Episode 191: Darin Rice - Winnebago County Sheriff Candidate

Hello, and welcome to the Kosh, the People's Podcast.

I'm your host, Timber Smith, and the Kosh is a podcast that spotlights people who've had an association with the Kosh and the surrounding Fox Cities region.

Kosh listeners, how are you doing?

Once again, before we get started, let me just share that the Kash is sponsored by Timber Ties.

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All right, so let me give you my normal report here.

First, let me frame it by saying like I always like y'all to know when did we record this?

And we are recording this the week of the tornado.

It's been a week, has been a heavy, heavy week.

I think we're going to get into that a little bit later though.

Also though, today is a beautiful, gorgeous day.

It is cool.

It is not hot, it is sunny, it is just fantastic.

So once again, you know, we record on weekend mornings and this particular weekend morning is gorgeous and I am glad it is because we need a little bit of that considering the week that we've had.

And I'm sure there's going to be interwoven throughout this episode because I'm not going to lie, I've I've been part of some things.

I've seen some things this weekend.

Yeah, I'm I need to share with y'all.

I need to share with y'all.

All right.

Now, what's even cooler though, is the fact that we have a fire guest this week.

Oh, well, you already know.

So we always have fire guests.

So, you know, you know, you know what I'm about to say.

I don't know how we continue to get these amazing, amazing guests.

And this week's not going to be any different.

So without any further ado, this week's guests is Darren Rice.

Hey, Darren, what's good?

Good morning.

How are you?

I'm doing pretty good.

All right.

So Darren, how have you been doing?

How's this morning kicking off?

This morning's going well.

It's been a, as you said, a crazy week and a long week.

A lot of really impressive things have happened over the week.

Today is it's been a relatively calm start, which is nice.

We do need balance.

You can't.

You just can't be on 10 all the time.

That's true.

It's nice to nice to get a little downtime, a little breather before starting another week.

Oh, facts, facts.

All right.

Well, Darren, let's go ahead and jump in.

And can you please share a little something about yourself and your association with the Fox Cities region and the in the surround?

Well, I was going to say the surrounding Fox Cities region, but I already said that.

I'm originally from the southwest part of Wisconsin, grew up in a very small rural farming community, graduated in a class of 26 from my high school.

What?

So.

We, my grandparents on my mom's side, farmed, spent a lot of time on farm as a kid, learned, learned a lot of values about hard work.

And it was obviously a community that took care of itself or of each other and everybody took care of themselves.

There were not a ton of resources available, so you had to rely on yourself and others to to make it through.

Went to UW Platteville initially for college, was playing football.

I was going to play football in college.

Ended up transferring to UW Oshkosh in the fall of 1998 and have been in the Fox Valley area since then.

After graduating from college, my wife and I initially lived in an an apartment on the South end of town.

Bought a house a little further north and in 2005 we moved out to the town of Algoma.

So we were just on the edge of the city of Oshkosh and have lived there since that time.

Raised 22 boys, got a 21 year old son and a twenty year old son.

The 21 year old is entering a senior year of college at UW Stevens Point.

The 20 year old will be a junior at UW Oshkosh.

Majoring 21 year old is majoring in Wastewater Management, Environmental Protection.

So he is interning with the City of Appleton Water Department this summer.

Getting a lot of really good experience.

Oh, that's your son.

Yeah, that is my son.

Have you met him?

No, I haven't met.

I've heard about him.

I've heard about it because, you know, there's a Oh yeah, no, no, they love them.

It's, it's just all of the stuff that, you know, when we have interns, it's the chatter amongst the employees, you know, just the world.

Connection right there Oh yeah, big time.

My 20 year old is majoring in business so he is I think looking to get into marketing.

Maybe I can maybe I can make an introduction here.

You might have some connections that he would be able to use down the road, but.

We know.

We know a few folks.

Yeah, yeah.

That's I I'm a family man.

My wife and I actually started dating in high school.

She was in a different grade again, small classes, small town, but she is she's amazing.

She's put up with me for a long time, which says a lot about her character.

We've been married 23 years and she's a special Ed teacher in the Oshkosh School District.

So connections to Oshkosh itself, My wife has been, she's been in the Oshkosh School District since 2015.

I believe she initially began her teaching career.

She's AI think I said a special Ed teacher at elementary level.

So she started in the Kimberly School District and moved through a couple of positions within that district.

And then an opportunity presented itself to come back to the Oshkosh School District, which cut down on her time on the road much quicker drive to and from school.

Unbelievable commitment to her profession, she is.

You got to be special Ed.

You got to be.

And she, she loves her kids.

She absolutely adores the kids in her classroom.

And we have tried to pitch in when we can to, you know, help out with winter clothing or school materials.

We will go and stock up her closet at school so the kids have resources available if you know they don't have them elsewhere.

All right, that's that's awesome.

OK.

And two in college.

Two in college.

Yeah, man, I don't know how you're doing that.

I keep asking friends who have older kids if they ever come off the payroll.

They laugh and say not really, but it does get a little bit better, so we're working through it.

I've got another year.

I'm going to warn you now.

The only thing that I heard that might save you is that you got sons.

Daughters don't come off the payroll.

I think my wife actually wanted a daughter, but our our sons are 18 months apart so we got them out of diapers and out of the toddler phase in a relatively similar time frame.

And once we crossed that threshold I think she would she knew she was done.

She didn't want to go back and start the process over again.

That was it.

That was a wrap.

We we had, we had two healthy sons that kept us busy and we decided we were we were good at that point.

Right.

That's awesome.

OK, one missing element out of this.

So I think we've got some framing.

We we understand about your family background.

We understand that you graduated with like 20.

Some people I've heard small, that's that's micro, that's different.

I guess everybody wants to be known for something, right?

I came from very small town.

My, my dad was actually a teacher in that school as well.

So within that community, you, you really couldn't do anything without everybody knowing what you had done.

And there were times, there were times I was blamed for things that I had no part in.

But through different associations, different friends, people assumed that I was responsible for different things.

But it was, it was a great experience looking back on it.

I, my wife and I wanted a bigger community for our family.

But it's amazing as you get older how you start to reflect a little more on on the way you were raised and the values that came out of that environment.

And I, I do miss certain things from that small town, tight knit community feel it is here as well.

It's just, it's a bigger scale and it's, you know.

We definitely ain't big city.

We're not big city, but for a kid who graduated with 25 classmates when I first moved to Oshkosh, this, this was a pretty big city.

It was.

For me, it was kind of refreshing to just blend in to, you know, be.

A complete unknown for people not to know you.

Yeah, it was.

It was nice to just walk down the street and not have everybody keeping eyes on what you were doing, making sure that you know you were you were representing the family name the correct way.

That's a rough go.

Well hey, I got to give you a shout out because you are a Titan.

Yes, Sir.

You know, as Titans, we have to stick together.

My wife is as well.

We are both UW Oshkosh garage.

That's what that's what I'm talking about right there.

And because of the the Titan Association, I know that I've had people, I've met people when I was in school, they're just like that who came from, you know, I came from Milwaukee and then they were coming from these really small communities.

And it was like, they would tell me things and I'd be like, what?

But I tell you what, we kicked it hard.

We had good times.

Yeah, I, I met a lot of really great people, still have fairly regular contact with the roommates When I, you know, got out of the dorms and finally got my first apt, MY2 roommates were both on the football team.

One was from the Milwaukee area, 1 was from Northern Illinois just South of Lake Geneva.

So bigger communities and great guys still what?

Position Did you play?

I was a quarterback.

Oh, for real?

Yeah, it was AI was an OK.

I was a decent athlete in high school, played multiple sports.

Actually tore the rotator cuff and lay a room in my shoulder.

Playing baseball as a senior so didn't have it diagnosed.

Both of my parents graduated from UW Platteville, which is how I ended up at Platteville.

Knew early on that just didn't feel right to me.

I, I wanted something different.

I maybe it was a little bit strong willed and wanted to create my own path.

So talk to the coach down there, let him know I don't think this is going to work.

I don't want to waste eligibility.

Not that I was going to get a lot of playing time at that point anyways, but as an 18 year old, in your mind you you're worried about things that probably aren't going to happen.

Well, well, you know, there's nothing wrong with thinking you go and get some time.

I, I had confidence.

I certainly had confidence.

So I transferred to UW Oshkosh and I actually, I woke up during two days and I couldn't lift my arm.

So when I went into practice, they sent me into the trainer's room and that was that was the end of it for me.

After after surgery, the recovery was not a smooth process for me.

And had a few people saying, why don't you just focus on school and let this go.

Don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but that was, that was a kind of a pivotal moment in my, my life.

I had to give up something that I really loved.

Ended up having a lot of fun and, you know, throughout the college years and the two roommates that I had, we became very, very good friends.

So they were still playing football and I was just hanging out and having a good time with them when they were available.

So the one thing we didn't talk about Darren is we didn't talk about Darren today.

So, Darren, today I took a job or well, I, I took a job with the Sheriff's Office in 2001.

And I say that because in college my plan was to get my undergrad degree and then go on to law school.

And by my senior year of college, I was I was looking for a little break.

I was tired of writing papers, I was tired of taking exams, and I was tired of having no money.

I wanted to just take a little break.

The plan was to take a year to three years, put a little money in the bank.

My wife graduated 2 years behind me, so make the college experience a little better for her.

I would actually have some income to have some fun to do what we wanted to do and not live on frozen pizzas and ramen noodles, which was a staple in my college diet.

Oh, I was a gourmet chef with some ramen.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, man, I had recipes.

My my weekly grocery run was 5 frozen pizzas that would basically carry me through the week.

I'd make make a pizza for lunch, have half of it at lunch, save the other half for dinner.

That's all wanted to, you know, get into the field a little bit.

And criminal law was my interest.

That was what I wanted to do with my career.

I wanted to be, I'm a prosecutor, so applied with different law enforcement agencies and it was a very different time for law enforcement, hiring 3 to 400 people, taking a written exam for one to two positions.

So it was incredibly competitive.

Was offered the position with the Sheriff's Office.

Started working in corrections and really started to enjoy what I was doing.

I really had a a good time.

I met some Co workers that great people interacted and that was really my first interaction with with the whole system.

So got to know some of the people who were incarcerated and I've always just felt comfortable having a conversation with anybody.

A kid from small town Wisconsin.

I'm not the most extroverted person in the world.

That's that's just not my personality.

But I'm very comfortable having a conversation one-on-one and getting to know about other people and getting to understand their back story.

And I found it fascinating to talk to the people that were that were in jail who had made mistakes and kind of see where they came from and how they got there.

It was, it's pretty eye opening to me and exposed me to, to a lot of life lessons, a lot of different philosophies on how things should happen.

So it was, it was a great learning opportunity.

My wife and I ended up getting married, had our first son in 2004.

And at that point I had been drawn into it.

It, it went from being a job to a career.

And there were other opportunities within the Sheriff's Office that were very intriguing to me.

So I wanted to, you know, become a patrol officer and actually interact with the community, not just work in the jail environment.

And was talked into taking promotional exams when I became eligible for them.

At that point in my career, I really didn't have an interest in it.

I didn't see myself in that role.

As some leadership did.

The the people that I respected, my mentors pulled me in and said you have, you have to do this, you have to look to take that next stop or next step.

So I took the exams, scored well on the exams, was promoted very quickly became a detective.

And I think seven months later I was promoted to Sergeant and went back to corrections, back to the jail.

And then Sheriff Motts was elected in November of 2010 and January of 2011, as movement was occurring, he promoted me to a Lieutenant position.

I moved through various positions as a Lieutenant, as a shift Lieutenant in patrol to training and special operations, to our professional standards Lieutenant position, which was responsible for our accreditation process.

So reviewing our policies, writing new policies, making sure that we were in compliance with best practices.

And we had a very young command staff at that time.

And a lot of those people were the people that I respected, that I looked up to, that had mentored me through my career.

And December of 25, several of them retired.

So it opened up a captain position that Sheriff Mots promoted me into, and that's my current position with the Sheriff's Office on the field services captain, I'm charge of troll and detectives.

So over 25 years, I've had a lot of different experiences, a lot of opportunities to get involved in different ways.

I served on different special teams, our SWAT team, so special weapons and tactics, crowd control team.

I joined both of those teams as a member and worked my way up and with the SWAT team, I had actually been a crisis negotiator prior to going to patrol and being law enforcement certified.

I, I wasn't able to carry a gun at that point legally, but I was selected to be a crisis negotiator.

Again, just having this dialogue skills and feeling comfortable having a conversation, even somebody who was in a crisis situation, being able to just talk to them and help them work through it.

It, I wouldn't say it came naturally to me, but I was sort of drawn to it.

I gravitated toward trying to help people through what is most likely the worst day they've ever experienced, right?

I hear that all the time, like that worst day that you've ever experienced.

And having to be conscious of that, that thoughtfulness, you know what you're what you're probably running into.

You know that's not their best day.

It is not their best day.

And and maybe their absolute worst day and still trying to find a way to work with them, have empathy and and still do the job.

It's still a human being on the other end of that interaction.

And that is that has to be in your mind at all times that this may not be with this person really is.

This might just be a reaction to whatever catalyst has put them into this position.

And it's it's a very unique existence.

It's it.

I have always said that I didn't intend to get into law enforcement.

This was not the path that I had in my mind, but it is, it's an amazing experience and it is it's also very trying.

It's very difficult at times.

It it wears on you and there's a you know, there's a reason that you see burnout in the profession.

If you can find the the right outlets and the right mechanisms and the right mindset to.

To push the bad thoughts out and just focus on the positive that comes out of the profession it it can save your career and it can be a pretty rewarding experience if you look at it from the from the right perspective.

So you have an opportunity here to like talk to a good audience.

What would what would you want?

Because AI think one of the parts that would make law enforcement really hard and why I would never want to do it is the the level of critique and criticism that comes along with it.

What would you say to the civilians out there that what don't they understand or what would help them understand or what would you want them to know about doing the role?

I think it would be valuable if the actions of 1 didn't define every single person who was involved in that profession.

Are there bad law enforcement officers?

Absolutely, And I can promise you that nobody gets more frustrated with bad law enforcement than people who work in law enforcement.

It is an immediate reaction and we are all cast in the same light.

And I'm not saying everybody falls victim to it, but it certainly has grown over the the course of my career.

I tell people all the time, I started in June of 2001, 9/11 was 2 1/2 months after I started with the Sheriff's Office and law enforcement was held in an incredibly high regard at that point.

And I was 22 years old and not not worldly by any stretch of the imagination.

I didn't have a lot of experience, came from a small town and moved to essentially a college campus.

You know, my exposure even to the city of Oshkosh was pretty limited.

I didn't, I didn't get too far away from campus during those years.

But when I was hired again, I, I, I enjoyed the anonymity of a, of a larger community.

So I was starting to make some money and I felt like law enforcement was just a necessary evil at that point.

People knew they existed, but they didn't think about it.

They didn't talk about it.

They just knew they could call them if they needed them.

And I liked that.

I, I kind of liked the anonymity of having a, a profession, that it was a noble profession in my mind.

It just was not what I had initially intended to do. 9/11 Everybody is very appreciative of law enforcement, very, you know, outgoing with support for law enforcement.

And over the course of my career, there have been some terrible use of force incidents.

And I'm not saying all of them were were bad law enforcement, bad outcomes, but not necessarily bad law enforcement.

And the perception of that, the reaction to that has cast a shadow of doubt over the law enforcement profession.

And I still think they're very intelligent, educated, quality people who are trying to serve their communities in that capacity.

So it's difficult and it's, it's incredibly frustrating at times to turn on the news and the headline is basically law enforcement's a terrible profession and they should all be removed.

They're horrible people who should never have an opportunity to impact your lives.

That's an unfair statement.

And I, I would hope that people would just get to know their law enforcement.

And I think it's important that the law enforcement gets to know their communities.

And when we start bashing heads, we start fighting, all of that breaks down.

There's no communication, there's no interaction, there's no trust.

And we have to fight through the negative incidents.

We have to be able to come to the table and have open, honest discussion.

And we have to take accountability for our own responsibility in that negative interaction.

So law enforcement is not perfect.

They, these are human beings who are making split second decisions under immense stress.

And if they get it wrong, then we need to hold that person accountable.

We need to re evaluate how we're treating different situations.

We may need to change policies, we may need to change hiring standards if we are not bringing in the right caliber of person to do the job in the way that we want it done.

But you have to be, you have to be honest about it.

You have to truly evaluate what is happening and what processes LED us to that.

What do we need to change?

Oh my God, I'd love that.

And I'll tell you why.

Other than the parts of employment in what you said, these are the exact same statements and I mean almost word for word that I've said to people about interacting with our community members of color.

Here.

The exact same things, the exact same types of judgment that happened.

How one puts this, this taint over the whole community, right, these assumptions, these things and like literally what you just went down.

I've had this conversation hundreds of times throughout the community to tell people, you know, get that's that's not who people are.

Don't because this happens here does not reflect the other 20 or 30 over here.

You know nobody's a monolith, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

And so I I appreciate what you said.

That may have been a little long winded.

I apologize.

If that took too long, there is no too long on the Kosh.

Darren, we, we do full answers here.

You know, I would rather a full answer and I know our listeners appreciate that because the Kosh is about getting to know our neighbors and you're one of our neighbors, maybe a neighbor from a very small town, but a neighbor nonetheless.

I feel like we are, we're established here.

I mean, this, we chose to make Oshkosh in the Fox Valley our home.

It was very intentional, wasn't based on a job offer.

We were not tied to the community just because there was an opportunity to get a paycheck.

We wanted to live in the Oshkosh area.

We appreciated its proximity to, you know, Green Bay, Milwaukee, Madison and that 22 years old, 21 years old, you're, you're looking for those opportunities, right?

You're looking for the big city living and different events that you could attend.

The Township I grew up or town I grew up in is about an hour West of Madison.

So I was somewhat familiar with Madison because that was where you went to buy your school clothes and go to different events.

But we liked the proximity and we were just comfortable.

We felt like this was home.

We wanted to be a part of this community.

So we started investing, bought a house, we raised our kids here, and we've taken public service jobs trying to give back to this community.

Facts, facts.

I agree with that too.

That's why I've been here since 92. 98 for me.

Yeah.

All right.

Last question on this first part here.

If you weren't doing what you're doing right now, what would you like to be doing?

So when I was that confident 18 year old in my mind, I had, I had a dream that if I could just get into a college program and work my tail off, I've never been afraid to work that I could eventually get into the NFL and be a third string quarterback.

That was that was my, my dream.

I didn't I would have been OK not being the starter.

I could wear a baseball cap and hold a clipboard, take the league minimum, live a very comfortable life, get to continue playing a sport that I, I loved that did not work out after surgery and people telling me that you're not, you're not even getting scholarship.

I'll need to do this.

It might be in your best interest to move on.

So then I focused more on school and I, I was a decent student.

My plan, as I said, was to go to law school.

And I think that would still be my dream.

I I have thought about it on and off over the years whether it is worth trying to get the law degree while working for the Sheriff's Office and having a new career opportunity once I retire.

I'm not taking that step.

I've I've been busy with my own career and.

You've been busy.

Been busy so I I have not jumped into that world, but I think that would be the other place I can see myself working if I wasn't in law enforcement.

Sort of a side note pseudo funny story, but again at 1819 years old you have you have a lot of answers.

So when I was at UW Platteville, that school is known for its criminal justice program, but that I think takes a back seat to their engineering program.

And I was a decent math student.

So my mother, who she was not crazy about law enforcement and I think still is not crazy about the career I've chosen.

But she tried to convince me to go into engineering.

And as a 19 year old, I remember telling her that I didn't want to sit at a desk and figure out other people's problems.

So Fast forward 2528 years, I I now sit at a desk and I work on solving other people's problems for a lot less money and probably a lot more stress at times.

So to all the 19 year olds who might be listening to this, maybe just listen to mom and dad.

They might actually have some valuable advice.

Would I change it?

Absolutely not.

I I enjoy what I do.

I've I've loved the opportunities that I've gotten in my career, but engineering may have allowed me to live a very comfortable lifestyle with potentially less stress.

I thought you were going to tell me that you were going to become a coach.

So my father was a coach.

He's actually, he's in the Wisconsin high School Football Coach Coaches Hall of Fame.

My uncle his, my father's older brother was also a coach in the McFarland School District.

The football field is named in his honor.

He's in the Hall of Fame.

My cousin Pat is a coach or we're retired as a coach and teacher from Waukee with a very successful football program.

It's in the blood.

It is in the blood.

My youngest brother is a high school football coach in Portage, WI.

So it, it is definitely in the blood.

I, I saw the stress that they went through and dealing with not it wasn't the kids or the games, it was all of the outside noise that weighed in.

And my dad retired from teaching in 2011 and he at that point said, I, I just can't, I can't do it anymore.

I can't be around all of the outside voices and pressure.

So I'm old enough and it's it's my time to move on and let somebody else take over.

So I had shield away from coaching, I guess at that point, I think 2011, maybe not quite yet with my sons.

They were very active in athletics growing up and through high school.

So I got pulled in to coach when I had told my wife I'm I'm never going to get involved in this.

And I did absolutely love it.

But I loved it at the level I was at.

I was coaching youth sports through middle school sports.

It was all volunteer opportunities.

And I I still to this I I watch sports any opportunity I get my wife and I try to get the Badger games as often as we can.

I don't understand volleyball, but if you have not been to a Wisconsin Badger volleyball game, it is one of the greatest atmospheres I've ever been around.

It is so much fun.

We get to Camp Randall at least once a year to watch the Badger football team.

Hopefully this year goes a little better for them than the last couple of years have gone, but I love being around the game.

I just, I wanted to stay at a, at a level where it was so pure.

You're watching the development of kids and it wasn't you're competitive.

I'm always competitive, but it's not all about winning and losing.

It's about the values that the kids are learning and watching the progression and seeing the look in their eyes when the light comes on.

I, I was drawn into that.

So coaching potentially, had I, had I gotten my dream of becoming a third string NFL quarterback, I think that would have been a much more natural progression to move into the coaching world.

Fair enough.

Love that.

All right.

Well, Darren, whether you realize it or not, we haven't even jumped into the first segment.

We just did the intro.

So the first segment, well, you know what, here's what we're going to do.

All right Kosh, listen, you know when we hear that, that means it is time for the topic of the week.

And the topic of the week is chosen by our guests 99.9% of the time.

And guess what?

This week's not going to be any different.

So Darren, what is our topic of the week?

I think our topic of the week has to be the tornado that as devastated the northern part of our account, our county and the Appleton area.

All right, let's jump in.

So that was one of the craziest experiences of my life and I don't want to make this about me in any way, shape or form that the communities that have been hit.

Fox Crossing Appleton, Neenah, Town of Neenah had some damage and the city of Menasha clearly was the hardest hit during that storm.

That I've never been near a tornado in my life.

I think an hour and a half away is probably the closest I've ever been to a tornado strike.

And when I heard the radio transmission or I actually didn't even hear one of our deputies on the radio, somebody else repeated it to me that there was a tornado on the ground.

I immediately started heading that way because clearly there was going to be a lot of work to do that.

The weather conditions were eerie that morning.

Oh my God, yes.

The humidity was nothing I had ever experienced before.

It was like we were living in South Florida and you just had a feeling that it was going to be bad.

I, I think we all assumed it was just going to be significant severe thunderstorms, not, not a tornado that rapidly evolved and moved quickly through, through the heart of city of Menasha.

So driving up there, I, I couldn't see the roadway.

I couldn't see any vehicles around me.

I called somebody was back at the office and asked them if they were looking at a radar and told them I just want to know if I'm driving right into it.

I have no idea where it's at.

And quite honestly, I couldn't tell them where I was at.

When I got up to the the 441 bridge, I stopped by, some of our guys were dealing with the overturned semis and vehicles that were wrapped in flying debris.

They said they were good.

Another deputy had gone into the city of Menasha and his radio transmission was something along the lines of we need more people here now it's bad.

And when I exited onto Racine St. it was far worse than I could have imagined in my in my mind.

I tried to get to the Menasha Police Department, had to stop.

There was a gas leak in one of the houses, so try to identify that so our communication center could keep a list of, you know, what areas needed to be addressed.

It took me 25 ish minutes to get from that point to the PD and I was only about 5 blocks away.

Really just everybody started jumping in looking for work.

A lot of the police officers and firefighters, they couldn't get from point A to point B, so they parked and started walking house to house just to check on people.

And it was very, I guess, encouraging to me that nobody waited for direction, nobody looked for somebody else to take care of the problem.

Everybody just jumped in.

Our dispatchers were handling the 911 calls and the radio transmissions that were so prevalent it was causing the system to experience difficulty.

We call it a bonk.

The the radios can't handle the number of transmissions that are going through.

So you you actually hear a bonk sound on your radio, which tells you that you're not getting through.

So the the sheer chaos of Monday around noon 1230 quickly transitioned into helping one another.

And over the course of the week that we stood up an emergency operations center at the Sheriff's Office.

Initially there were multiple EO CS set up, but it made sense to bring everybody into one room.

Let's let's have a conversation what you and I are doing right now, just much bigger scale with much higher stakes, right?

And brought in the public works and the county executives offices.

DPWD.

PW, law enforcement from multiple agencies, fire, EMS and everybody just got started and found their piece of the puzzle to start putting it all back together and it's it's not going to go back together anytime soon.

I have been in the city of Menasha specifically a little bit into fox crossing different areas that we could get to just to evaluate help.

We escorted some people into the area and that that is one of the the difficult things.

I, I would not assume that, I would assume that the city of Menasha has, has never seen the volume of traffic that has been flowing through right now.

And it's unfortunate that some of that is not people who are there to help, but it is.

It is just.

Gawkers.

Yeah, they're gawkers.

They're gawkers.

People that want to.

Spectate and it's not helping everybody else to fix the problem.

It's no, it's gunking up the whole, it's gunking up the fixes.

Exactly.

So trying to work with the local PDS to handle that.

It is very refreshing to see the eagles left at the door during a critical incident.

When everybody comes into the room and nobody's got all the answers, but together, we can start to solve different parts of it and offering resources to each other that sometimes doesn't happen.

Sometimes there's a, you know, like a sibling rivalry almost between different communities or different agencies, and it's not happening.

Now it is all hands on deck, the community stepping up to volunteer to serve, you know, personally on foot or bringing in food or making monetary donations.

People coming out of the woodwork to say what can I do to help?

I will, I will do whatever, wherever you need me.

Please just give me a job.

I want to go make this better for these people.

Facts.

No, it's actually the way that it is come together.

I actually believe, I so believe in in the partnerships that happen across the Fox Cities as as we term that and usually, you know, coming together, they're usually we come together and we partner all the time and and there's good stuff that happens.

It just wasn't time for egos this time.

It was too crazy.

It was too tragic.

I know all sorts of all, all the different departments and all the different like law enforcement agencies.

There just had to be help going out all over the place in all these different regions, you know, there between Menasha and Appleton and Grand Shoot, like there was just all sorts of coordinations, fox crossings that were just happening like get to where you can get to and be helpful.

And do what you can find work.

And you're not.

The only thing you could do right now that would be wrong is to do nothing.

Anything you do is probably going to be the right thing in some capacity.

It's going to help us fix some problem.

But let's keep working together and let's keep talking so everybody knows we're not duplicating efforts and wasting time and resources doing the same thing over.

If somebody's working on it, let's move somewhere else and fix that problem.

The, you know, the, the sad thing is that this is the immediate response.

It's amazing, overwhelming.

I know they had to turn volunteers away at one point because they had so many people there and we just weren't in a position for the work to get started.

It has to be systematic.

They had to get, you know, tree debris out of the roadways and the power lines angle from the trees before you could start doing the work.

So they really didn't need the people at that point.

My hope is that the the effort and the desire to help doesn't dissipate over time.

We don't have compassion fatigue.

We don't have the next news cycle take over.

And people forget about this problem because this problem is going to take months and years.

It's.

Going to take years to put some of this back together and some of it's not going to get put back correct.

And it's a sad it, it's a very sad environment, but the resiliency of the community is amazing.

When I have, and Friday was the first time I actually made it all the way down to one of the hardest hit areas, the Manor Fields bakery and some of the residential areas around that.

Clearly that was where the storm had picked up the most energy and was doing its most destruction.

But there were still neighbors out helping each other.

They were, there were smiles, there were thank yous.

One of one of my guys was out Tuesday.

We were helping Menasha try to block different intersections because at that point we really did need to keep places completely clean.

We could, we had to keep people out of them so they could start removing the power lines.

And he was talking to one of the neighbors and the neighbors comment was, it is so refreshing to see neighbors talking to neighbors, neighbors helping neighbors.

It's amazing what happens when the Internet goes away.

People remember how to communicate.

And I'm not saying that the Internet is the evil of all evils, but when it is not there to divide people, all of that seems to get pushed on a back burner and we can just have a conversation.

You know, that's true.

We get back to being human, where I will say that the Internet probably was really helpful or a technology.

In this case, it was those alerts because no one died.

And that's almost in, that's in.

That's an incredible statement on its own.

Yeah, that, that is very, very hard to believe that we did not and we had some injuries, but even the injuries were relatively minor.

When you look at the destruction that was done to property, there's no rhyme or reason to the lower level of injury other than the the forewarning certainly gave people an opportunity to get to a safe space.

I know even the tornado sirens, which they didn't go off a long time before the tornado formed, they were still activated before it was on the ground.

As far as I know, the sirens beat the tornado to the ground and that just that minute or two of warning was likely enough.

And it happened during the day.

And I think a lot of people fortunately were at work.

They were out of their house.

But I have heard that with other storms that the the Tornadoes will form so fast that there is not an opportunity to get the advanced warning out.

So the technology was available.

You're right, it probably saved people from more damage and destruction and injury.

Well, I don't know about you, but that alert, I don't know if you had a cell phone on you at the time, but that alert on that cell phone hit and then everything started because I was like everyone else.

I was at work and we have to try to get to that basement, get down there and and make it happen.

I was in my office and all of the cell phones on that floor were going off.

So the the loud, clear warning that you're talking about was echoing down the hallway.

Yeah, at the Sheriff's Office.

I got an opportunity to to go around a little bit on Friday.

So let me just send this to to the Kosh listeners there.

I did, I got an opportunity to a great episode with Mayor Woodford and Mayor Hammond about just updating like how does this all work?

And some of the things that came in, and this was also the day when the first day when the National Guard showed up in the Menasha.

And just understanding because there's a lot of work that's happening and people want to know, but they want to know at the most minuscule sometimes.

And it's like you can't know all of those things.

Some of that hasn't, we haven't gotten that far because we're still doing big things right.

And so if you'd like to hear some of that, go check out that episode on the Appleton Engage podcast with the conversations with those two leaders.

But I got to drive around it a little bit with the boss and, and it it's, it does something to your soul like this.

It's hard like you, you can't go see that and walk away with it feeling like it affects you.

It hits you different.

Absolutely it is.

It's almost impossible to explain the level of destruction that occurred.

And I don't know.

I actually did say during the week, I don't understand I why people would want to live in Kansas or Oklahoma.

I'm sure they're beautiful states, but if this is a reality, a regular reality.

They're normal.

I'm not interested.

If this is a multiple time a year event, I'm good.

I'll stay.

I'll stay put in Wisconsin.

I, I, I can live with our, our weather patterns.

And I think talking to some of the people at the volunteer centers and Wisconsin Emergency Management personnel who are interacting, you know, they have people coming from Florida and other States and a comment that they keep hearing is you, you wouldn't see this type of a response in our area.

You, you wouldn't see the community support where I live like we're seeing, right?

It's the Midwestern nice response, right?

And that is such an amazing thing to be a part of.

I, I, I'm grateful for our Midwestern nice.

I am.

I'm very happy to be part of a community, an area that takes care of each other.

And what you're seeing right now is that that philosophy on steroids.

There are people that are trying to give everything they can to make somebody else's day better.

And that is, that is so fantastic to watch.

Oh, yeah, I, I knew it was real because I had several friends.

Let me give a special shout out to my my man Tarman out there who was like, I got a chainsaw.

He literally put this on Facebook.

I got a chainsaw.

Tell me where to be.

That's real that that's coming.

Like that's not messing around.

And it's genuine.

I mean, it is people who they want to give anything they can give, they will sacrifice everything they have to try to make it better for somebody else and I respect that.

And I want to especially give a huge shout out to volunteer Fox Cities.

Yeah, they've done a fantastic.

Job, Oh my God, out of nowhere to pull that all together, get it organized, organize donations to organize or organize physical donations and organize where volunteers were going to get sent to.

Like, for that to just be pulled together, Yeah, that's because they could have been a mess.

Absolutely.

And seeing behind the curtain, watching, watching the product made is it's pretty unbelievable.

Oh yeah, and 211. 211 has been great.

Because 211 was, that was some serious stuff.

And people, if you didn't know this, like you can call 211 and it's, it's a direct contact to resources, not just now and not just an emergency always.

So keep that in mind.

All right.

Well, Darren, before we move on to the next segment, is there any last things you want to say about your topic of the week?

The only thing I can, I guess offer at this point is just a reminder to everybody that this is going to be a long, long recovery process.

And I, I hope people stay as engaged and passionate about helping six months, a year, 18 months down the road as they are today, because that community is going to need your support.

But I definitely, you know, I guess for what it's worth from me, want to express my appreciation for everybody's efforts up to this point.

And for you listeners out there, I also want to say be sure, please show a little patience because I promise you this, your city or municipality is working their way through these things.

And then yes, we know you got some brush, you got some wood, you got some stuff you would like to get off your lawn or that might need to get cut.

They're working their way through it.

It's, it's a priority thing.

It's, it's got to do some of this big stuff 1st and then we'll get to the other stuff.

Just want to make sure I put it out there.

Somebody who knows about those phone calls that come in.

All right, our next segment.

Our next segment is called 21 questions and 21 questions.

I got some questions.

There's not 21 of them, but they are quality questions, Darren.

And so you ready?

I'm ready.

Oh, you know what?

We forgot before we go there, you know we're going to do 21 questions.

I'm a backup.

I almost skipped the whole segment.

We're going to go back to the soapbox.

All right, so next segment is the soapbox.

Soapbox is an opportunity for our guests to get on a soapbox about something they feel passionately about right now.

Darren, what's your soapbox?

Well, I think my soapbox has to be the sheriff campaign that is happening right now.

And I will be honest, I with the Menasha tornado or the the tornado that we all experienced, I, I don't feel good about talking about this, but that was kind of the original purpose of coming on the show.

So I feel like I should at least discuss it at.

Least at least talk about a little bit.

Give it a little bit.

All right, so I am running for sheriff this fall.

As I said earlier, I've got 25 years of experience, varying experience, leadership experience within the Sheriff's Office and I've worked in corrections patrol investigations.

I've been a supervisor, you know, an administrator and now a division commander.

I've served on special teams and LED special teams and I've been the person that was identified early on for leadership capabilities.

I was encouraged by my mentors to take on additional responsibility and I'm glad that I did.

I've I've been able to make an impact within the agency and within the communities that we serve based on the assignments that I have.

I serve on the school safety committees for the Neenah and Oshkosh school districts and those are the two host districts for those committees.

There are other districts involved as well.

Basically all of the school districts are represented in some capacity and school safety is, is important to me.

I talked about my wife being a teacher, my brother's a teacher, my father was a teacher.

I my kids were students.

So school safety has, has always resonated with me and I've had an opportunity to be part of that discussion to help them make that the right environment for the kids that are and the teachers that are working in that the school day.

So I believe that, you know, I have, I've gained a lot of experience, I've gained a lot of knowledge and I'm, I'm ready to take the next step.

Sheriff Mots, who is retiring after 37 years in law enforcement and 16 as the sheriff has endorsed me, he was actually the first person who encouraged me to start planning for this.

So this didn't happen overnight.

This wasn't quick decision.

This has been something that I've been working toward for 25 years of my career, but really dedicated to over the last four years since the November 22 election when Sheriff Motts was last selected to be the sheriff of Winnebago County.

You know, I've, I've been trying to get out and do this, not in a podcast format, but just interacting with the public, finding out what it is that is most important to you and your community because that's really important to me.

And that's what we exist for.

This is not Darren's agenda.

This is what can the Sheriff's Office do to serve the people that trust us to provide them service.

Well, absolutely, because Sheriff is an elected official.

It is an elected official that is your boss.

You know, that's that's the key.

It's the unlike other scenarios where you are hired on for a sheriff, you are elected in.

And that is one of the, you know, one of the unique things about an elected position.

The qualifications would be different.

If this were a police chief job, there would be specific qualifications that were necessary.

And I feel that, you know, that if those qualifications were a requirement, they would have probably made this process a little bit easier for me.

I feel that I'm the person who would have had the qualifications that would have been required to be hired.

I still view this as as an interview, as this, as the public is the one making the hiring decision.

And I guess I would hope that they they do their homework, that they look at our histories, that they look at our resume is that they look at our social media presence.

What you what you see with me is what you get.

I I don't know if maybe I'm just too lazy to create a fake persona, but I've always been very genuine.

I don't want to.

I don't want to have to remember what persona I need in a different environment.

It's just easier to be honest and genuine and who I am.

Facts.

So my real question is, how are you getting out here?

Because all right, there's the request in some sense that you're like, I hope people do their homework.

I think that's a fair request because I, I don't know about you, but I always like it when our voting public is, is a informed, informed public.

Took the word out of my mouth.

That's it's nice, right?

But that being said, I also think that you know, you're, you're running, you're campaigning, right?

So you also have to put in the effort to be out there and be hustling and get to know people.

And so my real question is it's easy to find the people who are in get constantly engaged voters, right?

Some voters, they keep up with everything, right?

They know everything about all the different candidates and they do their research and they know how they're going to vote.

But then there's a whole nother constituency.

And since sheriff really does play in like people's lives, it's an important aspect.

Like there's certain parts of other political people where it may or may not have anything to do with your everyday, but you're what you do as sheriff does.

If you live in that county, you literally do have something to do with people's everyday.

How are you going about your outreach to talk to communities that you probably don't always get to talk to?

So I have obviously we've done like the, you know, the parades just to get information out and that really I want the information to spread as quickly and as organically as they can.

But the parades don't provide a lot of the interaction opportunities.

Parades aren't going to do you right.

No social media presence.

I mean, we're trying to post regularly and that is not a world I live in.

I struggle sometimes with social media.

I think it's part of the problem that we have right now is it?

It becomes a platform for people to take stances and make statements that they probably wouldn't they.

Were face to face right You right about that keyboard warriors.

Keyboard Warrior is not, yeah, not something that I'm a huge fan of.

So it's trying to get the information out.

And part of my message has always been reach out.

I'd love to sit down and have a conversation.

I've had, I've had some great one-on-one discussions with community members who don't agree with me and that's that.

That's fantastic.

I want to hear your perspective.

Tell me why you think I'm wrong on this topic and I'll tell you why I support doing it this way.

And at the end of it, if, if we don't agree, that's OK, we can, we might not even be able to find a compromise, but let's just have the discussion.

Let's humanize it.

Yeah, and then if you want to tell people my stance or you want to give them my contact info, I'll do I.

I have said from the beginning if I could pull it off, I'd love to sit down and have a cup of coffee with all 174,000 residents of Winnebago County.

I don't think that's realistic, but trying to engage the public is difficult.

I've tried to get out too, and I still plan on getting out to town board meetings and different social events where I can just walk around.

And even that I, I don't like to disrupt your day.

If you were going to this fair, you didn't intend to go there to see me, but I want to be accessible.

So, you know, we, we go out with a shirt and if you want to come up and talk, you want to come up and have a conversation.

I will take whatever time you want, whatever time you need.

I want to be able to have that honest discussion with people in whatever environment fits them.

All right, so here's where I want to challenge is too strong of a word, right?

It's not really challenge.

Oh, no, it it because no, Ed, look, I'm not scared to challenge.

It's just that it really doesn't fit when I where I want to go with this.

What I really want to get to is like, OK, you have a constituency of people who might be fearful of law enforcement, right?

For whatever reasons, it could be past trauma, it could just be stereotypical stuff, right?

It could be media stuff, right?

And they're going to be hesitant to reach out, but their viewpoints and their voice are just as important as anyone.

Then I also think about these communities, particularly diverse communities, right?

They're not going to be necessarily be at that fair.

They're not going to necessarily be in these environments because that's not traditionally where they've been invited or anything like that.

So what I want to ask is, like, sometimes those voices are even the most important voices, and how will you find the ways to interact there, to even just have those conversations so they get to know Darren Rice?

I have actually started some of those conversations through through other people, through people that represent the populations.

And I think there's a couple of populations in particular that have strong, strong community representation.

And I've had one-on-one meetings with with the people that have that connection.

So it's and it really those both of those conversations happened by an introduction from a mutual acquaintance.

Right, that's the trust.

The Trust Connect.

Yes, it's trying to trying to build those bridges.

Absolutely.

And I felt like both.

I actually just saw one of the people that I had coffee with at, at the EOC on, I don't remember if it was Thursday or Friday that I ran into her, but I think we have a good relationship now and I think that person understands my philosophies and why I believe in certain things.

We, we had, we had a great discussion looking at some of the topics from, I don't want to say polar opposite ends of the spectrum, but different sides of the issue.

And I think it helped build an understanding of the rationale behind the support or disagreement.

Did you take anything away from those?

Absolutely, yeah.

I, I always try to take something away from a conversation.

I, I think, I think you're foolish if you don't look for an opportunity to grow every day and learn every day.

And I just actually, I, I was pretty proud of that.

I had written that down for a later segment, but that is, that is who I've always been.

We talked about sports earlier.

If you're not improving every single day and you're missing an opportunity, right, we need to stop thinking we have the answers and stay open minded.

Now that doesn't mean I'm going to change my stance on something.

It doesn't mean I'm going to completely change my opinion, but I certainly want to understand the reasoning for people wanting that opinion to change.

And one of the people that reached out to me, we, we had probably a 2 hour discussion over coffee and I really enjoyed it.

We're very different people.

I took a lot from it.

And there were a couple of topics that he asked me what it would take for me to change my opinion.

And I told him legislative changes.

If the laws change, then I would absolutely change my stance on it.

But the way the laws are written right now, I feel like this is what the the public wants that we have to pick and we have to pick a path based on the needs and wants of the community we serve, right?

It's not, again, the decisions that I personally believe it's not.

Sometimes that is just the rules.

That's the laws.

That's the.

And the unfortunate part of the sheriff position shouldn't say unfortunate, but it really is a non partisan position.

But you're elected during a partisan election.

So you run on a political party.

And I have, you know, I, I'm running as a Republican this fall.

I'm not hiding from that, but I made it clear to people within the party that I have no interest in trying to push an agenda that's coming out of Washington, DC, or even the state of Wisconsin.

The sheriff has to do what's best for the community.

Facts.

So it is a, it's an incredible learning opportunity.

This is not, and this is not something they said.

I, I didn't start out at 22 thinking I'm going to run for sheriff right at 40.

I didn't think, I think I'm going to run for sheriff in a few years when I was pulled into the office and asked point blank if I or I was asked who was thinking about running and you know, Sheriff Motts.

Oh yeah.

He has a pretty good sense of humor.

Very.

I, I answered in a somewhat sarcastic manner.

He did not.

I don't think he found the humor in it.

So when I calmed him down and got him to understand I was just joking, he said, all right, who?

Who is going to run?

And I told him while people have asked me and a couple of people had mentioned it to me, but at that point I still wasn't thinking that that was a reality.

I told him a couple people asked me, he said and said, well, if there's not a better candidate, then yeah, I would consider running.

He said, good, that is the answer I wanted.

You need to start planning for it.

I will support you.

I will stand behind you.

And I believe that you are the person who should take over when I'm done, so that is.

And for people that don't like Sheriff Watson, I'm sure there are people who don't agree with him.

In his heart, he's always wanted to do what is best for the most people.

I find him to be incredibly fair.

Absolutely.

You know, if they're, you may not agree with some of his politics or some of the other stance on things, but I, I highly respect him.

I like him a lot, but I know him as a person, just as a person too.

So yeah, I just find him usually to be incredibly fair and thoughtful.

You know, he, he doesn't.

He, he and he listens.

You know, if you give him a chance, he does listen.

We are not the same people.

I mean, he, our backgrounds are very different.

He, he has a strong military background.

I have, you know, went from high school to college, did not serve in the military.

Ultimate respect for the military just was not the path for me.

So the way we make decisions, the way we lead is a little bit different.

What bigger picture, I guess outlook and philosophies.

We are relatively similar.

I think we both see the same endpoint.

It's just the path that we take to get from A to B might be a little bit different.

So I feel, you know, I, I'm grateful that he has supported me and I have a lot of public support and endorsement from people that understand the importance of the position and the responsibilities that go with the position.

And I've been, I've been the guy whose phone rings in the middle of the night for many, many years.

And I'm, I'm OK with that.

Sometimes I have to, I have to take a minute, I have to walk down to the kitchen and tell people they have to repeat what they just told me because I I need to wake up.

Coherent.

But I'm I'm comfortable making the decisions in incredibly stressful situations and standing behind it.

I'm not saying I have all the answers, I don't believe I do.

But I try to make the best decision based on the information available and I will own every decision that's made.

And that goes back to the conversation we had earlier about holding yourself accountable and holding others accountable and making sure that what we are doing is what we should be doing.

Well, what I'm going to say is cash listeners, you heard that there is an opportunity for coffee conversations.

And I, I would encourage you that if you would like to learn more about our candidate here for Sheriff sounds like a really awesome opportunity.

And it's really cool that he made that opening.

And who I would really like to encourage is those who might not normally feel empowered to make that feel empowered do it.

I, I can sitting across from there and I can tell you right now I'd sit down and have coffee with them and I'd have that conversation if I, if there were things and I had concerns and reach.

Out.

I would love to have that conversation.

And voices.

I can't stress that.

Like if the only way a voice becomes really important is if it's ever heard.

So get out here, let our let our officials know things that are on our soul and things that we're seeing out here.

Thank you.

Now, thank you.

OK, now we can go to the next segment.

The next segment is called 21 questions and not 21 questions, but good, solid questions that might cause 21 answers because they're really good questions, or at least I like to think they are.

So Darren, what motivates you?

My family, first and foremost, anything I do, I, I want them to be proud of what I'm doing and the way that I'm doing it.

I don't want to do anything that, you know, puts my family in a in a bad position, makes them lose trust in me, respect for me and motivation for me.

It's intrinsic.

I'm competitive.

I always, I want to be the best.

Am I always going to be the best?

No, that's not realistic.

But I'm going to push myself to get as close to perfection as I can.

And that is that has been my mindset since I was a kid.

I I I don't obsess over things, but I certainly think about ways to improve any situation or myself regularly, and I I'm not afraid to put in the work.

I am willing to sacrifice myself for the betterment of a situation or the betterment of others.

What does success look like?

Again, family and friends, having healthy relationships with them.

This profession is, it's easy and they warn you early on that it can become your personality and you lose the rest of your world and you don't want to do that.

You need to, for your own mental health, you need to maintain those relationships.

But success to me is having, still having those strong relationships with my friends and I, I, I know a lot of people, my friend group, the people that I really trust, it's not a huge circle, but they are incredibly important to me.

So I want to keep them.

That's that success to me, as long as we still have that strong relationship.

Divorce rates are astronomical in law enforcement.

So my wife and I just celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary and I said earlier she's put up with me for a long time and I'm not always the easiest person to be around.

Sometimes I I can get a little focused on the different things that are going on in my life.

But she's an amazing woman and making her happy means a lot to me.

Relationships with my kids, you know, the fact that they're still willing to come and talk to me, they're looking for advice.

I, I, I feel like that's a success as a father.

There are successes within the job.

I mean, we have, we have our wins with the community when we, we make a drastic improvement in a, a problematic area, to me, that's a success.

That's something that's measurable, something we can work on.

And the only way you do that is by being realistic about your goals and identifying what truly is important and then dedicating everything you can to make it happen.

I, I am a firm believer in just digging deep and finding the extra energy to accomplish whatever we are trying to accomplish.

And it's hard to define success, but you know when you've hit it, if that makes sense.

You've accomplished what you set out to do.

And what you set out to do initially may have been too lofty of a goal.

You might have to readjust it in the process and it might be a winding path to get there.

But you know when you've hit the milestone, you know when you've done something that you set out to do, and it's important to acknowledge that.

I have never wanted to stay content.

If we have a success, that's great.

Handshake.

Congratulations on to the next problem.

What irritates you?

The inability to have a civil conversation.

As I said, I, I've sat down and had, from my perspective, a great conversation with somebody that we couldn't reach an agreement at the end of it, but it was fantastic to see their perspective and humanize it.

I think you made that comment earlier.

Use that phrase earlier.

We don't have to be enemies.

Just because we don't agree on something doesn't mean that I'm right and you're wrong or you're right and I'm wrong.

This means we see it through a different lens.

We see it through different historical perspectives.

We see it through a different current perspective.

I, it, it drives me crazy that people lose their minds over a, a disagreement that at the end of the day, it really doesn't change anything.

And we already sort of hit on this, but in today's world, it's, it's the keyboard warrior mentality.

I'm I'm, I'm going to go out and blast you on social media because I don't agree with your perspective.

OK, I, I'm not going to do the same to you.

I, I don't believe in that.

If I have an issue with you, you can believe that I'll find a time for us to meet and I will address it face to face.

And it doesn't have to be, I mean, that's not a threatening approach.

It's just, I want to, I want to have a real discussion.

I want to see the facial recognition and response.

I I want to be able to not misconstrue something that's been put in writing facts.

We have become an e-mail driven existence and there's so much that can be misinterpreted from the way that something is phrased in an e-mail.

All the time.

It drives.

Period.

All the time.

Drives me crazy and I am the first person to.

If I get an e-mail, I'm at least going to pick up the phone and give you a call to confirm that I read what I read, or to have to work through it so you can tell me no, no, that is not what I meant.

I'm a firm believer that it is human nature for us to automatically read emails from a negative.

No, just from a negative standpoint.

So like, I do e-mail, but I do short, concise emails.

I don't want to make it wordy.

And I'm thinking I'm being respectful.

I'm thinking I'm being respectful because I'm like, all right, I'm going to put this one sentence.

And some people take that because you don't put the pleasantries in the niceties in that you're being short with them.

You're being this, You're being like, no, no, I'm actually just trying to be concise.

I'm trying to be respectful of your time.

We get so many emails.

If just if you can give me the the message.

Yeah.

And I'm not going to send you a thank you.

And it's not because I don't because I'm not thankful for what you did.

I'm not sending you thankful because I think it's a waste of your time to fill your inbox with a response that just says thank you like.

So those are those are probably my biggest pet peeves.

Well, you can tell I got feelings and I'm I'm, I'm riding with you on some of that.

What worries or scares you?

Failing to deliver, not meeting somebody else's expectations that that is I probably my biggest fear worries.

I mean, you worry about your kids.

You always worry about your kids and, and the, the society that they're, well, they're now young adults in how, how are they going to progress through adulthood?

What opportunities are they going to have or not going to have based on what's happening in the world right now?

Those are the, the things that I worry about.

Everything else that may worry me, I'm like, go to work personality.

If there's something that's concerning me and I start working on it, I start trying to find a way to make it better.

If I see an issue with it, I, I try to dig into it.

I try to break it apart and maybe that's where my mom recognized the the engineering potential in me, but I don't like to sit and just be worried about something.

If I'm going to have a concern over it, then I'm going to do what I can to fix it as I think it should be fixed.

Now, does that mean I might be doing work that is unnecessary and doesn't always mean that I have the best solution to it, but I'm at least going to put the effort into finding a a way to make it better?

What are you grateful for?

Family this process has, it's really been enjoyable running for sheriff.

They've always understood my career.

They've been supportive of my career.

I mean, there were some trying times when the, when the kids were younger and I was working different shifts and I was on special teams that were getting called out at all hours of the day and I was missing, I was missing them growing up.

And I, I know my wife for a short time and it probably wasn't a short time, but it nearly came to a head.

It nearly boiled over at one point and we had an honest conversation.

And she was right.

I had, I had been sort of absent at home.

I was too focused on the career.

So what they have warned me about, I fell into the trap.

I did exactly what they told me not to do, but we got through it and it, it's been really good.

They've always supported it.

And it's been really cool this summer, my 21 year old son has actually chosen to hang out with us at certain events.

And yeah, it it you're 21, you've got his girlfriend is still in Stevens Point and he's got buddies who are 21 and 21 year olds like to do what 21 year olds like to do.

They like to hang out.

They like to have a couple drinks and he's chosen on a Friday night to come along to a parade with mom and dad and some of the other people that are there supporting me.

He actually, he did the bulk of the work for one of the parades.

We had to build a little, a little platform to meet the the theme of the parade.

So he was out there working through it and making it happen.

He's got he's got greater mechanical abilities than me.

My father-in-law is pretty mechanically inclined.

My mechanical abilities are not great.

So having him around has been very, very enjoyable.

My other son is he has a girlfriend, spends a lot of time with her, which is a great girl, great family.

But he and I golf once a week.

So I'm grateful for the opportunity to, to spend time with him.

And I'm, I'm not a very good golfer.

He's a pretty good golfer.

So the fact that he's willing to be seen with the old man and not embarrassed by me on the golf course is that means a lot to me and talked about this.

But the encouragement I've received from the people that are important to me, my mentors during my career and now through this process, I'm I'm so appreciative of the knowledge that they've shared with me, the nudging that they gave me to take on different opportunities.

I have to be grateful for their investment in me and their ultimately, I believe their investment in the community.

I mean they are looking out for what they think is most important to the community that they served or continuing to serve.

What do you want to be remembered for?

Hard work, loyalty, honesty, dependability, trustworthiness, and those are all the characteristics that I value and I hope people feel that way about me.

I want to be remembered as somebody that they could count on no matter, no matter what the request was, and somebody they could count on to be honest with them if what they wanted was not in the best interest of them or whatever they were trying to do or the community.

I'll, I'll be straight.

I'll tell them without hesitation that it's a bad idea and maybe we should work on something else.

I just, I really just want to be remembered as somebody that you could count on, somebody that was going to give you 100% at all times.

How do you define love?

This is a hard one.

When you sent the questions, I spent some time thinking about this question and I had listened to some of your other podcasts from the past and knew that this was generally one of the questions that made it in.

Oh, yeah, I didn't.

I didn't just throw this one at you.

No, no.

It's part of it's part of the questions.

And really what I came up with is just a genuine concern for the well-being of someone else, having a strong emotional connection for others, giving them support in any any situation.

Love, I think, is generally equated with a romantic relationship and I'm not good at expressing my emotions.

I I never have been.

It's just not not really part of my personality.

But there are people I love that I'm not romantically interested in.

My wife probably wouldn't appreciate it if I was romantically interested in some of them, but I have a genuine love for that individual, for that person.

I would do anything in my power to help them in any way that I can.

And I think, you know, putting the needs of others in front of in front of your own at times is a, is a way to express that love.

I think that actions matter more than words.

It's easy to to tell somebody you love them, but they can see it through what you're willing to do for them.

What is the most memorable life lesson you learn from you?

A parent, a guardian, or a mentor.

This is a tough one.

As I said earlier, I got so much from my upbringing from my parents, my grandparents, probably good and bad.

There's not all of the family are are perfect at all times, but the one the one trait that I think was really important to my parents is humility.

They and my my father was a teacher and a coach, and he gave a lot of himself for the community.

My mom was a medical technologist.

She worked part time and there I was the oldest of four, so her job was part time, but her real job was taking care of me and my siblings.

And they, they didn't think twice about, you know, giving back and helping people out whenever and wherever they could.

They they would travel like my mom would follow us around at sporting events and small school.

We were, we were busy.

We were playing multiple sports.

We were in band, you know, so there were concerts.

She did not waste, you know, any time thinking about if she was going to something, it was when she had to be somewhere and she would stop and pick up, you know, different community members and small town living.

We were an hour and a half away playing another school in our conference.

So that they would do that without, without thinking twice.

And they never wanted recognition for anything that they did.

It was all about just doing the right thing at the right time for the right reasons.

And humility has always been incredibly important to me.

I, I struggle talking about myself, may shock you based on today's conversation, but I believe I'm a terrible interview because I'm not comfortable talking about myself and pushing myself or putting myself out there publicly.

So I have to overcome some of the humility that was instilled in me.

But I do feel like that was the most important thing that I took for my parents.

All right, let me set the stage.

You have been asked to be the keynote speaker at this conference of your peers, right?

But before you get out there and do your thing, we need to get the crowd right.

We got to get the crowd hype about seeing Darren Rice up there on that podium.

We need the walkout song.

What is your walkout song?

Well, I'm going to go all the way back to my cassette tape era and we are going to have Welcome to the Jungle by Guns and Roses.

That is, that's the song that would get that would get me pumped up and I would hope it gets the crowd energized as well.

I love that.

I love that you threw the cassette tape in there.

I'm not sure that some people know what those things are anymore.

They they can go to Google and find a an old school cassette tape image and have some understanding.

Facts.

All right, Darren, you have completed 21 questions, next segment.

Next segment is called word association.

Word association is where I'm going to say some words and you're going to tell me things that come come to mind.

We have a long standing tradition here on the cash.

We have always started with the same word.

We start with that word because it is the word of community.

It is the word of family, it is the word of happiness, it is the word of love.

That word is Food First.

Thing that popped into my head was pizza.

I am a connoisseur of pizza.

About that life, yeah.

I am a big fan I.

OK, call it who's the favorite?

You know, that is such a tough call.

Oh, it is.

It is.

I'm a Papa John's fan.

I the jalapeno I think in the the garlic dipping sauce.

To me that gives them the the heads up.

That garlic dipping sauce?

It's fire.

Yeah, it's fantastic.

It is.

It's big fan.

OK, Cod Taylor.

Beer, beer.

All right, Well, how did we get down?

I'm a Guinness fan.

Oh, so I I like the heavier beers all.

Right.

I don't drink often.

Yeah.

Family history, but not not great with alcohol, so very cognizant of that.

But I do appreciate a good a good Guinness.

A good Guinness, bigger I.

Can't do the dark stuff.

That's too too much for me.

Shop local.

Kitson File popped into my head.

So already I've already admitted that my mechanical abilities are not amazing, so I don't have a an extensive tool collection.

Every now and again I will convince myself that I'm capable of doing a home improvement project and kids and File never lets me down.

They've got whatever I need.

I can go and rent it for the day, the week, however long I needed to pretend I know how to fix the the issues in my house.

And fortunately I I generally don't mess it up.

I don't make it worse.

A project that would take most people an hour probably takes me a day and a half to get accomplished, but I fight my way through it.

My real question is how many trips to Kitson file on your average project?

Generally at least two.

You never get it right the first time.

There's always a second trip.

There is, there is.

But they they have everything.

I I have not gone there looking for an item that they weren't able to produce, which is amazing to me.

Facts.

I love kits and files.

Not only that, like, why do those people know where everything's at?

Yeah, I don't care if it is a backwards red screw with an X top with AO in the middle.

Someone's going to be like, Oh yeah, it's over here in this island they pull up to destroy.

Ain't got it.

Like I have so much respect for kids that.

Fought dedication to their craft.

They know exactly what they're looking for and where to find it.

Oh yeah, they're good.

They are so good music.

Evolution is the word that came to mind.

Grew up small rural farming community.

Country music was everybody's go to and again may have been a little bullheaded.

I decided that I was going to have my own style, so I was more of a pop or rock fan.

My younger years as I've aged and maybe mellowed out a little bit, I've I've started to listen to some country.

So right now I've got 2 playlists on my phone.

One is country and it's that's more more of a newer playlist.

My rock playlist that that spans generations, that goes from the 80s to last year.

I hear a new song that catches my ear, I'll add it to the playlist.

There's no real regular music selection.

It really kind of depends on my mood and what I'm what I'm doing that day.

Streaming Paramount.

We are big Taylor Sheridan series fans.

I got sucked into the Yellowstone series and have continued down that path with all of the different offshoots.

Yellowstone is good.

It Yellowstone is really good and 1923 with Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford.

I was.

I was a huge fan of that series.

Last word.

Community support I think this week has shown what community should be about and that is supporting each other.

Fax Next segment Next segment is called Kosh Hidden Gems and the Kosh hidden Gems is your opportunity to share a hidden gem with the Kosh listeners.

That hidden gem could be something that you think, I don't think a lot of people know about this.

Or maybe you're hidden gem is something everybody knows about but they don't know the details or some really cool details about it.

And a kosh and gem does not have to be in the kosh, it is your hidden gem.

So what is your hidden gem?

Thought about this one a lot.

I think Artie and Ed's is is well known, but I just think it's such a unique experience and people are serving you your food on roller skates, which presents its own potential issues.

It's all liabilities.

The root beer is amazing if you have not picked up any arty and as root beer you were missing out and it it holds a special plate place in my heart.

My wife and I, our first apartment was in that area of the city and I wouldn't say we ate there regularly, but it was kind of a go to go to spot for us.

We actually got engaged at the boat landing across the street from Artie and Ed's just because that was our environment.

And at that point that was about as romantic as I could afford.

Her sister convinced me to spend more on a ring than I had originally planned.

So the proposal was an outdoor waterside proposal and we took our kids to Artie and Ed's when they were younger.

And just the memories with it, that was the first place that it really jumped in my head and it keeps it keeps coming back.

And you know, there are other fantastic Southside yacht clubs.

Fish fry is amazing.

And if you get outside of the cash, I mean there are some small bars and restaurants that to me are their go to places.

But Arty and Ed's is the the one location that I felt really deserved to be recognized.

You have survived hidden gems, Darren.

The next segment is called Story Time, and story time is my favorite segment and what story time is.

It's an opportunity for our guest to tell a story to the Kosh listeners, and that story can be about absolutely anything.

And I do believe that you said you might bless us with more than one story.

So let's go.

All right, so the the first story, I don't remember this because it involves my birth.

My parents have told me and the listeners can't see it.

But if you if you look at my my picture anywhere, unfortunately, I got the receding hairline gene and have decided that the shaved head is a better look than what I can girl.

But I had I had had red hair as as a child and before before shaving my head.

But when I was born, I was actually born in a hospital in Madison that isn't there anymore.

The nurses took me away to clean me up, do the normal after birth routine with a new child and brought me back to a different family.

I my parents received a child that had been cleaned up and that child didn't have red hair.

So I out of my grandma Rice who had red hair and 13 children of her own, I was the only grandchild with red hair.

So thank the Lord I, I got that red hair gene and that is the only thing that allowed my parents to recognize that they had the wrong kid in front of them.

And as I was saying off the air as a child, you, you get upset with your parents.

They, they tell you no and you start to think about what would that have, what would that other family have been like?

What, what opportunities would I have experienced if they had never discovered that I was put with the wrong family?

But I'm grateful it was figured out.

I, I am very appreciative of my parents and my upbringing, but it is just, it is a funny story to me that I was, I was one of the kids that could have been a 2020 or Dateline special many years down the road.

You could have been a Lifetime movie.

I could have been, yeah, I could have been.

So the, the story that I think fits perfectly for this podcast has to do with it's 2 events, but ties into my career.

I've, I've actually evacuated two different schools with my children inside of them.

So in 20, in 2012, both of my sons were students at Oakwood Elementary.

And that was the time there were a lot of the robocall school safety threats.

And that was one of the schools that had been threatened.

It was specifically identified.

So at the time, my oldest was 1/5 grader and my youngest would have been a fourth grader.

And they had already lived through Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting and the different school violence events that are extensively covered by the media.

And you know, we didn't, we didn't hide it from our children.

We wanted to be realistic about the world that we're living in with them.

So they had been exposed to that type of situation before and now they are being evacuated from from their school because of a threat.

And I remember finding my 5th grade son, who's now my 21 year old son, and he was pretty much her for his age and telling him find your brother, take care of your brother when you get to the reunification site.

Knowing that they were going to keep the students separate.

But to me, it was so important because there's such a personal tie to the event.

So Fast forward to December of 2019.

I am walking through the Sheriff's Office.

My oldest is a freshman at Oshkosh West High School.

My youngest is an eighth grader at the the middle school.

He hadn't made it to the high school yet.

So I'm walking through the office and I hear somebody say there's an active shooter at Oshkosh Wii went into work mode.

I was going to get there.

I I wanted to come and be a part of the solution.

I wanted to go and fix a horrible, horrible problem.

Now, we learned relatively quickly that it wasn't an active shooter, that it was an isolated incident.

But Officer Mike Wissink, the school resource officer, had been attacked by a student and had used deadly force in the process.

So the initial radio transmissions were difficult to understand and there was a lot of misinformation coming out very quickly.

The, the struggle between parent and one of the first responders going to the scene, it, it was intense in my head, not knowing where he was located in the school, thinking that there was an active shooter in the school, thinking about the resources I had coming to the scene with me or that we're already at the scene, thinking about my job.

Once I got to the scene that that was all happening in my head and I was riding as a passenger with one of one of the people that I consider a mentor and a friend.

His children were older and he is, he's focused on what do we have to do, what is the Sheriff's Office, law enforcement have to do to make this right?

And he's basically talking his way through it.

And I remember telling him, and I'll keep it PG for your, for your listeners, but please get me to the front door as quickly as possible.

I don't think it came out exactly in that manner, but that is, that was the message.

I need to get into that school immediately.

And when I got out, I don't know why, but I instinctively reached in my pocket and grabbed my personal phone and I had a text message, text message from my son.

And it was the greatest message I've ever gotten.

And all it said is, dad, what's going on at my school.

But the fact that he sent that message, I knew he was good.

So I then I could go back to my job.

And I ran into another good friend, mentor of mine whose son was a year older.

And I asked him before I went into the school, have you talked to him?

He said, no, not yet.

I said, then step away.

You need that.

You got to get your head right.

Make sure you know he's good.

And you know what?

The event itself could have been so much worse.

But we got through the initial phase and then transitioned to the recovery.

The same stuff we were talking about with the city of Menasha.

Now you have a school and a district.

I mean, the entire district was impacted by it.

That has to go through the recovery and watching the process.

And I'm now dealing with the 14.

He was 14 at the time, 14 year old son.

And watching him go through the different stages of, you know, the, the, the fear, the grief, the, the anger, and truly having a first hand account of what people experience and knowing that, you know, I've spent my career training myself to just respond to, to not go through all of that stuff, to be able to just have it ingrained so you can just respond and do the right thing to make it better.

I had to watch him process it.

So he actually, as we were discussing this, brought it up.

And one of the, you know, one of the coolest things that I saw during that whole sequence was when they had a basketball game later that week against Kimberly, the Kimberly basketball team came out wearing shirts supporting Oshkosh West and Mike Wissink was brought in to the school And the ovation was was unreal.

So still, still brings out some of the emotions.

It's, it's, it's hard to, to relive it, but I don't know if I would change it.

I mean, it's part of who we are.

It's part of what we've been through and it's part of why I continue to do what I do and why I care so much about certain things.

Darren I felt that that was real.

The discipline.

If my kids are sitting in there and I can do something about it, I don't know if I got that kind of that's that's hard.

That's hard.

And it wasn't just my kids.

I mean, I'm involved in coaching and I knew so many of those kids and so many of the families.

And it's sort so sort of a funny story to go with it.

That was a very big event.

And there was a news helicopter flying overhead.

And I don't know what station, it doesn't matter, But the captain who had driven me to the scene moved to the reunification site, which was a couple blocks away.

When I got done, I had to walk from West High School down to the reunification site because my stuff was in his car.

And I had, you know, I, we're responding to what we believe was an active shooter.

So I had a rifle on me, but I was not wearing my uniform that day.

I was in plain clothes.

I was supposed to do an interview for something else.

So the shoes I'm wearing are not real conducive to winter weather.

And I hit a patch of ice while walking down the street with a rifle slung.

And I started sliding.

And in my head, I remember thinking, please don't fall down because I could hear the helicopter up above.

And I did not want that to be the image me wiping out on the sidewalk after this traumatic event and trying to go down.

And that was when I got to the reunification site.

My wife school is actually right around the corner from the reunification site.

And to show what happens to people's thought process and decision making abilities under stress, she pulled out of the lot to drive over to the reunification site and made it about four feet under that street and then realized it was completely backed up.

There were cars everywhere, so she had to walk over to the site.

So when I got over there, I actually ran into her and the sidewalk and she was, she was good.

I mean, she had been involved in this life for a long time.

So she, she handles stress very well.

I talked to her, had some other people, families that we knew come up and I, I got hugs and really at that point, everybody was pretty good.

Like we had, we had fixed the first part of the problem.

It was going to take a lot more work, but we had stabilized the first part of it.

I went inside and found my son and he was with his buddy and it was, it was just very good to see him.

But I didn't want it to be an emotional event.

So I went to, I guess my default action and used sarcasm and got some laughs out of not only them, but some of the friends that were around them.

And it was it was just such a it was such a relief to see his face and know that he's he's here, he's whole, he's solid.

And all of his friends and all of these kids that I've known since they could walk were they were good.

They were here.

They were they were going to make it, but it was going to take some work.

So the, the whole story is and it's, it's personal and my ties to it, but it, it's, again, it's about community, it's about taking care of each other.

It's about coming together at our worst times to to put it back in the right path.

Facts.

OK, that was such a good story time.

I can't stress that.

I love a really good story time because I was there just now.

I could feel that that was good.

All right, Well, Darren, you know what we're about to start doing.

Well, I'm going to tell you what we're about to start doing.

We're about to start wrapping up this episode.

Gosh, listeners, you know what that means when you hear that.

And what I want to do is I want to take a moment and just say thank you, Thank you, thank you, thank you for spending time with us.

Thank you for giving us your minds and ears.

Thank you for caring about another amazing community member out here making a difference.

This was such an awesome sit down.

Just an opportunity to have this kind of conversation for you to get to know someone who may be our next sheriff and actually hear things in their own words and them being authentically them.

I think we do so much better with each other when we humanize each other.

We got to get to know each other.

That's why we have the Kosh.

All right, so let me say this.

You already know what some of our goals are.

Our goal is to become the number one podcast and all of us constant, but I can't do that without your help.

What does that look like while you're listening right now and you're thinking, Timber, you need new segments, but you should let me know.

Timber, we need this person in your chair.

You should let me know.

Or maybe you want to be in the chair.

Well, you can let me know and you can let me know by reaching out to me at askthekosh@gmail.com. onceagainthatisaskthekosh@gmail.com.

Also, I do believe that when we know our neighbors, we are a better community.

And part of that is I think people listening to these episodes, we make good stuff here.

Quality content.

And how does that work?

It's called analytics.

So what you are listening to the Kosh and you see a button that says subscribe, press it.

If you see stars, give us 5.

And if you see the opportunity to write a review, do it.

These are all things that help our community members learn about this little old podcast in our community known as The Kosh.

And once again, it's a great opportunity for us to get to know our neighbors and that's pretty cool.

All right, so right now we are getting ready for the next step and the next step sounds just like this.

That means it is shout out time.

So Darren, who you shout now?

Quick shout out to to Impress an Image 360.

They've been able to quickly deliver products that we've used during this campaign cycle and I really have enjoyed working with them and appreciate the the quality of their work.

And I don't want to steal your Thunder, but a shout out to all the people who've stepped up or the the Valley region after the tornado.

I can't stress enough how grateful and impressed I am by the number of people who have who have just shown up to do the work and offer their services whenever and wherever.

Facts all right there and you ain't stepping on my toes.

I'm a go on to do what to do so well.

My shout outs this week.

I want to give a special shout out to Carolyn and the volunteer Fox City's team and anyone who's volunteering for those tornado efforts.

Wow.

Wow.

I know there was a point.

I think by day 2 they had over 1200 people sign up.

That's amazing. 1200 so much water that they had to tell people to quit giving water that is fire.

So, you know, once again, I think the term that Darren had used earlier, let's not catch fatigue.

This is going to be going on a long time.

This is going to take years.

So let's take care of each other like we do around this region.

Let's show up.

Let's continue to show up and continue to help in the ways that we possibly can, whether that's personally or professionally.

I want to make sure I send a shout out to all the nonprofits out there doing collections of resources because we need you in this.

There is still a lot of need out there.

So we appreciate the fact that you're you're coordinating things, making things happen.

Make sure we get these in the right hands.

People.

Appreciate it.

I want to send a special shout out to Mayor Woodford and Mayor Hammond.

I got an opportunity once again.

I stated earlier to sit down with them and created a special emergency episode about things dealing with the tornado and to be able to just communicate, communicate some things so we could get some clarity out there, some transparency out there when these kinds of things happen.

I think when you are uninformed, we worry.

And also it's hard not to prioritize the things that are in your view, but that may not be the biggest thing needed for the community to get fixed at that time.

So we need, we get out there, know this.

Ain't nobody forgot about your garbage.

Ain't nobody forgot about the fact that we need to get a whole lot of debris and brush picked up and chopped up and brushed.

No one's forgot about streets that are being closed.

No one's forgot that you are without power.

Just know that there is an army of individuals working as hard and as fast as they can.

We will get you back home, I promise you.

And that, and that's all across all these municipalities and all and across these two counties.

There is amazing people behind the scenes doing amazing work.

All right, and then my last shout out, which is the same shout out last definitely not least goes to my wife for continue to let me make this podcast here in the house, baby.

I love you and thank you.

All right, Darren, we got one more thing we got to do before we wrap up this episode and it goes a little something like this.

You get some multiple choice options.

Option A tell the cash listeners some parting words of wisdom.

Option B tell the cash listeners what would yourself today tell your 13 year old self.

And then option C all of the above because good multiple choice always has all of the above.

You know what?

I'll take C.

All right, let's go.

Words of wisdom.

Challenge yourself to get better every day.

Look out for opportunities to improve your world and the world of those around you.

Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.

What would I tell my 13 year old self?

That's a good question, I honestly don't really remember. 13 year old self probably.

Just relax, enjoy it, things are going to work out fine.

Keep doing the work, push yourself, but don't stress.

It'll be OK because right now, you know, I think a 13 year old right now is living in a very different world than we were living at 13.

At 13, the biggest issue is whether or not you could get on the phone to call your buddies.

For us now, that 13 year old has six different social media options going and a lot of intense pressure.

So the message would still be the same to those 13 year olds.

Just take a breath, relax.

It's it's not all as urgent as it seems in your world right now.

Trust the process.

All right, Darren, what'd you think?

I really appreciate the opportunity This is.

It's been very enjoyable, very relaxing, very comfortable, very natural, very the.

Kosh.

Very the kosh.