Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 02-13-25_THURSDAY_8AM

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Ron Havinear from Medford 549C school district explains what is known and looked at in the NMHS roof collapse from snow. D62 quiz is on along with some more open calls and topics and emails of the day.

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clouserdrilling.com. Post your job for free at linkedin.com. Hear KMED and Krantz Pass on 105.9, K290AF Rogue River in South Jackson County on 1067 K294AS Ashland. Ten minutes after eight, Ron Havner joins me and he is with the Medford 549C School District. We've been talking a lot this morning about the roof. How did the roof come down on North Medford High School?

And there's been a lot of speculation, a lot of theories. Kind of wanted to kind of get to the timeline of what brought us here and what could be happening next. Now, Ron, you are in charge of security, facilities, the buildings, and all that. Why don't you just give me your LinkedIn profile here real quick. Yeah, basically, Bill, I'm in charge of safety, security, facilities, and leadership development. Okay, really great. Now, we were all kind of stunned, you know, seeing it come down. That video that was on social media was just absolutely astounding.

It was like, whoa, you know, just seeing it just kind of collapse in a cloud of dust there. And I was kind of wondering, just as a regular Joe that had to go out there and clean his sidewalk, well, gosh, why didn't anything happen? Or why wasn't anything done or was something done? And I maybe just don't know about it. So can I put it to you? Could you let us know first off when was that built i was told in the late 1960s 1967 when was the gym constructed 1965 okay

1965 okay so it was a couple of years off it's still pretty close all right uh do we know what it was built to take as far as snow load back in those days no but that'll certainly be something that our engineer teams are looking at you know there virtually was no load back in those days? No, but that'll certainly be something that our engineer teams are looking at. There virtually was no code back in those days or a much different code from what we're seeing today. And so when you think about those beams that were in place, those were old design. They had different standards for glue.

They used different joinery. They used different grades of wood. These are things that would certainly be retrofitted today. And where you could get 12 pounds per square foot to be an acceptable standard back then, we might be using 25 pounds per square foot today. So we talked to the engineer and insurance teams yesterday. They talked a lot about, it's not usually a single point of failure that leads to something like this. It's usually a series of contributing factors. And so really what we're waiting on is the demo to get the site safe and stable enough for the engineer team to get in there and do that thorough investigation of

what happened and how can we move forward. All right. Now there's been a lot of what about is him or what if, you know, those kinds of things. And I understand people are just going to do this because I'm thinking, all right, I'm having to move around that snow. And I knew that it was really heavy, even on my sidewalk and on my roofs, trying to get some of that off. So what was the timeline as the storms were coming in the other week that I guess the first cracks in the beam were? Friday night. Friday night is when you knew that. And the snow, I guess most of the snow was there before that point, wasn't it? Correct.

Can you help me understand? Yeah, I mean, we cleared snow all week last week. You know, our primary focus was parking lots, walkways, getting schools ready to reopen when the storm settled. And then Friday night, you know, it's not traditional. It's not best practice or standard practice to go clear more than a million square feet of snow off these roofs. We don't live in an area where that's what you see people doing. Now, if we got four feet of snow on a roof, we would certainly be trying to do that. But we have 10 inches of snow, that roof should withstand that load. So we became aware of that crack Friday night. We got crews on site within minutes of that, within about 20 minutes to investigate what was

going on, lock it down, secure it. Saturday morning, we had our contractor, engineer, architect, our teams out there, and we spent most of that day doing everything we could to reduce that snow load off that roof. So we were, and again, this is a compromise roof. When you got up on top of it, you could feel the giving it. Oh, it was already giving at that point. Okay. So, because the part of me, I was just wondering, you know, as it was coming down, so there wasn't any then thought there or thinking that this was going to be an existential threat to the roof at that point, even the 10 inches of snow that we had?

Leading up to Friday, no. Once the crack came, we certainly were doing everything we could to reduce that load. So we were shoveling in areas that we could. We put snow melt out. We had heat ropes out. We were pumping water off of it as it came. We insured all. Let me just dispel this rumor. All the drains were clear and working. And we saw that firsthand. We checked them all. It was really just about how can we reduce that load. Here's another rumor. We did not spray or saturate the roof with water,

but we did work with Medford Fire to start at the drains and erode that snow out so that we could get it to go into the drains. So you put water in the drains to kind of, what, free it? Just from the drains out, we just started kind of eroding that snow to get it off. So there was no additional load added to it. We did not saturate the roof or anything like that. It wasn't overly effective, to be honest with you. Our greatest asset was the sun. And unfortunately, it did not come out a lot on Saturday. Sunday, we got some good melt off. We kind of stabilized the cracks.

They didn't go very much further. Monday morning, we saw a little bit of signs of some additional stress. We had a shoring team in route that was going to be on the ground Wednesday morning to take care of the one main one that was broken and the other one that had started a crack. And then by Tuesday, that had escalated to three on the ground broken and then a full collapse in the gym area. Do we know if there was any – or is there any evidence – I don't know to some problems there that were undetected at that point. Absolutely, and that's where we need those engineer teams to get in there and look at all those different variables. This roof is designed to withstand that weight, ideally. Again, codes have evolved over the last six years.

700,000 pounds? Yeah, they estimated around 700,000 pounds with five to six inches of snow, you know, 70% saturated, about a 33,000 square foot roof. Okay. What is the procedure in Medford 549C for just inspecting such operations in general? Could you maybe take us through that? First and foremost, you know, we have more than 100 staff in schools, you know, facility staff in schools every day. So we're seeing it. We're working on the schools. We inspect the roofs prior to storms. We inspect the roofs in the fall. We have a roofing crew in the summers that does preventative maintenance, checking flashing, making sure there's no deteriorated areas, things like that. And then for big storms, we hop up and just make sure we don't

have any drainage issues, things like that. Was there any evidence that there was stress on that roof before with your teams? I don't know if the team inspecting the building would actually go and take a look at the laminate of the laminate timbers or not. You know, most, same as what we were doing with our engineers yesterday as we were walking through other schools to make sure that their large span structures were safe. A lot of it's just rapid visual inspection. You're looking up there. Are you seeing any leaks? Are you seeing any cracks? Are you seeing any signs of deterioration? And we did not see anything of that nature until we heard that crack. That team was in there practicing, heard that crack. Yeah, that was the first clue, right? The big crack.

That was the first indication. Okay. All right. So now we're looking at this. I'm glad that nobody was hurt. I guess there was one individual got, what, blown out of the door as the roof was coming down. It was like the air pushing him out. A lot of air pressure when that roof came down and knocked those guys out that door. Is that person okay? He's okay. Yeah, we talked to him that day and that night, and he's doing good. He's skinned up his knees, but he's good to go. All right. So we're not going to know probably the full engineering report for how long would you estimate it's going to take? We have demo design going on right now.

We hope to get that going in the next week or so. And then once they can clear out that area and make it safe enough, our engineer teams will get in there and probably one to two weeks for them to, you know, do the analysis and write up the reports and kind of come to their conclusions. All right. In the future, are we going to have to, if we end up getting another, you know, big, heavy snow like this, are we going to have to modify procedures somewhat on this? I mean, we'll certainly be taking a look at all those large span structures uh closely uh in terms of the feasibility of getting up and clearing all snow off millions of square feet of roof unless we get significant accumulation that's that's not feasible so it would not have been feasible to have even started working out it let's say with even just a a light duty snow blower just getting it and

throwing it over the side i i know i'm just kind of giving you a regular guy's approach to this i'm just like wondering what could have been done because i know it was heavy even me just moving it off the sidewalk was it took a lot of effort i mean again we spent most of that week removing snow across all 24 sites um and you know getting crews up to do that for all the roofs is a whole different degree once the roof was compromised it absolutely was not safe to get up there and do that you, if we knew there was an issue and the roof was stable. Yeah, once the cracks there, fine. But what was done up there before the cracking occurred? Primarily to make sure the drains were working and that there was no indicators of structural stress. Okay, because once again, it wasn't thought then that we were in a danger zone yet. No. Okay, all right. Ron

Haven here with me once again, Medford 549C School District. All right. So now it's kind of like we figure out where we go next at this point. I know that the board is most likely going to be talking a lot about this. First off, are we self-insured as a district or are there insurance policies on such matters? We have insurance. Our insurance team was down here yesterday with their engineers. Again, they were looking at what remains intact and what can we save potentially. And then they're working with us on the demo design. And then once we get that opened up and cleared, we'll figure out how we move forward with insurance. We have a $100,000 deductible, and we'll figure out whether this is a, it's going to be millions of dollars, but is it 10 million or is it 20 million

from a remodel to a big rebuild? Now, there was what, about three, three and a half billion dollars spent in the seismic retrofit, but that was not the roof for the most part. That was the walls surrounding it all? Yeah, mainly there was some roof work, but mainly it's getting those walls strengthened up, sheer walls added to it. It's getting some steel drags added to it. And what you'll see

largely is that seismic work kept those walls up and intact. Those are the strong points in that building. So it's all intact there? The walls are. Okay. The roof had, actually the work that was done on the roof was we lightened the load. We went from a built-up roof to a single-ply roof. We removed the cell tower, so we took a lot of that weight off of that roof. We put more sheathing down. We added a little bit of insulation, and then we added a single-ply roof. But those beams remained. Those 60-year-old beams remained intact, and the roof is where the failure occurred.

And again, we can speculate. We won't know until the engineers do their assessment. But somewhere along the line, one of those beams had a stress in it. And once that started getting exploited by the weight, it's designed as a system and it just went as a whole. All right, Ron, what goes on next here? Because like you said, the walls seem to be good. Sometimes, though, you never know if it is more economical to just rebuild what you have or just knock it all down and start fresh. I mean, we don't know at this point. But you are definitely, the district is definitely going to rebuild because rumor has it that, oh, we're going to get rid of wrestling.

We're going to have the kids outside in doing PE for the duration, et cetera, et cetera. We'll get rid of the weight room and all this kind of stuff, and we're not going to rebuild this. So I just want to make sure. What is the plan? That's just absolutely unequivocally not true. We're going to rebuild this gym. Students and staff are going to have a place to call their home for their athletic facilities and their activities. It's just a matter of understanding what the scope of that work is once we get those assessments and we'll hit the ground running and rebuild it. But are we keeping a portion of it that's still safe and can be salvaged or are we doing a full-blown rebuild?

And that's a conditions-based assessment that's going to come from our engineer teams assessing what remains of the structure and deciding whether we can retain any of it or whether we have to start from ground zero. But one way or the other, we will rebuild that gym. It's going to be rebuilt. Okay. That's good to know then. Now, another question here moving forward, we have many, many facilities in Medford 549C. Do we have any others that could be considered on the bubble being developed and perhaps built at the same time, mid-1960s, no code. Things are a little bit different. And I know that many schools have been refitted or retrofitted or modified over the years.

Are there any other structures that we might have to take a look at could be on the bubble because of some of what we end up finding out here? I know this was an anomalous storm. This is not something which is standard. Some of our schools are over 100 years old, and we've had many retrofits throughout the years. So one of the first things we did is we put all of our teams through those large span structures and, again, looked for any indications of stress, water leaks, things like that. We're also taking that engineer team. And these last few days, we've been working through those schools and having, you know, engineer perspective, subject matter expertise, look at those structures and let us know if he sees anything that's of worry. So, you know, we're going to pay close attention to this. First and foremost, we're going to deal with that North situation.

But we also want to make sure the rest of the district is safe, feels good about their buildings, and that school can remain the same thing and nobody's having any fear while they're being in school. All right. When we rebuild North, when North gets rebuilt, is there a good possibility we're going to have a sloped roof this time around or a pitched roof? Just say it because, you know, the one thing, at least something can slide off eventually. What do you think? You know, again, somebody asked me this yesterday. I'm not going to, what I will say is we're not going to put a roof up there that's going to, you know, yield the same problems. But we are going to use our engineer expertise to let us know what type of slope we need to have on that roof and what type of understructure to make sure we have the appropriate strength for the weather we experience in this area. So more to follow. We're not that far along in the design. All right, Ron, I appreciate you coming in here and talking

about this. And like I said, just stay tuned. We don't know everything about the engineering, but it seems like common sense. It just was too heavy, and we had a failure. And probably not going to happen again, I would say, from the looks of this. I hope not. Okay, all right. Ron Havner, I appreciate you coming in. Thank you, Don.

Ron Havner, once again, Medford 549C. It is 824 at KMED and 99.3 KBXG. Here at American Rent Your Garage. KMED. News Talk 1063. KMED. You're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. And it is Conspiracy Theory Thursday.

Are there any additional questions after listening to Ron Havener from Medford 549C? Is there anything else that you would want answered or any questions you had about that roof collapse at North Medford High? And district has promised that they will be completely open about it and we can submit questions. I can ask them questions

if you had anything on your mind too. But if you're willing to, just let me know, okay? Otherwise, we can talk about that and anything else on your mind. 7705633. And Randy is in Ashland. Randy, you are the conspiracy theorist's theorist. So it's good to have you on.

What are you thinking? Okay, this is probably going to make your head hurt. Okay. Sun Tzu, you're familiar with that? Yes, the art of war, yes. Yes. So when your enemy is destroying themselves within, from within, don't interfere. And conservatives are letting their morality get in the way of allowing our enemy, the loony left, from destroying themselves.

Ah, I know where you're going. Abortion. Yes. Okay. Abortion. Yes. Okay. Absolutely. All right. And opposing abortion, because conservatives are going to have kids, whereas the loony left are going to abort all their kids, and we need to let them do it. Let me take it one step farther.

Okay. Or maybe it'd be further. I think further would be the proper term, all right? Further, farther. Sometimes I mess up where you're supposed to use it, okay? But would you extend that to the loony left's hewing to the island of misfit humans, transgenderism, cutting the genitalia off of children because when they're four years old they say, you you know, I think I'm a boy, even if I'm a girl, you know, that kind of thing. Would you extend it to that? I say let them do their craziness and stay out of the way. All right.

What about the innocent child? That's what I'm asking, though. This is that pesky style. I mean, is the innocent child, are we putting innocent children at risk to permit such craziness? But if we let the loony left raise kids, they're going to make more loony lefties. Is that always true? I would say for the most part. Now, some kids may outgrow it uh-huh um however i would i would imagine the reason i bring this up though is that i would imagine if i were

to go back to my early 20 year old self not particularly politically aware all that kind of stuff i can't guarantee this but I would be guaranteed that if my 20 year old were talking today, he would probably be shocked at who I am today. Right. I agree. And I'm, I'm in the same boat. Okay. Yeah. I'm not politically active. I didn't vote in my twenties. I didn't start voting until I was in my 30s. Okay, so I just want to be clear then. So you're thinking in order for conservatives to have a chance at the demographic war is essentially what you're talking about. Exactly.

So go ahead. Don't oppose abortion. Just don't you do abortion. Don't abort. Don't worry about the transgender craze. Just let them do what they will. Well, the transgender thing, see, there's a problem because that's being indoctrinated in our kids in school. You see, I would tend to look at that as a form of child abuse. That's where I was going with that absolutely and in other words i would fight vehemently against having them do it to my kids of course my kids my youngest is 40 yeah okay all right randy i'll tell you that's a very interesting

theory very interesting theory in other words, if conservatives wanted to eventually win the culture war, don't fight abortion. Interesting. Correct. We'll throw it out to the jury. See what they think, okay? All right. Thanks, Bill. Thank you, Randy. If you're on hold, I'll get right to you. Conspiracy Theory Thursday calls continue. This is the Bill Myers Show. From Larry O'Gara, Nancy Lester, and Dwayne Lumpkin. I'm Bill London, KMED.

I vote for Dwayne just because, you know, you replace Dwayne Yunker, Dwayne Yunker with Dwayne Lumpkin. I'm just kidding, but I don't know you, Dwayne Lumpkin, but I just like the name. You just have to change. It'd still be a D on the front of the door, right? All right. Pardon me. Yeah, nobody thinks I'm funnier than me. Actually, Linda's the worst at that one.

Everything that Linda says is funnier than everybody else. But anyway, join in at 770-5633. We do have some open phone time here. And another number I'd like you to know is 482-3715. That'd be the number to get you the direct connection to the recognized experts. That'd be Jay Austin and company gold and silver buyers. Yeah. In spite of Doge, in spite of all of the talk about the reconciliation process and budget and

everything else, Mr. Gold is still indicating lots of tumult, whether it is war, whether it is out of control spending, which is going to take probably even more than Doge to, to reign in. And,

but the dollar is strong at the moment. So I had a little bit of a pull back there and if you're thinking about maybe some yeah dollars looking good for now but how about tucking some away just in case i'm a big fan that you have some of the just in case jay austin and company gold and silver buyers ashland 1632 ashland street sixth and g in downtown grants pass and by the way if you're looking at these uh these high prices right now and just going hey man i'm gonna go and look for some uh scrap gold around the house do it they'd be happy to talk with you j austin brokers.com fortune reserve.com visit them today in ashland and

grants pass this hour of the bill myers show is sponsored by fontana roofing for roofing gutters and sheet metal services visit fontana roofing.com. If your home computer has... Wash Buggy Wrap Lab. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 106.3 KMED. The Jack Vaughn Benzie Rathbone Orchestra. My grandma, Procek, gave me this record. I want to say back in the mid-70s. That's what we listened to. Remember I was always telling you at Grandma Protax Sunday morning,

we'd be listening to WKPA in New Kensington, and she had the big Kirby vacuum cleaner, doing it at 6 a.m. in the morning on Sunday. And my father would say, Mom, why are you doing this right now? She says, This is my house. We were very young, a very young family at that point. So I had a hankering to hear that the other day. I was on my way home, and it just came in my head that I wanted to listen to some Polkas.

I never listened to Polkas in the car, but I did. I had them on my phone anyway, just like my iPod and everything else. And so I'm listening to that song on the way home and i get home and there is a surprise package from my brother mike and it was an astounding i don't know what kind of conspiracy theory thursday this is but i there's this box of pictures that my brother mike sent and it had come from my late father who died back in 2011 and he they were just sitting in boxes of these things. And in that, one of the prized possessions that came in that box was my grandmother Protek's passport. And I shared it on Facebook the other day, and people were really astounded with it.

It was issued in 1962. It was like a year old. And we were living in her house while she went on her dream vacation. And she was on the RMS Queen Mary and went over to, I think it was France. She lived with Uncle Bob and Aunt Mary for a number of years. He was in the military, in the Army. And so she lived there and taught on the Army base there. And I think she went to Germany with them a couple years later. She was gone a couple of years.

And so my father and mother, a growing family. So we stayed in her house during that time. But what are the odds that I'm thinking about that? I'm playing that song that she gave me way back when. And then I come home and then here's her passport in there. The universe works in strange ways sometimes. But that was just really something. So Zivio Slavinsky, which I think means good health or something like that, you know, good

health, drink lots of beer and eat something which is, you know, killed in a skin of some sort. That was my family. Okay. Let me go to Wild Salmon Steve. Hello, Steve. How are you doing this morning? Welcome. Well, I'm doing good. Thank you for all the conspiracies and the information about Medford Schools. That was very good. Thank you. Yeah. What is your overall impression?

Is it just one of those things where stuff happens or you think there's something else going on there? Yeah, I kind of think it's just a combination of things. I have some experience in glulam beams. I worked for a company that made them. So the strength of a glulam beam is the bottom cord, the material that ties everything together. And if that fails, the beam is going to fail. So that's probably what happened. Yeah. Can you tell just by looking at it, or would you have to do a better type of testing or different kind of testing? I don't.

You know, the only thing you could do would be look for voids and or the cord is finger jointed together and glued. If you started seeing any kind of gaps in those finger joints in the glue lamps or any signs of voids opening up, that could give you an idea. But I think it's going to fail dramatically. I don't think there's going to be little minor fails that you're going to see. Now, I don't think this is what you called about. I didn't mean to hijack your call there, Steve. But I knew that you were in the timber industry or the lumber mill industry back in the day. Well, the other type of structure is a trust, and that's a whole other thing, but I guess that was glulam beams. All right, what I called about was it may be that

the Democrats in Oregon are causing their own demise because the Democrats in Washington, D.C., they control a lot of the purse strings, and that's what the fight's going over with Trump right now, is he wants to rip out some of the funding that the Democrats have. Oh, yeah, and ripping out the funding, this is the mother's milk of politics, too. You reward your friends and punish your enemies with funding. Yes. Okay, well, Oregon is a blue state. Oregon is not in play. So when it comes to funding, Oregon is going to get the short end of the stick

because they don't feel like there's any risk to losing Oregon, and Oregon is a small ballgame anyway when it comes to national funding. And, well, up to this point, though, it would appear that a lot of this really bad funding has been on autopilot, and perhaps that will be taken out. Now, I know there's lots of lawsuits against what Trump and Doge are trying to do right now. Oh, yeah. But there's a possibility that maybe Congress, just looking at the deficit, looking at the ability to finance this as a going concern, might have no choice but to reduce some of this. Well, they're going to reduce some of it, but the Democrats are still embedded in the bureaucracy, and they're going to spend what money they have

in the places they think that are going to get them the most bang. And Oregon is not one of those. And we're 36% dependent on the federal government for funding, especially for Medicaid. So I think Oregon and, you know, that's the fire map thing is kind of falling into the same thing. The feds are tired of spending money not putting out fires, even though they're the ones that don't put the fires out, you know, a bureaucracy has different cells and the Forest Service wants to burn things because they get paid. So what you need to do is remove the incentive to burn to get paid, right?

Yeah, well, that's part of the deal. But like I'm saying, the state of Oregon is going to have a hard time convincing the federal government that they need to fund Oregon because Oregon is going to have a hard time convincing the federal government that they need to fund Oregon because Oregon is already blue. So why would they spend money here? All right. Well, that's an interesting point. Thanks for making it, Steve. 7705633. By the way, RFK Jr., confirmed by the Senate, Mitch McConnell was a no vote because I will not be party to condoning the re-litigation of proven cures so in other words uh mitch says take your shot and big pharma we love you still and help me get re-elected by the way he didn't say that i'm just engaging in conjecture and opinion uh 7705633 so

rfk jr's there let me go to line one. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Well, this is Lynn, and that's what I was calling about. Oh, Lynn. A delight. How are you today? Welcome. I didn't mean to steal your thunder.

I was just looking up at the crawl. Of course, I'm very happy about it. And I also was going to comment, I heard the news where they're talking about the immunization deadlines and for the first time admitting there's exemptions available. They never did that before. I don't know if that's been a modification by the local news or what, but that is kind of— Well, you have to understand that's Bill London. That's my buddy here, you know, here in our company, and he's doing our news,

and it's different from getting it from, let's say, the other regular sources. Well, God bless him. I appreciate that. Yeah, we love Grumpy Bill, okay? Oh, good. Me too. Hey, I want to add one thing, though. It's really kind of broken my heart, because you've said it more than once, that you think Bobby's a bad person.

No, okay. I don't think he is a great man. I think he's the right man for this particular position. I know, but I'm going to, I'm going to disagree with you because I think he's a great man because he has had a dramatic change in his life. He has a terrible track record with women and drugs and all the things that, you know, charismatic rich men are tempted to get involved in, plus his family history. But he has had a huge change, and it's been very consistent for a number of years now. And people do change.

So, anyway. All right. I'll try to temper my harshness, okay? You're just mad at him because he was, you know, an environmental extremist, and I agree. He's wrong on that. But he's not going to be there. He's going to be in what he spent the last 15 years becoming an expert in. And I cannot wait.

It's going to be fun. Yeah. What do you think about McConnell saying, I'm casting a no vote because I will not condone the re-litigating of proven cures? He just needs to retire or die or something. That was my thought, too. That was my thought. It. That was my thought. It's the only Republican no vote, though. All the other ones voted yes, so I'm just so excited about that.

All right. And everything. All right. Thank you very much, Lynn. Always good hearing from you, okay? All right. Bye-bye. 770-5633.

Let me grab another call here on Conspiracy Theory Thursday. Good morning. Who's this? Good morning, Bill. This is Tom. How are you doing? I'm doing fine, Tom. What is on your mind on Conspiracy Theory Thursday. Good morning. Who's this? Good morning, Bill. This is Tom. How are you doing? I'm doing fine, Tom. What is on your mind, Conspiracy Theory Thursday?

Well, talking about culture wars, I don't know if you know how to tell a male chromosome from a female chromosome. I can hear a dad joke coming here. Go ahead. You pull down the jeans. That's with a J. Okay. You know, I'm going to give you you a dad joke you get the dad joke award is that okay tom all right that's good bill all right you must have eaten a lot of pierogies in

your lifetime you know uh probably too many pierogies but when i was making them they were mostly homemade i loved them oh there you go good, Bill, you have a good day. You too, Tom. And listening to Polkas. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I was a top 40, baby, but all my grandparents and my great-grandparents and my parents were all into Polkas and things like that. Now, my grandfather on my mother's side, Granddad Fisher, he was into the good stuff. He liked Ray Charles. He'd be playing Ray Charles and all that sort of stuff back then.

I like that. And he used to record everything. He had a tape recorder, recorded absolutely everything. And he had the garage just filled, just filled with all sorts of antique radios and junk and pinball machines. It was just wonderful. I love that. Anyway, back to the dad joke.

We're going to give him a dad joke of the day here. And dad jokes, by the way, are sponsored by Two Dogs Fabricating on Bryan Way off Sage Road in Medford. If you have a better joke than what Tom called in on the fly, visit twodogsfab.com, email it. Maybe you'll hear it on my show, maybe just live. But all their custom jobs, in fact, they built their business on custom fabrication. And also, TDF is a local dealer for Iron Bull heavy-duty trailers.

They'll also transform your truck and trailer into the ultimate work rig. Once again, Two Dogs Fabricating, Brian Way, off Sage Road in Medford. Back to the phones on Conspiracy Theory Thursday. Let me go to line three. Hi, good morning. Good morning. Hi. This is Ginny from Sam's Valley. Hi, good morning. Good morning. Hi. This is Ginny from Sam's Valley. Hello, Ginny from Sam's Valley. What's going on there?

Two things about the pennies. About the what? The pennies. Oh, pennies. Oh, yeah. The war on the penny. Go ahead. What do you think? Well, I think it's ridiculous. Is the Treasury supposed to be a money-making place? Yes, that is what they're there for, especially the U.S. Mint. The U.S. Mint, they're under the control of the Treasury. Money for themselves, not money-making, not as in producing coins. But I'm talking about income. Oh, well, it's... They're making... Well, it is a cost on the people.

It is a cost on the system to coin money. You're right. You're right. There is a cost to that. It's not supposed to be a money-making opportunity. Yes, I agree. Well, they make enough off their quarters and their dimes. Can they not consider what we called in the grocery trade the pennies being a loss leader,

like grocery stores do on certain items? That's an interesting point on that. Oh, a loss leader. The penny is the loss leader. Okay. Then I have a very angry comment. I saw on the news at the start of the week that two children froze to death in a car in Detroit. Really?

I only caught the last part of the news that the mayor was standing there doing something, you know, making his little statement. Oh, that's so sad sad and it is terribly disturbing now they were parked in front of a casino i have no idea and i'm not trying to say anything but the parents were in the casino working in the casino gambling or maybe the parents were in the car with the children there were three other children involved also they didn't i didn't follow the whole news thing because it was already over by the time i turned the television on but if we can give immigrants fifty nine thousand dollar check to the motels

how come these people who did apply for housing in november why did the children have to freeze it's an interesting question you've posed a really good question and i think that's why we're looking at a lot of clawing back right now of some of that money being sent to what you were speaking of new york city is an example right this was in detroit yeah yeah but i'm talking about the clawback of the 59 000 dollar bill yeah yeah going on there thanks for the call you raise a very good point seven seven zero five six three three i have time for maybe two three more calls and we're gonna're going to work on them. Hi, who's this? Good morning. Good morning, Bill. Kristen from Sunny Valley.

Hi, Kristen. Boy, two Sunny Valley calls in a row. Go ahead. Excellent. Excellent. Well, I wanted to just remind the good folks of Sunny Valley, Wolf Creek, and surrounding communities that tonight is the Wildfire Map Town Hall Workshop meeting with our Commissioner Ron Smith. It's taking place at the River Valley Sunny Valley Church, which is the old Radio Park building, at 7 p.m. this evening. And the doors open at 6.30.

Thank you very much for the reminder. Good to hear from you. Appreciate you, Bill. Thank you so much. You call more often. Love to hear people from Sunny Valley and Sam's Valley. Oh, no, that's right. That was Sam's Valley, the other call.

Okay, Sam's Valley, Sunny's Valley, still SV. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Hey, Bill. Steve in Sunny Valley. Oh, hi, Steve. I wanted to talk about a conspiracy theory that's not getting a lot of national news.

What would that be? And that is the state of Delaware sued Tesla because they wanted to pay Elon a huge payout for going above and beyond what the contract required of him. And the state of Delaware won and clawed back $150 billion from Elon. Oh, boy, that's a big clawback, isn't it? And Elon is not going to appeal it because he wants this precedent to stand. Delaware gets one-third of its income from large corporations being registered in the state. And there's a mass exodus of large corporations leaving the state of Delaware. So even though he's hurt by this particular ruling, ultimately he really screws Delaware.

Oh, yeah. This activist judge has just destroyed Biden's state. Interesting. Good call. I'll take two more. Hi, who's this? Good morning. Yeah, this is Al on the Appleg more. Hi, who's this? Good morning. Yeah, this is Al on the Applegate.

Hi, Al. What's up? Hey, so on the subject of getting rid of the penny, have you ever filled out your own state income tax in the state of Oregon? Yes, I have. So they round up everything, or they just leave the cents off of every line. So if it's $128.66, you just don't fill in the 66 cents on every line, on the whole thing. That's what they do. You're right. Because half of it is above and half of it is below, and it just all works out in the wash, and it saves a lot of time and paperwork. So you think the war on the penny is okay? Fine, screw it, right?

I think it's okay. You know, you can still charge 18 cents for something, and if you buy 36 of them, you know, you're just going to round up the last on the total, not on the individual items, but on the total. You just round up or round down at the end, and that's just fine. Okay. All right, Al. Glad you called. And I'll take one more. And then we're going to do the diner 62 real american quiz which is a

sign for you to call right now except for the quiz instead all right uh 7705633 hello caller you're here for conspiracy theory thursday though go ahead bill it's not i want reparations you want reparations oh no i do i want reparations i never thought i'd be for reparations but i'm for it i i want every nickel back for every piece of data that every tech firm has ever collected on me and farmed out for somebody else. And then I want reparations for every dollar that was stolen from taxpayers and fished out to all of these crazy programs that Doge is pulling out. I think we should all file for reparations for every dime that they stole from us. Real American salute. You get it. I'm there

with you. All we have to do is find a loony law firm to represent us. Can we do that? Plenty out there, Bill. Thanks, Matt. We ended on a light note, right? Diner62 Real American Quiz 770-563-377-OKMED.

By the way, your lunch destination. And their fries are really good, but I have to tell you, you know what I really love at Diner 62? The sweet potato fries. And also, I love the sweet potato fries and the onion rings. Oh, so much more. Avocado available on all their burgers. Just about everything on the menu there. And it's next to

the Chevron station just south of White City on Highway 62. Half Ham special still happening for 11-15 Monday through Friday. That's during my morning show

6-9. 770-5633. Jump on it and let's see if you can win that next. This is Brent with Home and Built Deck and Fence.

Restrictions apply. Call for details. Internet and cell phone service not provided by DISH. Hi, I'm Lisa with Pacific Survey Supp supply and i'm on kmed diner 62 real american quiz and for fun and profit let's go to line one right now hi good morning who's this hello oh you gotta listen to the phone not the radio i'll go back to that person here in just a moment let me go to line two hi who's this good morning? Good morning. Hi, Bill. This is Peggy. Peggy, you're first up here. Hey, it was today in history, February 13th, 1861, first Medal of Honor. Earliest military action to be awarded a Medal of

Honor is performed by Colonel Bernard J.D. Irwin. He served in the first major U.S.-Apache conflict near Apache Pass in southeastern Arizona. Irwin volunteered to go to the rescue of Second Lieutenant George Bascom, who was trapped with 60 men by the Apaches. Holy moly. I mean, that must have been a little bit nervous at that time. And so Irwin and 14 men, initially without their horses, Peggy, began the 100-mile trek to Bascom's forces riding on mules. They fought and captured Apaches along the way, recovering stolen horses and cattle. And they got to Bascom's forces February 13th, and they broke the siege. So the question, Peggy, for the win, what was Colonel Irwin's occupational specialty during his military career? Was he in medicine?

Was he in Army intelligence? Was he an Army engineer? Was he into food procurement? Or was he a horse trainer? One of those five for the win, Peggy. What do you say? Oh, food procurement. Oh, yeah, no, there's trying to make sure that the cookies had something to cook. No, not this time. I'm sorry, food procurement. Oh, yeah, no, they're just trying to make sure that the cookies had something to cook.

No, not this time. I'm sorry, Peggy. All right, let me go to line two. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Hello? Good morning.

Who's this? Jim in Central Point. All right, Jim in Central Point. It's not food procurement. Colonel Irwin, what did he do in the Army? Was it medicine, intelligence, engineering, or was he a horse trainer? I'm going to

say horse trainer. Horse trainer. That made a lot of sense. They had a lot of horses. No, it wasn't him either. It wasn't that either. Thanks. Let me go to the next one. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Hello. What's your name? Yeah, it's you. What's your name? I'm Robo. Okay.

Hey, Robo. All right. So it's not food procurement or horse trainer. We're talking about the guy that saved this whole bunch of other men. Was he into medicine, intelligence, or was he an Army engineer? What do you say? Medicine. You think it was medicine, huh?

Yeah. Hey, good day for you. Robo, you nailed it colonel erwin was an assistant army surgeon although erwin's bravery in this conflict was the earliest medal of honor action the award was actually not created until 1862 and then it was 1894 that he actually got the award and the first u.s apache conflict robo had begun when the co-chiefs the uh the apache chief kidnapped three white guys in exchange for his brother and two nephews held by the u.s army in which he claimed were false charges for stealing cattle kidnapping a kid and when the exchange was refused co-chiefs killed the white guys and the army responded by

killing his relatives. And as you can imagine, things got sporty from that point on. Okay? Just the way that was, Robo. Off to Diner 62 quiz with you. Hang on. I'll be right with you. 770-5633 if you want to go the way in here.

In the final moments of my broadcast week, because I'm on vacation tomorrow and Monday, with Chris DeGaulle filling in for me on KMED. K-4-10-0-1-6-4. It's a minute after 9, KMED, KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass. Chris DeGaulle filling in for me tomorrow and for Monday, by the way. I'll be back on Tuesday. Todd's in Central Point. Todd, you wanted to do a quick weigh-in.

Go ahead. Actually, my brother served in the National Guard in the late 70s, and they threw him out there in the middle of the desert near 29 Palms, close to Joshua Tree, and the name of the place is Fort Irwin, so it was named after him. Oh, the Colonel Irwin that I talked about. Thank you for reminding me. In fact, yeah, I remember Fort Irwin out by Barstow, right? Yeah, it's a pretty formidable area, and that's also where General Patton did his desert maneuvers prior to us entering the war in North Africa so they could practice doing tank maneuvers in a desert. So it has a lot of history of people are going through that area. The Chiraco Summit just past Palm Springs there. They have a patent museum out there so you can stomp on tanks and look at his big statue with his English bull terrier.

In fact, I went there. I went there. Last time we were going to Vegas, we stopped in there and saw it. I loved it. Thanks for the call. I'll give you an outdoor report. Oh, okay. Go ahead.

Outdoor report, Palm Springs. It's 71 and a little cloudy. Good for you. Have a great time, Todd. Let me grab one more call. Can you make a good point in 30 seconds, caller? How are you doing? Hello?

Hello, it's Joel. Joel, I'm having trouble hearing you, but go ahead and give me a quick one. We've got 15 seconds. Oh, yes. Four inches of snow equals one inch of water in our current past, the big storm. Oh, okay. So the water was that heavy, four inches of snow. So 10 inches of snow, about two, three inches of water, very heavy on the roof, in other words, right?

Yes. All right, good. Thank you for the confirmation. We'll talk more about that Tuesday. Have yourself a wonderful time.