Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington

Unknown Speaker 0:00
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Unknown Speaker 0:38
Come on, you can see what's going on what's going on what's going on. Good morning, Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host, I have two wonderful guests that we'll have some talk with shortly. However, as we start off each Saturday morning, I'd like to just give a few announcements. One is that this month, my my wonderful aunt Magnolia Kennedy, her birthday is this month. So just wanted to acknowledge her for that. And also the women's auxilary Ovid, American Legion Post teen, they are having their western affairs dance on October 21. I think it's 7pm. And that's it, dude, little h street. So if you get an opportunity stop by, I think the tickets are like $10, this real cheap, but it's something that will support the activities that they put on each each year, they do a number of things for the youth in our community. And speaking of that, excuse me. I have two guests that do some wonderful things for youth, particularly young males in our community. Gentleman by choice, and I want to get right into discussion with these gentlemen whom I failed. And I generally and I tell people I'm not a journalist, so I don't try to trip people up. I generally send them some some tentative type questions that I'll be asking, but certainly failed to do that. For some reason. My wife tells me all 10 be doing too much. You need to sit down. You're 72 Why don't you want to keep thinking that you're you? Anyway, good morning, gentlemen. Good morning. Morning.

Unknown Speaker 2:36
Morning. Good morning, Chief.

Unknown Speaker 2:37
pleased to have you guys here. Brother Jack. I want to start with you as a veteran. What branch did you serve?

Unknown Speaker 2:44
I did 21 years in the Air Force as a air traffic controller

Unknown Speaker 2:48
air traffic control the sir. There's another gentleman that I had no, there was an air traffic controller. His wife, Kenny, Kenny, Beeman. Man, I'm like, That is a no joke, kind of a job. Because I tell people in the fire service. The two most stressful jobs to me, are paramedics and dispatchers, the folks who takes the calls and people come in, you know, we're having trouble, etc, etc. That's a high stress level. And I can only imagine what's going on in an air traffic control tower.

Unknown Speaker 3:21
Yeah, I did. Both radar and tower. So I had some great experiences and some great tough moments. But it was all worth it to.

Unknown Speaker 3:35
And where are you from?

Unknown Speaker 3:36
I'm originally from New Jersey,

Unknown Speaker 3:38
New Jersey. So why did you decide to join the military?

Unknown Speaker 3:44
Well, when I graduated high school, I have a twin brother. He walked through the door and said, Hey, I'm leaving. I'm going to Marine Corps. I said, Well, you're not gonna leave me back here. So I joined the Air Force to really give my mother I had two younger sisters. And we had no father in the house. money was tight. And so we wanted to make a way to give them a better life by leaving. And so I joined the military right out of high school. I think I was out of high school for about maybe 10 days and then I was gone into the military. Wow. Quick move. Yeah, I knew was something I needed to do to grow to expand. I appreciate the discipline to structure the military provide it. My grandfather, my to all of my uncle served in the military. And what a monk was a passed away but he was one of the Buffalo Soldiers. So is a great respect for military my family. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 4:44
Yes, sir. You are born and raised in Las Vegas. Are you from some born and raised

Unknown Speaker 4:49
in the streets of Vegas in the streets of North Las Vegas, baby 9030.

Unknown Speaker 4:56
Where'd you go to school?

Unknown Speaker 4:57
I went to the great Georgie E. Harris. Woodberry and Chaparral Chaparral High School Yes, sir. Now

Unknown Speaker 5:04
you are an educator. Yes, sir. What? Cause you made you think, hey, you know what I want to be an educator?

Unknown Speaker 5:15
One my mom, but I originally was going to school to be a lawyer. Hmm. You can tell many different now I had I have it in my senior book, you know, a 21 by 25 on my own law firm making 500,000. But I always knew I wanted to work with kids too. And as a lawyer, the only time you work with kids, most likely isn't when they're in trouble. So I said What can I do to be proactive? And I switched my major to education.

Unknown Speaker 5:45
And where'd you go school?

Unknown Speaker 5:47
What do you hear you know, V. I went to ASU, excuse me, Arizona State University played baseball there. And then came back to you know the rebels and

Unknown Speaker 5:56
get your degree in education.

Unknown Speaker 5:58
Yes, sir. Okay, yes, sir. Excellent.

Unknown Speaker 6:01
Well, and nothing like having a home groaner. And then he mentioned before we got on the air, Las Vegas is football coaching. And I was mean,

Unknown Speaker 6:12
well, he wasn't me. He was really structured. And it was what we needed because we won the championship.

Unknown Speaker 6:18
Oh, yeah. We won several championships. In fact, Lani Hogan was a head coach Atlanta, he's a celebrity. I never played organized football. He said, man, just treat them like their little man. He said, they'll respond. And he did.

Unknown Speaker 6:29
He did. And we

Unknown Speaker 6:33
treat them like little men, and they trust me, they will be just fine. I saw a lady a couple of weeks ago, he's having a little medical issues, but otherwise doing fine. You guys have a dynamic program. That I didn't realize until I and his brother is also an author. Jack is an author, you guys, I hope that you will take find time to, in fact, tell us where folks can get that book amazon.com.

Unknown Speaker 6:57
The book is called Gentleman by choice, the GVC way. And what it is is a step by step blueprint as to how we built John by choice to to what we will consider one of the better programs for young men and young ladies. The book was inspired by all the trials and tribulations we went through as we develop the program, as well as understanding the need of what's out there, you have a lot of programs out, right. But when you think about a program, is it providing the structured discipline that you talked about? You said treat them as young men, that was our philosophy from the onset, we put love into the mix. So we love them hard. We trained them hard, we taught them hard. And then most importantly, we wanted to put something out there as a manual for anyone that's really trying to build their own programs, the level of detail and thought will follow my first bet at Agassi. In 2010, we immediately connected and we took an opportunity to bond. And as we began to build this program, we really put a lot of thought into if we had children because neither one of us have children. I don't know. What do we want that to look like for our young men? What do they need and, and he came from a strong two parent household and I came from a single parent household. So we can bounce ideas back and forth to each other. But at the end of the day, we knew that our young men needed something that was greater than what we were seeing in the community. So

Unknown Speaker 8:33
your thoughts in terms of what the blend the bong and for you guys to come together and put this program together? Because you had a lot to do with I can tell by as he wrote the book, it was a mash

Unknown Speaker 8:46
while I was the dean, and he was the counselor. And you know, being a black melon Elementary, it's like a needle in a haystack. So to see him I was excited. bred on campus. And just his how he approached it was good to see somebody outside of education, give a different lens to education. Because he's you know, military background. He's like, why is this he questioned a lot of stuff like why are you guys doing this? Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? And so I was coming from an educational standpoint, he was coming from the military, and a counselor. And we just, you know, we became, you know, we just we just clicked we like brothers. I mean, we go at it, we we we our room was called The War Room. But we were coming from a place of love. And so when we we know when we come out the rooms like okay, who benefited from it was our students. And that was the love of it like we model and we practice what we preach fight. I remember one time his cousin passed away he cried. Like I hugged him and we cried together. You know, we can't ask kids to do something and and then they don't see it. Right. And so they just saw the genuine love between us. And then we show them genuine love. So, like today we have gents, you know, we I got the beautiful thing I got a text today from our we call them the OG he was our first gym. He's a junior at St. John. And his mom sent me a text and it's about the relationship that we built. She just texted she's like, Hey, this is what she said. She say, in other news, your boy TJ is killing it. He's on the Dean's list at St. John's College. Yes, sir. We are we have some we have some young men out there that are doing some great things. And we get we get paid homage I got a thank you for doing what you have done.

Unknown Speaker 10:41
And let me tell you guys, this, what I want to do, and I'm committed to it right now, as long as I can afford to keep the show on the air. I'd like to get you guys on one. Sometimes we would one of your students, you know, one current or or this been currently in college, to just to hear from them as well as we sit here together and just have a conversation. Because I think I think it's important, man, because if you don't hear about it or see it, you won't believe that you can do it. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 11:12
I think one of the things that we're most proud of is that we've been in four states simultaneously. Yes, we've impacted probably over 1000 students and their families.

Unknown Speaker 11:22
You know what, as I read the book, because I wasn't aware that you guys had branched out, I know why. And what's the other one, Hawaii,

Unknown Speaker 11:32
Tacoma, Washington and in South Central LA, and Vegas, simultaneously. Wow,

Unknown Speaker 11:37
that's, you know, people don't realize the commitment that it takes to do that kind of work. I'm serious. I remember you guys know that. deceased friend, Melvin Beetle in us. And former Councilman weakly and I started camp brotherhood. And it was an idea that I, you know, when you put them ideas out there, somebody might help them fanning the fire. They did. And I talked to them about it in six weeks, six months later, we had it up and running. But to that point, the thing that they didn't have that I felt in my heart, that we needed a school for black males, and I'm telling you, I just thinks it makes a difference. I know, even I'm 72 years old. And I know when I was in school, man, I want to show off, you know, in front of the pretty girls, but you're supposed to be cracking the books. And I just believe that if boys are isolated, not that they shouldn't be socialized with women, for sure. And then ultimately, people say it to us three years later, they say what about the girls? Well, we can't be everything to everybody say, your kneecap sister. Of course, both and even for close to 30 years and it just at the beetle pass. Steve with his troubles it kind of went by the wayside. And that's unfortunate, but you know what, what you guys are doing is is the kind of thing that I know is a black male needs to happen for our young men in particular because when you don't have someone that you can look up to you just go on Wow man, you know, and then just man just there's things that we know that we should be about as men and looking out for young men then you got to be your kid then you gotta be your cousin they just need some direction and a lot of the child talk about I'll see you up there can't brotherhood we made sure we be it'll say they gotta be hugged and the other thing is and I heard you chuckle when when I say people are understand when we first go to camp I said Peter we send everything we send a list of what they need is the man you just watch. We tell him it's gonna get down to 40 degrees t shirt and shorts on where's this other stuff? It'll say That's why I brought the extra but anyway for the thoughts.

Unknown Speaker 13:55
So going back to when when I was in sixth grade and you were coaching you know my mom dad we had a true village like the village and so we had cheese you know we had all these people helping us and we don't have that anymore. We don't have that frappe fabric of the community helping to so is so dire that we do what we do and and if I have another person tell me hey, you guys are doing a great job but there's no skin in the game you telling me why are you going to smoke use you know cigar drink, whatever. Or go hoop but we in the trenches and I'm telling him right now we are in a I liken it to a hurricane that's a Category Five Yeah, I just don't I just don't see dealing yet but it's coming and when it comes boy is gonna be trouble trouble trouble. And so Jack now we want to get it ahead of it. And so even though in the midst of the winds blown and the storms that come you know, you know we get tired we talk about you know Want to Dr on a regular basis.

Unknown Speaker 15:03
I want to chime in to to Chief and I want to put some context behind this. It's more than just a program to us. It is a lifestyle. But I think what's missing in our society today with our young man is continuous direction. When we built that we built it upon four principles, leadership, image, financial management etiquette. So what we began to do is provide professional development for youth at our early age. In 2018, I got certified as a high performance coach, sort of like a life coach, but a little more in depth about advancing people, we actually took that component and put it in the program. So now you have a professional development component, and you have a personal development component. And what we've seen is the students are starting to take ownership at an early age of what they're responsible for, right? So this is not a let me go in and give you a rah rah speech. This is not something that you can go in, and sit down and just be passive. We aggressively insert our will impose our will on these young men and women now, to help them understand that you have to take ownership of your life at an early age. Why? Because life is moving so much faster than it did 20 3040 years ago. And our kids are behind because we have not kept up with the changes in society and educational format. And so I think without these skill sets, they're going to fall fall farther and farther behind. And what ANSYS and I do well is we synthesize in a sense that tell me what's going on in education, what's working, what's not working, we put it together with what we're doing in personal development and professional development. And then you have a complete or holistic approach to develop in their minds, absolute grabbing their minds at an early age, we're pouring into their minds, giving them techniques and strategies on how to think about things. And the way this is formulated are like sort of like a Tony Robbins, right? When you go there, they're teaching principles and strategies that we don't get taught in our community, right? So why are we waiting, so our youth get to 6070 8090 years old, trying to bring them in and expect them to get there.

Unknown Speaker 17:15
That's a good point, you know, a lot of communities. And we don't readily do it, we do have here about the, what we call it, the programs where the keys are going to the next phase of life, whether you call it a rite of passage, rite of passage, thank you. And other communities not only do the right do rite of passage, on Saturdays, you go to various communities, they got school, and we don't know. And as you say, We're falling further and further behind. But I so barely had one it can't Brotherhood to become a school man that. But if everybody don't believe what you believe, it won't necessarily happen, even though I'm still grateful for us having the opportunity to do what we were able to do. And those two gentlemen have beetle and Larry to, to help me get that going. I'm still grateful for that. But what you guys are doing, it has so much more meat, and it tells you a lot about what they're doing and how they do it. I

Unknown Speaker 18:13
want to add one more thing to that the school was really important, because when Paul and I first met after we've had put the program in place for about two years, our vision was we went to school. As a matter of fact, as early, as late as last week, Friday, I had a conversation with someone else about hey, I think you really should start your own school. The issue is, and pull them alluded to and you alluded to it is that we go head first into the situation, and we look back, and there's nobody with us. Right? So the scary factor is you're you're trying to tackle a issue with very little support, right? And because we've been in four different states simultaneously, we understand what it takes to run things simultaneously. We've extended the program and to bring in young ladies into the game as well, right? So we're constantly trying to figure out ways, how can we expand that but on end of the day, because we've also done a Summer Academy at GBC HEC rush, right? At the end of the day, there still is underlying value. And if we don't step up as black men to facilitate that change that we desire, when does it come?

Unknown Speaker 19:24
Absolutely. As we prepare to close out, give me some closing remarks on on what the communicate community can do to help you guys just throw it out there. I mean, you know, we may get no response or we may get a lot of response to that. I can see it on your face. That you guys have been making that request

Unknown Speaker 19:42
I need. I need black men to show up. I need black Minister up on his campuses. And we're not in so like I say I'm a needle in a haystack and elementary right. And so the reason I chose elementary because I believe in planning Seed early in growing. And that's that's what we do well, but we don't have, you know, people that look like, look like us that show up on a consistent basis.

Unknown Speaker 20:11
I think pull them hit hit the nail on the head when he said, consistency, right? You show up one day for school. They don't say util and the school here, you come back every year for I mean, we don't we don't search out photo opportunities, right? We don't believe in photo opportunity. It's about the kids. So why do you want to see me take a selfie, right. But one thing about Gentleman by choice and ladies by choice now is we're going to show up, and we're going to do we got to do, I can't worry about anybody else. But if you said what do we need? We need more love from Blackman. We need more funding to extend our programs. This year. Last year, we did 206 students a week for 16 weeks at the different schools. And more importantly, we just need people come beside us and say Hey, I can't give you a lot of money. But can you give me an hour a week for 16 weeks and be consistent Las

Unknown Speaker 21:04
Vegas as we wind down? This is Veterans Affairs Plus, with Richard Jack Anthonis Pullum, if you ain't got money, if you got some time, let's let's do this. It's important for our young man. Thank you, gentlemen. And we will have you back on the show again, because I think it's important to keep crying out in the wilderness, if you will, and somebody's gonna answer. Thank you guys so much. Thank you so much. Thank you

Unknown Speaker 21:36
Good morning. Once again, in Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 Jazz and more. I got a local businessman on the line. Mr. Rome, Harry, tell us what's going on with you, bro. How you doing?

Unknown Speaker 21:49
Oh, man. All good. All good. Dave. You're one of my favorite radio stations. Man. I can't get enough. Just jazz. All right, excellent. Excellent. Good. Phil. And I had something like that in Las

Unknown Speaker 21:58
Vegas. I'm sure. General Manager, Mr. Dr. Ashton, really would love to hear that news for sure. Where are you from?

Unknown Speaker 22:12
I'm originally from Los Angeles. I moved out to Las Vegas and 2002. Okay, and when I moved out here, came out here and started flying five to five pipe fitting work. And from there I met my lovely wife, Cherie Lewis. And from there we moved downtown Las Vegas. And we had an opportunity to go ahead and open up classic jus, the lounge that then owning for the last eight years plus, which is a beautiful, beautiful situation. And it's a family business, me my wife and the kids, you know, and, you know, I'm telling everybody make that investment, especially with all the sports teams, all the stuff that's coming to Vegas are these championships with the UNLV. You know, the hockey, the Raiders out here is his time for people to start making an investment or suppose instead of renting and buying, and that's, that's, you know, that's what I tell a lot of people but even with classic jewel, you know, I actually named my family we own that. So if we want or whatever down the line from, you know, couple years from now the grandkids want to turn to something else was able to go ahead and you know, quite a few years ago, and you know, I just I just appreciate the community support, you know, always having fundraisers and, you know, parties that call to jewel like tonight, we got comedy, you know, starts at 8:39pm We've got live entertainment on Wednesdays, you know, we just got a good vibe downtown Las Vegas. So Excellent.

Unknown Speaker 23:54
Excellent. So give us the address and, and your hours of operation and classic Julian

Unknown Speaker 24:00
353. East Bonneville Avenue unit 111 89101 Downtown Las Vegas open at four o'clock. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, goes on Sunday, Monday. And we stay open. You know, Friday Saturdays. We stayed open till about 132 o'clock. Okay. It's been a it's been wonderful, wonderful. Now,

Unknown Speaker 24:31
when I talked to you last week, I believe it was he was calling me just to have me to, to speak with one of my old fire service colleagues. And then you went about telling me about a new Embarkment you and your wife are engaged in talk to us about that. Yes,

Unknown Speaker 24:48
in everything lead from you know classic joy. That's, that's the anchor. Now, you know, I was fortunate enough, maybe what three weeks ago been working on his football year and a half now I was able to get, I was able to get my gaming license, I have a new location, opening and continue to have an SkyPoint 650 SkyPoint is the name of the new lounge. It's going to be lounge 95 North. King, wait, we should be opening at the end of the month, we got great news maybe about two hours ago, just passed our health inspection. So we almost there, I can't wait for everybody to come to the new location. And the difference between the new location and classic jewel this is going to be oh my god, it's just gonna be a nice, nice, warm, warm, good feel to this. I mean, the ambiance, the chandeliers, the major we got a kitchen that's maybe about 1000 square feet, three hoods, it's gonna be it's gonna be it's gonna be a nice little gem for the Centennial area, and everybody that can't make it all the way to downtown, just have some smooth out there in that area. The people that are you know, like to, you know, go and have a nice outing at the restaurants and somebody in your community that's only maybe 510 minutes away. So we you know, me and the wife come from Centennial area. So for me to be opening up a new location out there, it's gonna be it's gonna be a wonderful situation.

Unknown Speaker 26:20
That's excellent. So what's what's the approximate square footage of this new place?

Unknown Speaker 26:25
The new place is around about 4300 square feet.

Unknown Speaker 26:29
Okay. And it's

Unknown Speaker 26:31
got to be a nice size. It's definitely, definitely a lot bigger than classic jewel for sure.

Unknown Speaker 26:36
Wow. And as it currently stands, once you open what, what? What are you proposing as your hour of operations? Oh, it's

Unknown Speaker 26:45
gonna be 24/7. So since I have this team gaming machines, we're going to be open 24 hours every day. So buckle up and get ready because a lot of late nights. But I like I tell people, man, this is, you know, a lot of people don't see me too much at Classic jewel at night. Because, you know, being an entrepreneur and a wife, we just run around so much and, you know, something, so there's so many hours in a day and you know, just you know, because, you know, you got to get down and get dirty. Everybody's not doing this. But as entrepreneurs, everybody see that? The glamour and the, you know, the shiny stuff, but they don't see the hard work that goes in every every single day is a grind. Yes.

Unknown Speaker 27:30
Absolutely. You know, what I admire and I tell people all the time he looked at me, I said, You know what? I truly, truly admire, you know, I did 33 years Las Vegas Fire and Rescue, I got to a great retirement. But I really really appreciate those who are into business for themselves, man. And as you say, it's a grind I see Frank as I do some some work for him and he's every day he's got a goal and he's got two spots and and a cultivation and you talk about going at it. You gotta go at it. Give us give us the name of the place again.

Unknown Speaker 28:04
So it's lounge 95 door

Unknown Speaker 28:08
lounge 95 North. All right, brother Ron, we appreciate you man. We'll get you back on as you as you get open up and continue to tell people about it. So we appreciate you coming on particularly with the short notice that I gave you all right my brother take care yourself and we'll be in touch this Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 Jazz and we'll we'll talk to you next week.

Unknown Speaker 28:58
The smoking tilde hey when they step on the way

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