1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Allan Ward and Tut Kailech of Lincoln Ignite - September 5th, 9:00pm

Episode Date: September 6, 2023

Allan Ward and Tut Kailech of Lincoln Ignite Learn more at https://ignitelincoln.org/Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Live from Heart to Lincoln America, welcome to Ticket Weekdays, on 937, a Ticket and a Ticket FM.com. Oh, it's a special edition for the next couple of nights at 9 o'clock, 9.2. You're going to introduce us to some folks in a very special event. You will be invited to, and welcome to, Ignite Winkin 15, for Cocoa Theater. Y'all know me, I'm DP. 402. 464-5-6-85 start a hymn text line if you're If we're doing, please go ahead and lock in, send text,

and we'll get some responses. We'll take care of that for you. If you're watching on Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, and OLO Channel 951, if you're just into it. Again, the special side of this thing is storytelling. And anybody that knows me and listens to the station on a regular basis, knows that I fall in love with the stories, because it often shows every side of us,

the good side, the bad side, the in-between sides, and then the message. And it's important to be hurt. One of the great gifts and one of the great blessings that we have, especially in this medium, is to allow people to be heard, to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be human. Yes. So through the course of this thing,

over the course of the next hour, one, we will invite you to ignite Lincoln. Go to a knightleaton.org. Tickets are available there. This is an affordable show. You can bring the family to this thing. Tickets are available. You get to meet everybody, come, take pictures, come hang out, hear the stories.

But this is some of the best storytelling in Lincoln. That's what it is. I'm blessed. I'm fortunate. I'm honored to be a part of this event. And I want to introduce you to two of the young men who are going to help pull this event off. And I will, Tute, would you please introduce yourself, sir? All right. What is up? Listeners. My name is Tute Kailich. I'm a South Sudanese refugee residing in the Big L Lincoln, Nebraska.

Well done. Alan, Alan, let him know, bro. Hi, I'm Alan Ward, a traveler and been to a lot of places. Thank you for having me on. Alan, we're going to start with you. Tute knows the deal. He knows the routine. He's been on this station before. So he gets way less airtime than you. Oh, yeah. Okay. He gets way less time. Plus, he'll get more stage time. He'll get more. stage time on the night like you he'll get way more stage time than we will so quite frankly this is about us and he's just here i'm just here i appreciate this moral support right he's just here for the pretty face we don't care like the rest of the story now here's the deal alan you mentioned you said you're traveler yeah give me details uh so i've been to 45 states in seven countries i've seen everything from the fall change in maine to the northern lights in alaska i've gone bungee jumping in california swam

with dolphins in Hawaii. The reason I traveled so much for a while there is I was a tower technician, which is like one of the most dangerous jobs you can do in the United States. I think like it kills 13 people out of 30,000 that work in the field every year. And so, yeah, I was climbing like 300 feet in the air, making this stuff like the radio stations and phones and everything possible. So it was pretty cool. Why weren't you around months ago when I need to put up a new satellite?

Well, where were you, bro? That's easy money at that point. Yeah. So my plan for 2020, before COVID happened is I was going to go to Australia. I'd been sponsored on a visa to go and live and work there for a year. And basically what happens is you go to this company and you say, hey, do you want to sponsor me as a citizen for a while? And they front you the money to get over there.

And so I was accepted for this tower climbing place over there. And then I was in Texas. I remember it pretty vividly. Everything was kind of like getting eerily quiet as I was going down to Texas and there was like no cars on the road. And I remember being in Texas and then suddenly the lockdown started to happen. The mass started coming out. Like it was just like quick like within 24 hours. And I remember sitting thinking to myself,

I have the money to go over there right now without knowing what's going to happen with this virus or whatever's going on. or I can stay in the United States. And my first thought since I was in Texas was like, well, Australia doesn't have any weapons. So like if I needed to admit myself, yeah, I was like, I'll be all right in America. I don't know about so much in Australia. So I decided to stay. And I think it was a good choice. You know, I've been going to school and stuff and just kind of changing my path.

And now I'm talking in front of like, what, six, 700 people. I'm proud of you, bro. Thanks. I appreciate it, man. It's always good to see you do it. and your thing, you know, your clothing line and then the shows you do and the people you interview. You notice he didn't bring us any clothes.

Well, I'm actually wearing his clothes right now. I don't know. Like, I don't know. Like, you met me, bro. Like, what are we doing? What are we doing? Why am I having to, like, why am I having to negotiate? Harrison, look at it.

He looks good in clothes, man. He's, he looks good. I don't know. I wear him every day. Right. Like, I mean, like, you know how to do that. Like, we know how to put him in clothes. I mean, he's got hats, bags,

and tracksuits. And we have nothing yet. So there's that. There's that. We'll change that. Yeah. Alan, tell me, where's home? So Holmes technically Lincoln for me. I came here when I was 17 years old out of the foster care system. My uncle, Eric Conley got me out of the foster care system because he was a foster care kid himself. So when I started off in Lincoln, I literally had no friends, didn't know anybody in high school. So it was a pretty rough transition up until I was about 23 until I started establishing myself. But I love this town. It's beautiful. I've been to a lot of places and a lot of different cities. And I wouldn't change this down for the world, honestly. I mean that with all my heart. Through all of this, right?

And again, the stories are why people will show up and give their time and listen. And there's always stories behind the stories, right? We meet the current versions of ourselves. And then sometimes we miss the thing behind the scenes that people don't notice. So Alan, I'll say this. We talked a little bit before, and there's a lot of commonality. And we miss so many of those shared moments by not talking. By not talking.

And when you sit down and we find out, listen, you and I both, man, we're both on a search. We're trying to figure out who we are and where we come from. And one answer is way more interesting than the second. Right? Right. One is way more interesting than the second. But tell the, tell the, listeners the story you were telling, you're searching?

So when I entered the foster care system, it was, for those that don't know, like, one out of four kids won't ever graduate going into the foster care system. It affects like 400,000 kids a year. One in three will get a diploma of some sort of higher education from a college, and then less than 3% of that 400,000 will get a bachelor's degree. And there's a couple other statistics. like seven out of ten if you're a female seven out of ten females will have a child without a father but before the age that they're 21 so the situation as far as foster care is pretty severe and when

I went in I was transferred from place to place to place and it took my uncle quite a while to find me because it for some reason they withhold the information even from family members because it's like court ordered yeah and you know I was dealing with with depression and suicide. I was like on eight different psychotropic drugs at the time that I was in the system itself. And, you know, I wasn't ever angry about the situation. I was just trying to understand like why I was going through this moment in my life. Yeah.

And what it was going to lead to if I got out of this moment. And I remember one of the situations that I got myself in is like, I just couldn't think straight with all the medication. And I found out later that the psychiatrists that were prescribing it were actually getting kickbacks from the pharmaceutical company. So that's why they had me on so many. But like a couple of the side effects were like I'd have really vivid, dark, bad dreams or like my hands would shake when I would talk to people. And then I was also on, which is basically like meth, but concerta. So I was going through withdrawals.

so I'd get really angry. And I don't, I didn't, I didn't ever want to hurt anybody with like my words or physicality. So I took it out on myself. So self-harm kind of became a thing. And then, I remember one night it got to a point where I went too far. And then they ended up transporting me to the ER. And I remember kind of seeing the people that were around me at the time. It was pretty dark.

Like I couldn't cloudy in my vision. But I was just like, I basically prayed to God at that moment. And I'd been reading the Bible. I remember the story of Job and how the man had suffered through all these events. And then eventually, you know, he never was angry. He never cursed God. He was just like, there's something that this is going to teach me at the end of this journey that I'm on that'll bring me back to what I'm supposed to be for the glory of God. And so I prayed to him.

I was like, I don't know what you're doing with me right now. I don't know where I'm at. I just like, if you haven't survived right now, like I promise I'll make the most of it. So, and then my uncle got me out when I was 18 and it was a rough transition, but things started getting better. And then about 26 is when I started traveling and stuff. So through all of this. And again, shared the commonality, the shared meeting place. A part of my journey took me into science and science informed me that every single one of us shares 99.3% of the same DNA.

Talk about it. Page for page. That's crazy. The same DNA. That it's word for word the same. And then there are, you know, 7.7% of the, there are variances, different combinations that provide the uniqueness of us of us all. But that all of us require, in order for DNA to process the way that it needs to, that all of us require friction. Yes.

All of us require friction. And the most unique and the strongest things on the planet go through the greatest amount of friction. Yes. The greatest journeys, the greatest stories ever told, all have friction required. And then they also say that your DNA from your past ancestors carries into you. So whatever they explain. Tell it. Tell it.

I don't know. Tell it. No. So this is a thing. Through the journey and finding all the stuff, what I didn't found out is to go back. And because, I didn't know DNA. I didn't know anything about science. Right.

But learning my friction took. took me into this path and it led me to people who could tell the story. And then it goes back and they say, we can track your male, your, your, your male DNA back to the pyramid. That's wild. Right? That Ramsey's the third. We share, we share some of the same DNA.

And he's sitting in a tomb next to King Tut. Yeah. Right. And you, you don't know this stuff about yourself. I also found out that of all of, so in, civil war in America. Right. Started in Alexander Virginia, right where I'm from, at a hotel where the Confederate folks

had put a flag on top of the hotel. And President Lincoln sitting in Washington, his soldiers reported and said, hey, they've got the flag over there. What do you want to do? And he said, go get it. Go take that down. And he's their crew over. And they go up to the top of the hotel.

They have to go upstairs. And the first guy up gets to the flag. and he gets the bottom of the stairway, and he shot and killed. First casually of Civil War. Shot and killed. That was my third cousin. The person that shocked him was also my third cousin.

So crazy, because it was families fighting other families. Like so much of the history behind it, we think of, if I asked you, if I asked Harrison, and it's different, each conversation is different. So if I ask Harrison, what is his family name? Harrison, what is your family name? Arns. Arns.

What are your two family names? What do you mean? Two family names? Oh yeah. Creamer and Arns. Okay. What are your four family names? I've got a tricky tree, D.P., I'll say that much.

But we all do. Here's the thing. You've been led to believe that it's difficulty when it's an actual truth. And I didn't know one name. I didn't know any of the name. Then you realize. you have four grandparents. Oh, but you have eight great great parents.

And that keeps going. And 16. If you go back four generations, 100 years, 100 years, you have 364 grandparents. You have 364 names. 300 people who are directly DNA coded into you.

That's bonkers. Telling your story, giving you every habit and feature that you have, that you don't understand. Every weird thing. that you think it's a court, there's some ancestor who is smiling every time you use it. Every time you, right? Like every little thing

that was passed along directly to you. And I think in the stories, the beauty of Ignite Lincoln is that it allows people to tell their story and to be able to feel comfortable that you're telling the story. We always say you're telling the story for somebody else

to recognize themselves in it. Yes. And that's what it is. So you're going to tell your story what you told tonight is for people who are out there searching. Yes. And to let them know that you know what, they're not alone. You are not by it.

Like you're not by yourself. You're not weird going through it. That there's beauty in it. The strength behind it. Like I just met you and you're one of the strongest people I know. Well, thank you. So what you've been through, look, man, tell your story. Like that's the beauty of this thing.

Toot, let them know. Okay. Let's tell the story. Okay. So ignite. sprung from ignite talks. Uh-huh. And that was started in 2006 by Brady Forest.

Okay. And Bree Pettus. So their whole envision was, um, everyone speaks. And with that came 350 plus countries of them doing talks of Ignite talks, right? And so they're, they're worldwide. But the mission is everyone speaks. So they believe and we believe that. with public speaking, it builds individual confidence and things like Ignite Lincoln builds the community in that way.

So what we're trying to do is make it possible for everyone, anywhere, anytime to learn how to present their ideas and their stories. And it's also about having fun. And what you were just explaining earlier, we all kind of share some sort of similar struggle. And when you see somebody else kind of verbalizing and communicating, your kind of issues, oh, I'm not alone. I have a friend. I have a brother. I have a sister who I can confide in and ask questions and get advice.

So that's what Ignite is about. But Ignite Lincoln started in 2010. But Ignite Lincoln wanted to make more of an impact on Lincoln. So in 2013, they opened it up to the community and opened. opened up to get sponsors and all the tickets that were sold were then give it to nonprofits and the people that are at these events get to vote on the nonprofit they want to give their money too are you allowed to say who those five nonprofits are give me some time because i have them okay well we have time we got we got we got a full hour so we're good oh we got we're good i need i need

the two store oh you need my story uh-huh it's a great story he's told it to me a couple times Yeah, I need that story. Like who you are, who am I? Where you're from, who you're trying to be. This is a good, this is a good question. Okay, so my name is Tud Kailetsh, Tuarnui Reich. So those are my four grandfathers. Uh-huh.

Wow. So in African culture, they always quiz you so you know who are your forefathers. Isn't that just like, I miss that so much? Yes. So every time I see one of my uncles or my dad's friends, they're like, who are you? Yeah. And they'll be like, okay, keep going. Yeah.

So, yeah. So I'm a South Sudanese refugee. Right. My parents fled the states. They fled Sudan at that time because of Civil War because of all the adverse effects that came from it. They traveled down four weeks. We got to Nairobi, Kenya in a refugee camp, walled our refugee camp. And I was born there.

Before that, my mom had three kids, but they passed away due to all the things that go on during Civil War. There's a lot, man. And so was born in there two years later, before that we were applying for sponsorship to come to the United States. And then we were picked up two years later by a Catholic organization in Texas. And I'm still trying to figure out who it is. So yeah. So my parents, we grew up, you know, pastoral, cattle herding. Then we came here.

So it's a whole different lifestyle from my parents. So we're all figuring this out together. Yeah. Yeah. New language, new customs. So then we moved around a lot. We move around with our other tribe members. So they seek it out.

Okay, there's job opportunities. Okay. Is school good? Okay, cool. They have a bus system? Okay, because we got to go to work. Yeah. Yeah.

And so we moved to Dallas, then from Dallas to Nashville, Nashville to San Diego, San Diego, back to Gallatin, Tennessee, 30,000 people. And then we came to Lincoln in 2005. Welcome. And yeah, throughout that time, I learned what it was like to be alone, because I'm like, most of the time, I'm the only African kid in class.

So I'm like, okay, I'm trying to fit in with some of my African-American friends, but they're like, nah. Now. Yeah. It's a different kind of like culture. Yeah. Aren't you African too? Yeah. Yeah.

But when you're young, you know. Hey, man. You're just ignorant to it. Look. Look. That's 100% true. Yeah. Oh.

But then, yeah, that led me to how to build. relationships with people I don't know. That taught me how to start a conversation with a person I just met in the elevator or somebody I'm walking down the street with. Like, it's kind of weird. We're not talking to each other. What can I find? Oh, I like your shoes, bro.

And then we start talking about something. And then what's your name? So that's gone on. But throughout that whole time, go to college being one of the first to graduate high school and then get my, my bachelor's at, UNL with my sister. She got her bachelor's in. She's a nurse, a registered nurse.

So yeah, we're trying to figure out where we want to go in life because we're the first in our generation to come over here. Oh, and you got your citizenship. Yeah, I guess so I got my citizenship 2019. Yeah, I remember the post. Yeah, because I couldn't go to college to play any sports because of my citizenship status. But my dad became a citizen in 2003.

So naturally, I'm supposed to become a citizen. Uh-huh. But the thing is, you have to sign paperwork before I turn 18. My dad didn't know that. So he was already in Africa when they told me to send these documents to him. I'm like, there ain't no fax machine out there. My parents. And email.

Email. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I can't send that. So I just have to say with my mom, you know. And then that taught me, what do I want to do? I learned all these things through the jobs I don't really like. than I had to do to help my mom,

you know, raise my siblings and whatnot. So I'm the oldest of 14. And that was rough. But now, I want you to repeat that. I'm the oldest of 14. And I thought too was bad. Yeah. My dad wants a big family,

as you could tell. But here's the thing about immigrants that come to, they and a couple of people have commented on that. You guys like literally have the home network where like, everybody will go out work and then they'll build together instead of like you go this way do your own thing you go that way and i've always admired that bring the money to and i think that's part of the problem in america with some families is they don't have that mentality of like we're kicking the kids out yeah yeah i don't even know anything it is it's culturally and i think we miss we miss the range on culture uh and there's tons of discussions because none of them are the same they should work from the same ideal but they don't So what we'll do is we'll go to break.

When we'll come back, Tud will let us know who those nonprofits are. Who those nonprofits are. And then we'll sneak a little bit more into who they are. And then finally in the last segment, I'll let them preview. They'll just give you a snippet, a small bit of what they're going to present at Ignite Lincoln 15.