So went to his house and I tried
to unscrew it and it wouldn't come off the pole.
So I got a saws all and I said, take
your grandfather away. I didn't want to see the.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
sALS all on the taken down the eagle.
Speaker 6 (33:37):
So finally got the eagle off off the pole and
I took it over to him. He was a little
short Italian guy, just I mean he was sharp as attack,
sharp as attack. I took it over to him and
he goes, is that bullet hole still in that eagle?
I'm like a bullet hole? I said, what are you
talking about? And I looked over on the left leading
edge of the eagle. He said, my buddy shot that
back in nineteen fifty six with a twenty two, and
(33:58):
I'm like, unbelievable.
Speaker 5 (33:59):
So we have that eagle.
Speaker 6 (34:01):
It's in our office in Cannonsburg and we also have
the original ball that was on top of the flag
pole that we restored and actually has a big den
in it with a whole where lightning hit it. That's
pretty cool. So we have those both in the office.
But yeah, so that's kind of a story. I could
sit here and, like I said, and tell you one
hundred more things that that are so ironic. But it
(34:22):
is happening for a reason. I believe it's divine intervention.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
You're on your way to earning a PhD in flag
pole flag restoration, and that's.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
A good thing.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
Yeah, it's I'll tell you what.
Speaker 6 (34:34):
I'm very fortunate to be doing what I'm doing. I
have an awesome team. These guys and girls are so
passionate and share the same passion that I have. We
have about we have six people that are on our board.
Actually my brother Mark Stodd, who lives in Morgantown. He's
an advisor for us. So we have awesome people and
(34:54):
I thank God every day for him.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Okay, now, Chris, might be some folks that would like
to make contact with you.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
How can they get in touch with you?
Speaker 6 (35:02):
They can go to our website which is Forgotten Flag
Foundation dot org and on our website there, there's my
personal phone number you can give me a call on.
We have our address to our office in South Point
to see you next building. They can mail questions too.
They can email me personally on my foundation email. There's
also a donate tab there as well. And then we're
(35:23):
also going to opening up a online shop where you
can order forgotten Flag Foundation gear straight from the merchandise
company and be mailed to your house. So that's we're
in the process of making that happen right now and
I'm hoping to have it done here with the next
week or so.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
So I just kind of an off topic question, how
awkward is it maybe to go up to somebody knock
on the door of business and say, hey, can I
help you with your flag?
Speaker 6 (35:50):
And we you know, here's my opinion on that. I'm
happy that they have the flag up. Some people just
don't know the protocols on how to fly a flag.
So I'm not going to be a flag nazi. I'm
not going to be that person. So we're actually starting
a program to where or we'll carry flags in our
(36:10):
vehicles and if we see a company like McDonald's or
whoever has a tattered flag we'll go in there. Instead
of us telling them, hey, your flag's tattered, you need
to fix it, we'll take in a flag and give
them a flag to fix the problem.
Speaker 5 (36:24):
So there's a solution to the problem. So we've already
addressed that.
Speaker 6 (36:27):
I just don't want to be that person that's knocking
on the door and be you know that guy I
got you.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Hey, Chris, thanks for coming here, sir, Thank you very much.
All Right, Forgotten Flag Foundation dot org. Check them out.
Appreciate your time. Thirty three few clouds. We'll be back
to wrap things up after this. On top of the
town AM fourteen forty f M. One oh four point
five w A j R. M.
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