Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's seven twenty nine at fifty five k or CD
talk station. Try to have happy Friday. He maybe start
yourself at Turning Point USA chapter Everyone's doing it these days,
of course.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Charlie Kirk, the founding member of Turning Point USA, extraordinary
accomplishments in his thirty short years of life. Obviously you
know the story behind Charlie Kirk's assassination is just a
heinous act, unforgivable, but something that I think made a
massive martyr out of Charlie Kirk and has allowed him,
even in death, to extend even further his sound message
(00:35):
of open debate and exchange of ideas thoughtfully, without anger
and violence. And someone who knows all about that, Diana
tell Us, who's here to talk about a new Turning
Point USA chapter under in the Empower You umbrella. Diana,
it's welcome to the program. Thanks for coming on today.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Well, thanks for having me. It's good to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
You work with Dan Regnold of Empower You on this one.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I am so. I recently had joined the board and
he had questioned what kind of time I could give,
And in that conversation I mentioned that my son, my
youngest Michael, who is Homeschools had asked me to start
a Turning Point chapter actually last year, and I had
been trying to work that out, thinking about the possibilities
within the homeschool community, and he said to me, well,
(01:20):
why don't you do that through empower you? And that
offer was just I couldn't have asked for a better offer.
To serve the students, a writer Cincinnati and to have
some saith And he knows a lot of people. He's
great to work with and is very, very connected, far
more connected than I am.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, he's more connected than any of us could ever
hope to be, assuming we want to be connected, Diana,
Dan's a great guy.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
We want to be connected. He's the guy to start with.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Sure, and for a Turning Point USA chapter, I got
to have it. I have an idea. Dan Reagunill firmly
embraced this concept. Now do you need Yeah? Does does one?
In order to start a TPUSA And for my listeners,
go to the website TPA Turning port USATPUSA dot com.
Does it need to be beneath an educational institution? I
(02:07):
know a lot of these Turning Point USA chapters are
present or on or alive and well on college campuses,
just like any other college campus organization. But like, let's
just say, Diana, if you wanted to start a Turning
Point USA chapter, can you just do it and just say, hey,
we're meeting at my home kind of thing, or do
you need to be need to be beneath a higher
education or some other institution like in this case, empower you.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Right, that's a great question. So in our case, I
did meet with a rep back in the spring. They're
a little hard to find right now. Yeah, the reps
in this area, she actually had left and they were
finding somebody new, So they were in flux already before
Charlie Kirksiss fascination. But what I learned in what little
time I spent with them is that you totally could
(02:52):
they have what's called we're actually called a hub according
to that organization, the TPUSA, or a hub, because we
are not affiliated with a school and therefore for their purposes,
we needed to give a region. If we didn't have
a high school name then or a college name, for example,
we would need something. So we chose Dan and I
(03:14):
talked about it. We chose Greater Cincinnati, and that opened
it up to all you know, any high school student
in the greater Cincinnati area, which at the time didn't
seem quite as daunting. At this point, after Charlie Kirks's
fascination and after everything that's happened, it's a it feels
like a lot. But the crowd that we're getting has
(03:36):
been very manageable, and we'll see moving forward what that
looks like. But you probably don't. You could be a hub.
I was told that there's a group that meets a
small patriotic group of students. They might even be in Cincinnati,
but somewhere in southern Ohio, and they sit around the
campfire and talk about you know, I guess politics because
(03:59):
looks if look the way you want it to look
right right, we're going to we're going to try and
to do a little more than a lot more than
that in this chapter. If we're going to have family
striving all over to meet and empower you, then we're
going to put our best foot forward and make this
something bigger and better than that.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Great well, you know, conceptually, it's you know, like I
was talking earlier about college education. You know, if you're
going to college for like an art degree, you can
study art online it's a hobby. You can learn it
on your own, study van go study the classics, good
at the moment whatever. And but conservatism as a philosophy
in this Charlie Kirk mentality and how he approached it
is a certain like a recipe, it's a formula. Do
(04:40):
you get assistance from TPUSA in starting a chapter? Do
they have resource materials? Do they have guides? They have
instruction materials that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, they do, they do. And I have my own
vision too, which we are allowed to apply to that right.
But they do offer, like if they're going to talk
about free speech, for example, would be a free speech
presentation that is on the web page that we could
actually you know, show that in the group. And then
my vision is to have you know, an expert from
(05:09):
the community come in that can speak tree speech and
apply it. Teach these kids exactly what it means. It
means that you know what the government cannot do, but
that if your boss decides they don't like the way
you're shouting it out, you know on social media, they
can fire you. So make it clear of these kids
what that means, because they're gonna they're hearing all kinds
of messaging and social media and and make clarification on that.
(05:33):
But I'm not an expert. I'm just doing the best
I can. I'm a patriotic American and I love freedom
and absolutely limit limited government for sure and self covernance.
So but but we get an expert in and what
I what I really want to do is I want
to show that material and use what they've given us.
But I think a fresh voice as much as possible
(05:54):
in the room with them, and that we sit, you know,
they sit among us, so that we're engaging the students,
not just talking at them like they're at school. I'm
really going to try and do that. I'm still learning
and it's still evolving, but that will be my vision
moving forward. And you guys are.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Engaging them, and you said it out like you homeschooled,
so you have appreciation for the concept of teaching and instructing,
I mean, your own child. That's got to be very
complicated and difficult at LEAs from my perspective. But the
idea of engaging in sort of a Socratic method discussion,
the exchange back and forth, which is one of the
things I love so much about law school. I don't
know they do that anymore, but you know, asking questions
(06:31):
of the students, the students asking questions back in that exchange.
It's really wonderful to develop your well logical and critical
thinking skills. I'm going to bring Diana back. We'll talk
a little bit more about the Turning Point USA chapter
under the Empower You umbrella and where they might be
meeting more with Diana Telli's station seven forty here fifty
(06:51):
five KCD talk station Donna Schwabin. Octoberfest is going on
this weekend. We'll hear from the Donna Schwabin folks who
will be in studio. God bless each and every one
of them. Eight h five. Right now we're talking with
Diana Tellis. She's a board member of Empower You America
and good for her. Obviously, a very true patriot, saw
the work of Charlie Kirk and like so many other
people after he was assassinated and even beforehand, open chapters
(07:13):
for Turning Point USA to do the work that Charlie
Kirk was doing. Political philosophy, a conservative one of course,
and having a nice exchange, hopefully it remains friendly exchange
with your political adversaries is what he's all about. Just
trying to win the hearts and minds of those on
the other side of the political ledger who really they
don't get us, Diana, they really don't. I think about
(07:35):
the criticism that Charlie Kirk and the cal him a
fascist and misogynist or whatever, and he cloaked much of
his political philosophy philosophy and it all sprung from his
profound religious faith. And I just am so bothered by
liberals who immediately upon learning or understanding that Charlie Kirk
(07:55):
right quite often relied on his Christian faith as an inspiration,
and that immediately makes him a bad guy. They don't
get it that Charlie Kirk was interested in their salvation
as well. He did it as a matter of compassion, concern,
and love. He wants other people, or he wanted other
people to experience the enlightenment that he felt so they'd
enjoy life the way he did. That's an evil, Diana.
(08:17):
I just I struggle with that conceptually. But that's who
you're going to be working with when you're engaging these folks,
So a lot of hurdles to overcome, and you're starting
to turn our life. Yeah, so where are you in
process with this starting of this chapter, because I'm wanting
to know how people can get in touch with you
on the progress or when and where the meetings are
going to be. And we're going to figure out where
(08:37):
they're taking place too. But where are you in process?
Has the chapter officially been opened? Where are we?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yes, we've already had our last meeting last Thursday. And yes,
I agree with you on Charlie Kirk. What a gift
that was that we had in him, that he was
concerned with everyone's salvation right, and we want that to
be the self governance and obedience to God is the
basis of what this country was founded on. And we
want to propagate that. And we can't do it in
(09:05):
our schools. They're not doing it in our schools for sure.
In fact, the opposite message. So we're going to do
our best to make this work and make this attractive
to students. In fact, i'd like to see candidates from
it could be even both sides put us on their
list of places to visit every time they're running for office,
(09:25):
to check in with the turning point kids of Greater Cincinnati.
What a great thing that would be, and they can
be inspired or not to help a candidate if they
wanted to, we wouldn't push that, but they are certainly
welcome to do that. So we have launched. We launched
last week on Thursday at the Empower Youth Studios are
Great Oaks, and we had seventy people in the room,
(09:46):
roughly probably between forty and fifty students. A lot of
adults were there too, and I understand that the parents
wanted to kind of get a feel for what this
is going to look like and it may not look
like that that day that was a pizza pizza launch party,
but we had Adam Bullet from Americans for Prosperity talk
to the students and it went very very well. We
were very excited. So we had a week off. So
(10:08):
we're every every two weeks bi weekly, and we.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Will have another meeting on October the ninth, and we're
bringing in Gave Garadini from Turning Point USA, the Action group.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
He is not it's we're sort of the educational arm,
but he works for the UH. Yeah, so he will.
He's a student, he's a University of at and student.
He's also the president of the Ohio College Republicans and
for Ohio, so he should be able to connect really
well with the students. And I really wanted somebody that
(10:41):
could do that this this for this next meeting because
of him being young and not being an old person
like me, and so I'm looking forward to it. We
are meeting a Great Oak again on the ninth, and
you know we're still going to meet there. I'm just
open to ideas, is what I'll say.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
For future venue. Your your open ideas about where this regularly.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yep, we may stay there. We'll see. Yeah, and uh,
I will tell you this too. We're big enough. And
I think we've had a lot of people stop in
and check us out at that one at that our
for our first meeting, and some have reached out to me.
It's very hard to launch a chapter right now. I
don't think the online resources are is available. They're stressed
(11:27):
pretty send a TV us A right now, obviously. But
there are you know, folks out there who want to
start chapters, and we can do that. Hub Cincinnati Classical
is probably they're they're not launching a Turning Punch chapter.
That's not happening. They're more than welcome to send their
families can come and have their students join us. That
would be great. If they were ready to do that,
they would be doing it. They're not, okay, fair enough,
(11:49):
So I mean, because that's fine.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I didn't realize that you actually were able to use
it the and it seems like an ideal venue there,
uh the campus there, But it sounded to me like
when I started out that this, you didn't have a
permanent site to meet. So Dave or rather Dan Regnold
is cool with you guys meeting at the at three
hundred Great Oaks Drive on a regular basis. Okay, good good,
(12:13):
good good good.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
That's now for that five o'clock I'm not super fun
of the time. That's really hard on our families. So
moving forward, we are evolving, right, So I'm listen to ideas,
that's it.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
So well, the more people you get in the Turning
Point USA chapter, the more ideas you're going to be
surrounded by. I'm sure you're going to have a well oiled,
effective chapter there in virtually no time. Now, how do
people stay in touch with you? Do they do that
through the empower Youamerica dot org site or do you
have your own separate site for your chapter? Because I
know a lot of listeners are going to want to
get their their children or maybe their grandchildren involved.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Well, they can reach out to me. I will be
on the other end of this email address tp USA
at empower Youamerica dot org. That's TPUSA at empower you.
That's you, just you, not not yo you you America
that or you said it more times than I have
for sure. So I'll be on the other end of
that taking any kind of questions or comments from people
(13:06):
or suggestions, and yeah, I welcome that. So I do
see groups maybe spawning off of this group too. So
that's kind of the beauty of being Greater Cincinnati. As
anybody that steps in. We would want a kid, a
student to come in and bring a friend and then
say we need to do this at our high school.
What a beautiful thing that would be? It?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Sure would, I sure would. Yeah, Diana Tellis, thank you
for inspiring probably more chapters to open, or at least
inspiring people to get involved with your Turning Point USA
chapter again tp USA at sign or empower the letter
you and America dot org. You can go there right
now and check out the fall lineup schedule there as well.
Education opportunities abound thanks to Dan Reaganold and Thanks to
(13:47):
you again, Diane. I appreciate the work that you're doing
and I'm glad you got inspired to start this chapter.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Thanks for having me, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Oh, anytime,