Episode 89
Episode 89: Glenn Barham Joins Us: Local Politics and Community Spirit Uncovered!
The trio talks events, burritos, and visits with Glenn Barham, former Wichita Falls mayor and current president of the Sheppard Military Affairs Committee.
Transcript
This is Terry McAdams at the Tres Serala over there. We're glad to have you here. We get together to entertain and entertain and inform you. That's hard to say early in the day.
And we also hope to enlighten you as well. And it has been a really, really interesting few days here as we record this. Most of us got rained on over the weekend total.
Terry McAdams:What have we had since the weekend?
Mike Hendren:We.
Trey:A lot.
Mike Hendren:We think the area average is going to be around 6.6inches on average overall. I know we had close to six where I live. I know a couple of people said they had seven plus. So it's. Yeah.
Trey:We good for Texoma in the whole area.
Mike Hendren:It absolutely is. But thank you for joining us. Be sure to visit our website. By the way, get it right texoma.com.
Trey:Also, today is election day.
Mike Hendren:Yes.
Trey:We're not going to talk about it because it just. You won't hear this until it's over. And we have a great special guest today.
Mike Hendren:We do have a very special guest today. Glenn Barham is a former Wichita Falls mayor and a retired Wichita Falls police officer.
He currently serves, I believe as the chairman or the executive director or he'll tell us.
Terry McAdams:Yes, we'll find out.
Mike Hendren:It's the Shepherd Public affairs.
Trey:Military Affairs.
Mike Hendren:Military affairs committee. Yeah, we'll let him explain all that when he gets here. But, well, needless to say, Glenn's been a very busy guy. Very Busy the last 45 years or so.
So anyway, Glenn will talk to us about that when he gets here a little later in the program. So we'll get right into it.
We've got s'mores and pours coming up featuring the killer dueling pianos, which, by the way, if you've never seen these dueling piano guys do their thing, pretty interesting.
Terry McAdams:Whoo.
Mike Hendren:On fire.
Terry McAdams:Killer dueling piano.
Mike Hendren:Killer dueling pianos. Now, I don't know if I've seen this one specifically, but I've seen a couple of different duos do this dueling piano thing. It's really cool to watch.
This is going to be at the Sykes Lake Event Center 6 to 10pm on the 16th. You get the tickets at Campfire USA office.
Trey:This Campfire of North Texas is putting this event on.
This event was a happened a few years ago pre Covid then went on hiatus I know when I was on the board we were planning to revitalize this event and they've done it and I think it's great. And it's kind of a neat. I don't, I don't know what the whole concept before the concept was s'mores and pours.
It was a bar, they had beer and then they also had s'mores. I don't really know all the details on this, but they are gonna have the killer dueling piano thing, which is gonna be great. And the s'mores.
Campfires of course known for s'mores. So for more information, I think you can get it on the website campfire ntx.org you know, I can see where.
Mike Hendren:An ice cold shiner Bach might pair well with a s'more. I can see that.
Trey:Yeah, absolutely.
Mike Hendren:You know, nice dark beer with a nice sweet s'more.
Trey:So go check it out.
Mike Hendren:That's right.
Then on the 25th, something that's kind of near and dear to me because I'm on their executive committee, The Fantasy of Lights is going to open at 6pm on the 25th.
Now for those of you that may be watching this, that aren't familiar with this, that maybe you don't live around here, this is a, this is a truly local event. It started local 80 plus years ago with the Burns family.
Terry McAdams:Wow.
Trey:It started with one decoration, with the Burns family. The Burns family was a local family that started out with very humble beginnings and then built an empire, an oil empire in the local area.
Mike Hendren: they did well. So Back in the:burns had passed away, all of the exhibits kind of went into storage down in Archer City, Texas.
Trey:Yeah, they were actually donated to Archer City. What this is exhibits that were Christmas exhibits that Mrs. Burns that the Burns family would put out on their lawn.
They had a rather large yard, so they would put out on their lawn every year and, and the public was invited to go and see these, these displays. So some of these displays that are still being used today date back from the 40s, 40s and 50s. Yeah, yeah.
And they require lots of maintenance and stuff.
But they were, the whole thing was dedicated or donated to the city of Archer City, which is a community that's probably, I don't know, 20 miles from here, 25 miles from here. And a lot of the workers that work for the Burns family lived in Archer City. I think that was the reasoning.
That's what I've heard is the reasoning that they, they want to donate to the city of Archer City. For city of Archer City looks and goes, what the hell are we going to do with this?
Because Archer City, if you, once again, if you're not familiar, the word city is a little of a misnomer. Yeah, more for community.
Mike Hendren:More of a hamlet.
Trey:Yeah, exactly. So, so anyhow, they didn't know what to do, so it sat in storage. And then a committee was formed.
Mike Hendren: Well, around:And the city of Archer City approached, or someone there approached Midwestern State University and said, hey, would you guys like to have this stuff? Well, MSU in and of itself could not legally spend money to put these displays out there. They couldn't pay for it.
ise money. And In December of:It all is lined up on the campus grounds along Taft Boulevard. You can drive through and look at the exhibits, what you can see from the, from the drive there. But you can also get out and walk this stuff.
And there's thousands of lights. Several of the buildings are draped with, with lights. You've got all these exhibits.
I've lost count of how many there are, but it's, it's, I want to say it's 50 or 51 exhibits.
Terry McAdams:51 exhibits.
Mike Hendren: these exhibits go back to the:And I think that may be the robot that blows the bubbles. I think that may be the one. It's one of the oldest ones.
Trey:You can tell by looking at some of them that some of them are weather old. Not that they're in disrepair, but it's just the design of them.
Especially the one, the Night Before Christmas one, which is a pretty elaborate exhibit considering the age of it.
Glenn Barham:Yes.
Trey:But you could just tell by the way it's designed.
Mike Hendren:Yes, yeah.
Trey:That it's.
Mike Hendren:Well, there were a lot of technologies that we would use today to create, to create the images, to create the characters and so forth. That didn't exist 70 or 80 years ago. So you've got a lot of, a lot of stuff there. But some of these exhibits are very old.
It is 100% run by private donations. Midwestern State University collecting money. Exactly.
Well, you Know, my wife and I will stand out there, you know, three or four nights out of the, out of this year and help collect money. We have volunteers that step up every Humpty Dumpty just about every night to stand out there and help collect money for this.
We also have donation boxes on the campus, various places throughout the exhibits where you can make a donation. You can go to fol msutexas. Edu and you can see the site, you can see the exhibits and you can make a donation online there as well.
Trey:Go check it out. It's really a staple now. It's opening a little earlier. I don't know that it's earlier than normal, but usually it opens real close to Thanksgiving.
But it actually opens before Thanksgiving this year.
Mike Hendren:Well, we usually try to open the Monday prior to Thanksgiving.
Glenn Barham:Right.
Mike Hendren:So that way the exhibits are there, everything's operational, in place, running and going. And we have 200,000 plus people every year that show up to see this.
It really is November 25, 6pm There will be food trucks, food vendors, several of the high school choirs will perform. The mayor will give some opening remarks.
Trey:It's a big event.
Mike Hendren:It really is an event. The first 30 minutes of this thing on the 25th is going to be a lot of, you know, pomp and circumstance. Yes.
So I would get there, I would get there by 5:30 and you can, you can get something to eat, get some, something to drink and kind of enjoy the pre opening events. And then the lights go on at 6 o'clock and we're off and running.
Trey:You're under our local restaurant focus and then we can get to our guests.
Mike Hendren:Let's do that. Yeah. So each, each program we try to focus on a local area, family owned, locally owned restaurant. This week, this program, I should say this week.
Listen, this program, Sevy's Burritos is our focus.
Trey:They've been around a long time. I don't know how many years they've been in business, but I don't know either. I heard of Sevy's Burritos.
I mean I've eaten at Sevy's Burritos I believe since high school.
Mike Hendren:I'm pretty sure we have. Sevy's is one of those legendary brands around here. Yeah, it's a burrito shop. They do, I guess mostly breakfast burritos.
And I don't know anybody that doesn't like them. I mean they are big. They're, they're huge.
Trey:Oh, it's a meal. It's more than meal.
Mike Hendren:Yeah, you get your money's worth out of big time. Get your money's worth out of.
Terry McAdams:Thumbs up from the audience, but yeah.
Mike Hendren:Seve's Burritos. What is. They're located on.
Trey:They're on 9th Street.
Mike Hendren:I try to think of the. I know they're on Ninth Street. Yeah.
Terry McAdams:1710. Oh, they're at the corner of Ninth and Brook. Ninth and Brook.
Mike Hendren:Ninth and Brooke. Yeah. So really easy to find.
Terry McAdams:Not right off the street.
Trey:They're across from the Walgreens.
Terry McAdams:There you go.
Mike Hendren:Yeah.
Glenn Barham:Across.
Mike Hendren:Yeah, that's right.
Trey:From the Walgreens.
Mike Hendren:That's right. Yeah. So if you can find a Walgreens, you can find seven.
Terry McAdams:Tight parking, too, because they're so busy. But anyway, they are.
Mike Hendren:They are very busy. My advice is get there early and, you know, bring a 20 bill and you'll.
Trey:Or you can call in and pick it up. That's kind of the hot setup to me is call the order in. That way you can go by and pick it up. It'd be nice and fresh for you.
Mike Hendren:Big burrito, bottle of Coke. Yeah, it's all baby.
Terry McAdams:And it's actually Sev. Severiana. Severiana. Is that Severiana?
Mike Hendren:Sevy's burritos.
Terry McAdams:Yes, that's the.
Mike Hendren:Is that the Facebook page?
Terry McAdams:Yes, that's the Facebook page.
Trey:But I don't know how long they've been around, but it's been a long time.
Terry McAdams:At least since I've been and since 95.
Mike Hendren:And before I'm gonna say they. They've had to have been here at least 35 years. And probably near 45.
Trey:80S. Yeah, at least in the 80s, but probably near. Great. Great local. Local restaurant, good food, good service, good people. Go check them out.
Mike Hendren:All right, we're going to take a break here for just a moment, and when we come back, Glenn Barham is going to be our guest. He'll join us here on get it Right Texoma. Back in a moment. Hey, welcome back to get it Right Texoma with the trio, Mike, Terry, and Trey.
And our very special guest, as we promised, is Glenn Barham. Glenn has served with Wichita Falls police department, served on the city council as both at large council member, mayor for six and a half years.
And then you went on to join the shepherd military affairs committee. Am I saying it right?
Glenn Barham:That's correct?
Mike Hendren:Yeah.
Glenn Barham:Or smack daddy.
Mike Hendren:Yeah.
Trey:Smack daddy. Yeah.
Mike Hendren:Glenn, how are you?
Glenn Barham:I'm good, Mike. Good to see you, Terry.
Mike Hendren:Yeah. Good to have you.
Trey:Morning, sir.
Glenn Barham:Good to have you.
Mike Hendren:Now, you're. You're a local guy, right?
Glenn Barham:I mean, you grew up here. We moved here when I was very young, so I 18 months old when we moved here. So I was. Wichita Falls is my home.
d went off to college back in:And then also went, went ahead and enrolled out at Midwestern in criminal justice. And took me four more years to get that degree because I decided I wanted to be a police officer.
Went through the Academy in: Mike Hendren:Wow.
Glenn Barham: years later, plus:And a lot of folks at the Fire association started pestering me about running for city Council, wanting me to run for council. And I said no, my plan is to wait, wait about five years. Two years is too soon. They'd ask why is that?
I did not want the perception that I had an axe to grind. And a lot of times when a retired or former city employee turns around and runs for city council, he's got an ax to grind.
And I did not want that perception. So I wanted to wait about five years. But Fire association talked me into running.
And if nothing else, it gave me a little bit of experience as far as what you have to do in the election process. And I filed for the at large position on the city council the last day to file.
And in May when the election was held, there were, there was three of us in the race. So you had to have a majority vote. Now, not plurality. Nobody had a majority. So there's a runoff between me and another gentleman.
And a month later, I won the runoff election by 20 votes. I'm here to tell you that voting at the local level and the county level and somewhat to the state level really matters.
Trey:I've.
I've been screaming about that on this program that everybody wants to focus on the presidential election, but you're never going to talk to the president because there's a good chance you'll never talk to a US Senator. A very limited number of people will talk to a U.S.
congressman, but the good news is you could talk to a school board member, a city councilor, the mayor, the county commissioners, county judge, and even state representatives. At some degree, you have a lot more influence on that local election and it influences your life more than what happens in the White House.
Glenn Barham:That's absolutely true. And sometimes that talking is a little bit too much, but that's okay. That's why you run and well, your.
Mike Hendren:Local elected officials, These are the people you're going to run into at the grocery store. These are the people you're going to sit next to in church or at some concert event or something like that.
These are, these are the people you're going to rub elbows with regularly in the public sphere.
Glenn Barham:Absolutely.
Mike Hendren:So you're going to see them. You're going to. Even if you don't know them personally, you're going to see them and you're probably, probably going to recognize them.
It would be hard not to recognize you, Glenn. You've been around here doing things. You've been active in this community for so long.
Glenn Barham:Well, after what Channel 3 did to me last night on the 4B board meeting yesterday, when they zoomed in and full screen face shot of me.
Trey:Oh, and you serve on the 4B board, right? Yes, as well.
Glenn Barham:So I'm on the 4B board now.
And when I ran for mayor after three years as the at large, there were three of us in that race and I won that, that election by 57% on the first ballot.
Mike Hendren:Wow.
Glenn Barham:So that told me that what I had done as the at large councilor, everybody was pleased with, especially the business community, because they were totally opposed to my running for council when I ran for the at large seat and the police and fire association, they're the ones that got me elected to the council or at large position.
But over the three years that I served in that position, I feel like that my work on the council as the at large changed some minds in the business community and they supported me when I ran for mayor.
Mike Hendren:Yeah. Now when you ran for mayor and, you know, six and a half years as mayor, I guess basically term limits is.
Glenn Barham:Yes.
Mike Hendren:Why you.
Glenn Barham:Term limited out.
Mike Hendren:Term limited out. But during that time, what would you say were, you know, two or three of the most challenging things that you faced as mayor?
Glenn Barham:Number one, the drought.
Mike Hendren:Yeah.
Glenn Barham: That drought started in:The restrictions were becoming a little bit draconian.
Towards the end, of course, we started the project to pipe our wastewater from the wastewater treatment facility back over to the Cypress water treatment plant and blended that water, ran it through microfiltration, reverse osmosis, stored it In a holding tank for about 30 days, then blended it with the lake water coming in and ran it through the conventional treatment process. So that wastewater got four different treatment cycles.
Trey:It was about as clean as you're gonna get. Yeah.
Terry McAdams:And it was a. It was something that hadn't ever been done the way that y'all did it, right?
Glenn Barham:Not to the extent that we did it. No. Not in this country.
Trey:The technology existed. Yeah.
Mike Hendren:But we were one on cases. What a community would do is they would pipe that water out to a reservoir just like we do now. Like we do now.
It would be blended with the lake water. It would just become part of the lake, and then. Then it all becomes, you know, one. But this was the first time anyone had attempted this.
And I gotta tell you. And I know I heard all the jokes and everything about I. But you know what? It was a brilliant idea, and it saved us. It saved us.
Glenn Barham:It literally saved us.
Mike Hendren:It saved businesses. It saved the community, and it was a brilliant idea. Looking back at it now, it's like that was. That was a stroke of genius to.
Trey:Do that, because part of the problem is. But you don't lose water as much through usage as you do through evaporation.
Glenn Barham:That's correct.
Trey:So if you go put that stuff right back in the lake out there, the sun is going to take most of it, a large portion of it.
Mike Hendren:We lose more water to evaporation.
Terry McAdams:That's correct.
Mike Hendren:Than we do consumption.
Glenn Barham:That's correct.
Trey:Yeah.
Mike Hendren:There's nothing you can do about that. I mean, it is what nature is. Nature, man.
Glenn Barham:We tried several different things. We tried. There was. There's a powder or something that we could put down on the surface of Lake Airhead. We tried.
That was limited success, but not enough. You know, not success to the extent that it would have done what the reverse osmosis system did for the wastewater.
Mike Hendren:Yeah.
Trey:We're gonna get in a big piece of Saran wrap and just put it right over the top of the lake there.
Mike Hendren:A lot of luck.
Trey:Yeah.
Mike Hendren:With our luck, it would fray and tear just as you got to the end of it, you know?
Trey:Exactly.
Mike Hendren:Yeah. No, but it really was. It was a genius idea. Now, that water that pipeline was relocated out to goes now directly to Lake Arrowhead.
I've heard and read we dump somewhere around 6 or 7 million gallons a day.
Glenn Barham:More than that, it's. It's probably closer to 10 or 15 million gallons, really. But keep in mind also that if.
If we're not in a drought like we are now, they don't pump that water back to Lake Arrowhead, right?
Trey:Yeah, it's, it's, it's one of those.
Glenn Barham:You know, we, we, we survive on the water that we get naturally. There's no reason for us to return the wastewater because what you're doing, you return it to the lake. We have rains.
And what you return, the lake goes over the spillway and goes to the Red river and then downstream to Lake Texoma and all those metroplex cities. So we don't, the city doesn't pump it back unless we're in low water situations like we are now.
So it is 100% of it's going back to Lake Airhead today.
Mike Hendren:Yeah.
Glenn Barham: You know, in the drought from: Mike Hendren:Yeah.
Trey:Wow.
Glenn Barham:Today it's, it takes a week to maybe 10 days before you drop 1% lake level. So pumping that water back has made a big difference. And it's a project that we had planned to do all along following the drought.
Now if I had my druthers, I'd say we've got this thing in place. Let's bury that pipeline. Let's keep the reverse osmosis and the wastewater treatment going.
But it's very expensive to treat that water, especially through the RO process. Takes a lot of electricity and electrical cost. Would offset any good that you might have.
Terry McAdams:Is there some. Are you on the water board?
Glenn Barham:I chair the Water Resource Commission, which.
Trey:By the way, I want to give you props here. I think you did a great job.
Was it two or three months ago in speaking to the city council about dropping the water restrictions that had once again kind of become a little bit on the draconian side. It didn't make a lot of sense based on the current environment.
Glenn Barham:Yeah.
Trey:And, and so I think I appreciate you going in and thank you. Trying to speak a little bit of. Hey, we, we all, we all have to be concerned, but we can't freak out about every time we weren't worried about water.
And we have to use logic because it's like any kind of government thing. And you dealt with this as mayor.
Glenn Barham:Yes.
Trey:You have to run the city or run, run a portion of the city or something from a governmental standpoint. But you do have citizens that have rights and, and that sort of thing. You have to balance those two things.
Glenn Barham:You do, you do. And that particular situation was just a misunderstanding on two counselors parts. Plus they were down a couple of members that day.
And that vote Required four councilors voting in favor of doing whatever the proposal was. They had five members there. The vote was three to two to stop it. But because of what our city charter says takes four votes.
And it was just a misunderstanding on two counterparts. They were further educated up until the next council meeting.
And of course, there are several of us that went to that meeting to explain the situation as well. And that was a majority vote the second time around.
Mike Hendren:You've obviously had some input and some ears and eyes on this Lake Ringle project, something that's been on the. On the drawing board for 65, 70 years now.
Glenn Barham: newspaper article from May of: Mike Hendren:Almost 70 years ago.
Glenn Barham:So the big controversy when Arrowhead was built. Do we build Arrowhead? Do we build Ringo? And they went politically, they decided to build Arrowhead. And there was a good.
It was a good decision to make at the time.
Mike Hendren:Yeah.
Glenn Barham:But in hindsight, who knows?
Mike Hendren:Yeah.
Glenn Barham:Lake Ringgold, the state of Texas is divided into five water districts, huge districts. And Lake Ringgold is the last viable reservoir site in the district in which we reside.
There's no other place in the district that you could build a reservoir. There would be a viable option. So it's the last place it needs to be built. Are we going to need the water in 30 years? Who knows? I think we will.
I think there's things coming to Wichita Falls in the near future and maybe five, six, seven, eight years out. I think you're going to see this. This city start exploding in growth.
Mike Hendren:Well, I think when you.
When you look at the migration of America, I mean, we have thousands of people every day relocating here from the west coast, literally, and to Texas. To Texas. Most of them are going to the Dallas Fort Worth area.
Not to here or the Austin area, San Antonio area, but at some point, particularly the Dallas Fort Worth area, that growth is going to have to start moving north and west.
Trey:And it has been moving north. Yeah. You look at.
Mike Hendren:Yeah.
Trey:Prosper and you know, Little Elm and those places that are right north.
Mike Hendren:You look what's happening even in Decatur right now. Look what's happening there. That growth is going to start really pushing. It's going to have to, because they're running out of space.
Terry McAdams:For Mike Campbell mentioned when we had him on as a guest, that there was a tract of land that was purchased and has been started, divided it up and they've sold all the or most of the lot.
Trey:Huge, huge amount of lot.
Terry McAdams:So that's.
Glenn Barham:Yeah, I'm a little bit perplexed about some folks. And, you know, I get it. The folks that own that property, they don't give up their property for reservoir. I fully understand that.
But what I'm perplexed about is, is the citizens that don't really have a stake in that, other than that they're going to get a reservoir out their back door.
The tax revenue that that's going to generate for Clay county is tremendous because the cities, as I understand it, there's no plans for the city to hang on to that property surrounding the lake like they did out at Arrowhead and lease it. They're going to sell it. It's going to be.
There's going to be homes there, there's going to be businesses on that lake, and all of that's going to generate tax revenue for Clay county, not Wichita Falls, Clay County. And, you know, and Clay county is more a rural county than Wichita county is.
You know, we're technically a rural county, but Clay county is especially a rural.
Trey:More than two and a half times the size of Wichita county is about 12,000 people.
Glenn Barham:Yeah. And it's, it's going to. It's just going to explode when that lake's built. Yeah. Property values are going to go up. Tax revenues will go up.
It's a win, win. And the water is going to be needed.
Terry McAdams:Trust me.
Glenn Barham:I firmly believe that.
Terry McAdams:But if we don't do it, I think that could be an impediment because businesses, larger businesses are going to look at that at the capacity of Wichita Falls in the future and, or the area.
Trey:I don't know. There's a. There's a lot to. There's a lot. There's a lot of back and forth on that. And Russell Schreibert's going to be on with us actually, next.
Next week. Well, a little bit about that.
Mike Hendren:So all this stuff we're talking about does have a tie back into smack.
Trey:Yeah, let's talk some smack now.
Glenn Barham:Yeah, I was just fixing to bring up that during the drought when, when I was the mayor, shepherd was making contingency plans and they had plans in place to move missions out of shepherd to move them to other installations. Now, we all know the four of us sitting here, if you move an incident, if you move a mission, the chances of it coming back are slim and none.
And so we fought tooth and nail, thank goodness to the local folks in this community that provided water. So shepherd swimming pool could stay open.
A local benefactor provided water on a daily basis so that pool could stay open for those kids and airmen there at Shepherd. Water was provided to Castaway Cove for that matter. But we. Shepherd was very close to pulling the trigger on moving missions.
And May: Mike Hendren:Everything changed with a record record flood.
Trey:So tell everybody what is smac?
Glenn Barham: mittee. It was established in: Trey:So SMAC followed BRAC?
Glenn Barham: ter known as the BRAC. In the:Shepherd was the place that army medics, Marine corps medics, Navy medics, Air force medics, all came to Sheppard to learn how to do their jobs. And when the BRAC round occurred, Sheppard lost that training and it was moved to Fort Sam Houston down at San Antonio.
Now people wonder why we lost it. If you go back and look at the scoring documents that were established during that BRAC round, Shepherd was number one on the list to keep that.
Keep that training here based on the scoring. But a political. I never have been able to find out what political move was done, but it was a political move that moved it to.
Terry McAdams:But it wasn't San Antonio. But wasn't the BRAC commission supposed to be outside the political world? That's why they had an objective list of criteria that they looked at.
Glenn Barham:Absolutely. That one went well. So the community came together following that sorry circumstance and established the Shepherd Military affairs committee.
And the purpose of Shepard? The stated mission is to protect the future of Shepard Air Force Base.
very well over the over since:It's the largest one in the Air Force. There's two of them and this one is the largest. They graduate a class every six months. So they have two graduations a year.
Ordinance disposal, training, basic training. Military folks learn how to do that. The basic training is now done at Shepherd. That's a very physically intense.
What do they call it in the air force job titles?
Terry McAdams: t. I entered the air force in:And although it was a tough school, I went through five and a half months of training. And fortunately or unfortunately, I guess depending on your perspective, I washed out, ended up going into avionics.
But in this case, yeah, it was a tough school.
Glenn Barham:It's a very tough school. A lot of injuries. Shepherd has partnered with Midwestern State University's kinesiology program.
Their injury rate dropped from about 80% of their students down to about 10%. Once the kinesiology folks got involved and do what they do, a lot of it's prevention. So those are the two biggest missions that shepherd picked up.
Of course, the in jet program. We all know about the jets flying around.
Terry McAdams:They're Euro, Euro NATO joint jet pilot training.
Glenn Barham:In jet, for sure.
Terry McAdams:And I want to. I want to point out something they get all.
, since I've been here, since: Glenn Barham:Yes, they do.
Terry McAdams:And they don't graduate nearly. There's. It's a fraction of the number of tech training graduates out of Shepherd Air Force Base. And I love the pilots. I mean, we gotta have them and.
But you also have to have those maintainers. And that's a good. A significant. In fact, almost all aircraft maintenance training is done here. Avionics, jet engines.
Most all of that, I believe, is here. And I was in avionics and 365th. Hoorah.
Mike Hendren:But anyway, yeah, I think most people don't realize just how large shepherd is in terms of its missions and the economic impact. What is the economic impact in the community?
Glenn Barham:I'm glad you asked us to have it.
Trey:Right.
Glenn Barham: These are the: Mike Hendren:Okay.
Glenn Barham:A firm out of Austin did the study for us about a year and a half ago now.
Mike Hendren:Okay.
Glenn Barham: And in:Now, we think that number is higher because when the study was done, we put a timeline on it. We needed to get it done because we had some issues going on and we needed the numbers. So they didn't get all the data they really wanted.
We think it's probably closer to 37, 38%, maybe even 40% of our economy. So if shepherd goes away, 34. Based on the study, 34.4% of our economy is gone overnight.
Mike Hendren:And I think that drives home the point that we need to do more to. For lack of a better way to put it, diversify our economy here. We need to bring in more things to supplement what we already have.
Having shepherd be that big a part of our economy, that's great. But as you said, if that goes away for any reason.
Terry McAdams:Eggs in one basket.
Mike Hendren:Yeah, you put all your eggs in one basket. If somebody breaks the. Breaks the eggs, you got a problem.
Trey:And it can go away for a decision that's not made anywhere locally or anybody that's from here that can do anything here. So you're right. But the good news is we do have the SMAC committee.
That is the mission is to try to keep shepherd here and develop those community relationships.
Glenn Barham:Smack can get political when those folks out at shepherd cannot. You know, that general out there, and he is a general now, he was pinned last week.
He can't go to a congressman and say, I need you to do this for me, but I can.
Terry McAdams:But he's here two years.
Glenn Barham:He's here two years.
Terry McAdams:Or she.
Glenn Barham:Yeah, he or she's here for two years, and then we get a new one. So they can't go to the politicians and say, shepard needs this, this, and this. But Glenn Barham can. And the members of the SMAC committee can go.
Members of the chamber can go. SMAC is more or less the political side of what we do to support Shepherd.
The chamber has taken on the quality of life side, finding jobs for spouses, child care, and so on and so forth. So we do what the folks out at shepherd can't do.
So if they need something and they communicate that to us, then we can work behind the scenes with congressman Jackson, senators Cornyn and Cruz, and other congressional people within the state and even southern Oklahoma to help and support Shepherd.
Trey:Absolutely. That's good that you mentioned that, because southern Oklahoma is tied into Shepard as well. Yeah.
Glenn Barham:Frederick, Oklahoma, their municipal airport is utilized by the in jet program on a daily basis. When T6s are doing touch and goes, they use the Frederick airport to do that.
Instead of tying up the airspace here around Shepherd Air force Base, they fly up to Frederick, do their training, do their touch and goes. Shefford even sends controllers up there when they're flying and using that airport. So Frederick is on our committee.
A couple of representatives from Frederick sits on our committee. We have, you know, influence with congressman Cole and into the state legislature.
So as I said, we can get political when the folks out at shepherd can't.
Terry McAdams:And speaking of political, I understand that. Is it the city or is it a combination of the city and the chamber that have hired a lobbyist in Washington specifically for us?
Glenn Barham:It's SMAC in the chamber.
Terry McAdams:Smack in the chamber.
Glenn Barham:Okay, did that. The 4A and 4B board are paying for that.
Terry McAdams:Okay.
Glenn Barham:Now, we're a 501C3 and as such, we cannot lobby for political candidates. We can lobby for positions or for issues, but we can only spend up to 20% of our operating budget on that lobbying.
So if my operating budget is $150,000 a year, then I can only spend $30,000 on lobbying. So to keep me from going over that, the 4A and 4B boards picked up that expense. It's. It's in the city's framework. It's $12,000 a month.
That's pocket change when you have $190 million budget.
Mike Hendren:Right.
Glenn Barham:But the 4A and 4B boards pick that up, and then the chamber and SMAC shares the recurring expenses that might occur. For instance, when we go to DC if we have to take folks out to dinner.
Or we can spend money on lobbying efforts as long as we keep it below 20% of our operating budget.
Trey:Talk about taking somebody out to dinner is expensive in D.C. yeah, you could drop 100 bucks at McDonald's there.
Mike Hendren:Before we wrap up here real quick, I want to touch real quick on the economic development funds. 4A and 4B. Now, 4A funds are used to attract industry to us. Is that correct?
Glenn Barham:Correct.
Mike Hendren:So you use that money, you spend that money to try to bring new industry in. The 4B money you have a little more flexibility with. Right.
Glenn Barham:4B money can be used for the same thing that 4Amoney can be used, but in addition, they can pay for quality of life projects. Of course, the biggest one, and probably one of the most controversial things that ever happened around here with 4B money is castaway Cove.
The debt service on Castaway Cove is being paid by the 4B board. So any funds that Castaway Cove generates, any net funds, goes right back into that park so that they're not.
They don't have debt service, so they're able to operate. That facility has never gone in the red since it was bought by the city and went into operation 100% because they don't have any debt service.
The debt services is all paid by the 4B board with the exception of any attractions that they've put in. That's part of the money that comes in. The net revenues that they make.
That money is set aside for future additions and improvements at Castaway company.
Mike Hendren:So basically, aside from the salaries that you pay to the people that work there, and there's not that many, we're not talking millions and millions of Dollars in salaries. We're talking probably in the thousands, right?
Glenn Barham:Probably. Yeah. I don't know how many employees they run during the summer. During the off season, there's only two.
Mike Hendren:Yeah.
Glenn Barham:And so it's their seasonal employees, but.
Mike Hendren:Otherwise everything goes right back into the operational cost of having it.
Glenn Barham:That's correct. So that's. That's the 4 being 4B boards paying for that. Probably one of the Most recent projects. 4B voted on it just yesterday.
The Eyesore Hotel at the Waterfall is coming down, folks. It'll be down hopefully by the end of January.
Mike Hendren:Glenn, I'm telling. Let's implode that thing and sell tickets. I'll bring the popcorn. You know, this will be a. This will be some quality entertainment. This really.
Trey:It'll be good to see that.
Glenn Barham:I tried to get him to implode it. I told him I wanted to push the button.
Trey:Big old red buttons.
Mike Hendren:It is an eyesore. And it's a shame that that's the. One of.
That's the first impression a lot of people have coming from the north of Wichita Falls as they enter the heart of the city.
Trey:Well, and also see the salt Falls. You've got the falls and you get the shitty hotel that's right across the road.
Mike Hendren:It's terrible.
Glenn Barham:It's terrible. That facility. It's going to be a conventional demolition project. A company out of Fort Worth had the low bid.
And as we speak, City council's meeting this morning and they're voting on approving that project and approving the contract with the low bidder. The low bidder tells the city that they need 30 days to ramp up. Once they get. Get that 30, bring in supplies and equipment, so forth.
Once they get that equipment in and they start work, they think it'll take them 30 to maybe 45 days to take it down and clean that lot off.
Trey: ecause the difference between: Glenn Barham:You know, there's a project out at Shepherd, Child Development Center. It's an old. It's the old brig out at shepherd where it sits now. It used to be the jail at shepherd.
And they were number one on the Child Development center list in the Air Force for a number of years. And when Ronny Jackson was elected to Congress, he stepped up to the plate and wrote letters and did his political thing.
And the next National Defense Authorization act had the money in it to build that child development center, it has been sitting dead in its track, dead in the water now for almost 18 months. Because when they started the dirt work, they found asbestos in the dirt where that child development center is going.
There used to be a barracks there, and when it was demolished, what they do, buried it on site.
Trey:Yeah.
Glenn Barham:And so they found that asbestos in an issue politically, getting the money to abate that asbestos. It's in the 25 National Defense Authorization Act. So if Congress can ever get their act together, when they get back after today's election, then.
Terry McAdams:Literally get together.
Glenn Barham:Right, exactly. And then get that NDA passed, then the money will be there to mitigate that asbestos. They can go to work on that child development center.
But the big question is now how much has those costs gone up?
Mike Hendren:It's like any other project. The longer you sit there and wait on it, the more the cost. The price of everything just keeps going up. It never gets cheaper to do.
Glenn Barham:So that's a big project coming up out at shepherd, and one of the next things you're going to see, they'll be letting a contract out there soon to demolish the old hospital, and they'll take it to the ground.
Terry McAdams:Wow.
Glenn Barham:The old pyramid plan. Once they take that down, solid, move the fence line in so that property is available for.
There's a program in the federal government called defense community installation projects. The air Force, or any military installation for that matter, can lease land that they own back to private developers.
So the Air Force, in this case, Shepard, would generate a revenue from leasing that land. Whatever can be built there. Hotels, theaters, major golf, miniature.
Trey:I think a miniature golf course would be great. Right there, right next to military Shepherd. A lot of those airmen that can't go across town, they can go right there and play mini golf.
Glenn Barham:I think one of the plans. I don't know if that's in the.
In the list or not, but there's been talk about maybe building a hotel or motel there for use by folks that come to shepherd to visit. Yeah, come to shepherd. Tdy. They have facilities on base, but a lot of times they're overcrowded and they have to go off to civilian side anyway.
Right.
Terry McAdams:And then the. And then in that case, you require a whole lot of legislation to get it built.
Glenn Barham:So we'll see what happens with that.
Trey:As we're winding down here. Tell everybody how they can get involved in smac.
Mike Hendren:Yeah.
Glenn Barham:Well, we. We do a fundraising drive every three years.
Our financial campaign drive and the budget, or the goal of that campaign drive is to raise $300,000 pledged over three years. So $100,000 a year. We'll be conducting that drive again next year. Next year is the last year of it.
So towards the middle of the year, information will go out where folks can make pledges to support us.
Short of that, you know, if you want to make a donation to Shepherd Military Affairs Committee, we operate solely on donations and local government support. The 4A board, Iowa Parks Development Center, Burt Burnett's development folks and Wichita county all contribute money.
Plus the money that we raised in the financial campaign is our operating monies and we stay pretty, pretty flush. We don't make a profit, but we're certainly not losing money either.
Terry McAdams:But you can go to the website and it looks like the donation button and become a partner button if you want to get more involved. You can either at least donate or you can actively.
Trey:Are you always looking for volunteers or.
Glenn Barham:Covid right now about the only time we really need volunteers is when we do. We do two annual banquets. We do a banquet for the IN Jet steering committee when they're here in the spring.
You know, 14 member nations in that in jet program and they all send their representatives. Shepherd Air Force Base, usually in March, we do a banquet in honor of those folks.
And then we do an annual banquet in October for the entire installation where we bring in the senior leaders, usually from captain on up. We invite them to a big dinner. We bring in a noted speaker. Typically this year our speakers bailed on us.
And thank goodness for at the time, Colonel Filcheck, he said, yeah, I'll be your speaker. Did a fantastic job. And he opened a lot of eyes as to what's going on in the Air Force and what's going on in the world today.
So that banquet we do every year and community, sometimes we open that up to everybody if we get a big name speaker. We invited the secretary of the Air Force to be the speaker this year and he declined about three months out.
Trey:Wow, that's quick. That's quick when you're doing a big event.
Glenn Barham:Yeah. And then my next choice was the Air Education Training Command three star general. He declined ten days out. And so I was scrambled.
Mike Hendren:Wow.
Glenn Barham:So I was able to get General Filcheck to be our guest speaker. And frankly, he's probably one of the best speakers we had in the years I've been involved.
Mike Hendren:That's great.
Glenn Barham:So we'll try to get a big name speaker and if it's somebody that's really big and we get confirmed or coming, that's probably a situation where I might open it up to the public.
Mike Hendren:Yeah. Okay.
Glenn Barham:Public come in. And so we need volunteers when we do those two events. Not a whole lot, usually eight or nine.
Trey:So financial volunteers are the big thing, right?
Glenn Barham:Yeah.
Trey:What's the website?
Terry McAdams:It is smack NTX.org S M A C N T X.org Sounds good.
Mike Hendren:All right. Glenn Barm, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it very much.
And thank you for your years of service to this community and your continued service through smac. It's, it's, it's good to have people like yourself that, that have a such a dedication to the community, to the area, to see things succeed here.
Glenn Barham:Thank you, Mike. It's been my pleasure. Terry Dre.
Trey:Thank you, sir.
Mike Hendren:Thank you guys. Gonna take a little break here. We'll come right back and wrap it up on Get It Right Tech. Summa stay t.
Alright, guys, welcome back to Get It Right Texoma. We're going to wrap things up here real quick. We want to thank you for joining us. Want to thank Glenn Barm for being our guest today.
And be sure to visit our website, get a ridetechsoma.com the website you can find us on Facebook. Be sure to like and share our page. Be sure to hit that subscribe button on the YouTube page as well, please.
Trey:Doesn't cost you a penny.
Mike Hendren:No, nothing cost you nothing. Maybe some grief, I don't know. Depends on your view of us.
Anyway, if you would hit the subscribe button on the YouTube page and be sure to share this all your friends, family, neighbors, co workers, people you love, people you hate, especially people you hated. And always the hell out of them when you do that. So anyway, thank you for being with us. We really truly appreciate it and we.
Terry McAdams:Will, since we don't know this is election day, we won't know who the winner is obviously this early in the morning especially. But we will be certainly talking about.
Trey:The winner is the American public.
Mike Hendren:Amen, brother. Amen. So we'll. That's probably what we'll be talking about heavily on the next episode of Get It Right, Texoma. Until then, y'all take care.
We shall see you down the road.
