And good morning. It is time to talk to Denise Lockwood from
Racine County. I and you brought somebody real special with
you today. Yeah, brand a newbie who's at your brand new
reporter. I knew to us reporter. He's the people know him.
He's been in the planet for a while. A day or two. So I brought
Grant Richie with me. And he is our report for America fellow,
which means we were able to qualify for a grant to get a grant.
Is that how that works? So grant is our education reporter.
And he's been doing a fabulous job. He he moved here done
from Ohio, which, you know, I grew up in Ohio too. So he's
been here for all of a week and have to be kind to him.
Welcome. Thank you. This is radio. We got to talk.
Well, welcome. And how did you, how did you get Racine County?
I had a bad workout for you. Um, yeah. So I originally worked
in Mount Vernon, Ohio at a Knox pages, which is a local newsroom
in Knox County, Ohio. It's about 40 minutes east of Columbus,
which is our capital. And I was looking for a new job there.
Worked there three years with report for America. So my regional
manager, Vincent from report for America, he called me and he brought
up that there was an opportunity I ever seen County. I and it all
happened pretty quick. I think it happened that Friday. And then I
got hired that that Monday. So I'm happened. I haven't pretty
quickly. So, Hey, to be honest, did you know what Racine was?
No. No.
Because when I first moved here from Atlanta, I had no, they said,
oh, you're going to be near Racine. Yeah, where's that? You know,
what's funny is is that so I grew up about maybe half our 40
minutes from where Grant was. And my ex has been said, Hey, I want
to move to Wisconsin. I was like, dude, what's in Wisconsin
besides more cows? We have all of the cows here. We don't need
more cows. And he's like, no, no, it's a really nice area. I
think you should take a look at it. And I was like, all right,
fine. And I fell in love with Racine. Look at you. Very moushy.
35 years later. Okay, so you got the the job at Racine County
Eye. Did you know exactly what it was? Because it's not a newspaper
like the old print in newspaper. It is the newest form of news
gathering because newspapers are still valuable, but they're
not the future. This is the future online news. So did you
know what you're getting into? Yeah. It seemed it's pretty
similar to what Knox Page as well as one that when I worked
there for three years, all digital. No, no, no, no, no, pay
wall, things like that. So it was a pretty smooth transition
from from my previous job to this job that I kind of knew what
I was getting into. So why journalism? I asked him that.
Yeah, I mean, I know why I took radio because they didn't want
to work for living in deal with the public. So I know why I took
this job. Why do you take journalism? Part of it is not having
the same having the same routine every single day, there's
like something new every single day, you're talking to
different people writing a new story. I did like writing, but
I didn't like want to be like another like an author, right,
great books or anything like that. So I always like asking
questions to and kind of letting people know what's going on in
their community to and kind of underthing some stuff. Like that
that gets me excited to doing that. So I'll say that it's the
that a hodgepodge of things. Do you like digging up the
dirt? I mean that that one story we say, I got them. They were
lying to me all along. And you get to print the paper like
water gauge. And I'm saying, did I use a reference that was
maybe a lot of water? I mean, do you want to get that scoop?
Yeah, do they still use that word school? Okay, yeah, I think
journalists, you're lucky to have a few of those in your
career, those those big stories. And um, but yeah, it's like
by part of the excitement, like having like a going from
like a meeting and having to have a big story or getting like
a your your records requests fulfilled and scouring through
that and trying to find something from that. That's a it's
pretty exciting. You're working on education, education, but
there's a story you're working on right now. There's a couple
stories I've written. Um, then we have a mostly covering the
scene unified school district and they have a board meeting
next Monday. I don't want to be looking at some pretty um,
significant um, legislation. I guess you'd call it. Oh, if
I'm some solar panels, they're thinking of approving for the
district and um, some other things there. But yeah, I've ran a
couple of stories so far. Well, you know, your boss over here,
Denise was working on one for the Raymond's school district.
That was a big story. That went on for quite a while. It's still
going on. What's the latest about? So actually, Heather
Rossiambi is working on that. We're really monitoring
things and looking for financial responsibility. Are they
going to be okay, right? Because they were facing a
significant shortfall in their budget. And we want to make
sure that they're looking at things critically, but also
making sure kids get what they need. So they they're going to
have some staffing issues. There's been there. This is not
as big school district, but they really needed to understand
their purpose and make sure that they're focused on the
things that the financial solvency of the school district is
something we're continuing to monitor. I only had a deal with a
school, uh, school board once. It was up in brown deer. You
know, you loved it, right? Well, I I challenged them on
something and they didn't like to be challenged. Nobody
likes to be challenged. Like that, but there's a
humanity to it, right? It was a real simple story. It was
one of the school teachers who's a racial slur against a
student, because he was angry. And the the student's
family sued. And they instead of going to court, they
settled for pretty low brown deer's not a big town. It's a
pretty large amount of money. And they settled and I got
up there. And they said, I would like to know why the
teachers, first of all, still employed. And why did you
pay this and not penalize the teacher for it? This was a
large money. And somebody in the crowd said, we want to talk
about the girls, be basketball team schedule this year. And
you're wasting time with this. And I said, this is a lot
of money. I said, it was thousands and thousands of
dollars they said before. And this guy used a racial slur on
the student. Well, I don't know what's going on. And the
school board members, we've addressed that before. He said,
whoa, whoa, whoa, no, you didn't. The settlement was just
last week. You didn't, you couldn't have. This is the
first school board meeting. And I was being shouted down,
we're talking about the girls, be basketball team. And
I couldn't believe it. So I went on the air the next day. And
I told this story, and I got people screaming at me then.
My neighbors were screaming at me. It's a fun job, isn't it?
Man, well, I did talk radio for years. And I, people don't
like when you give an opinion. No, but like, right. So
that, but that's what our purpose is. And one of the things
that I learned very early on in my career is, I don't do
this job to be liked. I do this job because I need the
people to understand what's happening. So that's a
different kind of perspective. And that's why we're committed
at Racine County, I, to doing really strong journalism
that holds people accountable. And I was telling Grant the
other day, we were having this big kind of soul,
searching kind of moment. And I was like, you know, my,
my kind of stick, my focus throughout my career is, is I'm
not your cheerleader, but I'm not your enemy. I want to make
sure that the money's being spent correctly. I want to
make sure that policies are serving the community. Those
are, that's our lane, right? And we think of of solutions
based journalism, we want to make sure that we're questioning
and complicating the narrative because it, we're in for
some bumpy rides, folks, especially when you're looking
through the lens of how the federal federal budget and
the state budget, you know, those things all have a massive
impact on how well we're teaching our kids, right? And so
one of the really big stories that, that Grant just finished
and maybe you might want to talk a little bit about this is
the reading. Yeah. Um, yes, so the Racine
school district, they have a strategic plan from 2027.
It's basically, we want to get letter C up to 75% for our
pre K through third grade, our mass scores up our
education and preparedness scores, I think for eighth graders.
So all that stuff too. And then I just did a story about
the federal lunch program that that I was actually the first
story I wrote where they're receiving school districts
going to be able to give all the kids free breakfast and lunch
for this year, but for the 2627 school year, that's probably
not going to be the case due to the federal funding that
got slashed. Well, federal funding requirements with
Medicaid and SNAP provisions that got more restrictive.
And so part of that federal breakfast and free breakfast and
lunch is part of that. You have to have those
requirements. And so they're likely not going to be able to
serve a pre breakfast and lunch to all kids. So that's
going to be someone we're going to report on and now
we gave a families and school administration. We just had
someone on the air who's supply. I forget her name. I'm sorry.
Terry Tussler. Yes. I know. She's my bestie.
Yeah. And we were talking on the air about
she helped supply with along one of the officers and they were
seeing police department. They supply at the
cop house breakfast during the summer breakfast and lunch
for you know, these kids. They come from poor families.
And during their school year, they get their breakfast and lunch.
But when it's summertime, schools are closed. So they offered
the lunch program. Right. And that's it. That is a huge
challenge because in one of the things I oftentimes do is
is I kind of watch how people talk about story.
And so when you look at our Facebook comments and you know, a lot of
people are like, well, why are we feeding kids? I have no
because they're hungry. What a question.
I mean, people who have not money and a lot of it is because
there's a massive problem called a food desert.
And so one of the stories that we can work on,
now that I've got Grant working on that front, I can start
working on the other front of why do we have food deserts?
Why do we not have grocery stores downtown? So these are
really big questions because it's a it's a planning and
development problem. It's a market problem. It's a if you're
a company that that has is looking to sell to people in a
community that doesn't have a strong financial stability.
That's a problem. And so when you have kids that are going hungry,
you have a lot of mischievous kind of things happening right now.
So or they'll try to take the food exactly without paying for it.
Exactly. And that leads to another road. You don't want to go down.
But I was shocked when she's I never thought about that because
people who's refrigerators and coverage or stock, you know,
think about people being hungry. The hungry in the middle of the
night. Let's make a sandwich. Why do people can't do that?
Well, and not only that, but one of the things that I really also
hitting on is the the stability of the other structures,
these systems that we have like Halo and Hospitality Center,
Hospitality Center just laid off 15 of their 21 paid people.
And so that's that's a challenge. And there are other things that are
funded from the federal budget that this is going to be something people need to
understand because if you're in a civic organization or a church or something
along that line, you need to be aware that people may or may not be okay.
And your neighbor that is elderly that may have lost their their Medicaid,
they're not okay. And so a lot of these cuts are not slated to start until
December of 2026. However, a lot of the structures, the call centers,
have been gutted by thousands and thousands and thousands of people. So those
call centers are pretty overwhelmed. And there are more deadlines and more
paperwork that people need to do. So we're going to be working on
story to help people navigate some of this, right? So that's where a
solution-based journalism really excels.
In that he was today in the Department of Education in Washington,
slashed big time. Like thousands and thousands and thousands of people.
It's over 100,000 people. Yeah, 104,000 people. How does this affect people?
You know, it's one of those things. A lot of thinking that affects my school district.
It affects everybody. That's a lot of people being laid off. So how does it affect people, do you know?
Well, that's one of the stories that we're definitely going to deep dive on. And that's
well, that's Grant's job now. And so I mean, I'll be hand cool next week.
Work on that story with you. No, no, no, be crew. It's Wisconsin next week. I want to tell you that
right now. So no, the those are the things that that's meeting potato journalism, right?
And from a local level, there are some very big things that we can do
from a community engagement standpoint. And so we're planning on doing some surveys of people of
really doing some community listening sessions where we're putting out surveys and saying,
how is how is are you doing with feeding yourselves and things along that line? Because it's
we're in for some pretty bumpy stuff. And I'm really wanting to make sure people are going to
be able to stick together. And and I don't care how you voted people. I don't care how you voted.
But these are things that are really important to the the viability of of our community. Because
if you don't have people eating well, you don't have people living well and being healthy. And
we haven't even talked about health care, but that's a whole other subject. So I'm amazed that
your grammar is so well when you speak because I hear kids speaking today. And I was somewhere,
I won't say what where I was, but I was having a young girl speaking. And I was counting on my
fingers how many times she used the word like. And I stopped at 40. And she was only speaking for
about three or four minutes. I stopped at 40 because I was going, and I ran out of hands and fingers
and toes. A man, it's just the grammar of some people today. I got that. I ain't got nothing.
Well, that means you do have something because you're using the double negative. What? What's a double
negative? Do they teach grammar in the schools anymore? It's hard. It's a hard place to be in a
lot of different fronts right now. This comedian we ran on the air, not this morning with the other
morning. And he said, when I went to school, I didn't want to learn computers cursive is the way
of the future. Does anybody write cursive anymore? That's a good question. I never did because I
print better than I write cursive. I am. I'm a cursive girl. Are you a cursive guy? No, I don't
really like it. At least he knows what it is. A lot of people don't know what it is. But
what did you concentrate on? Because when you're right, your grammar's got to be perfect
because it's going to be someone who's going to say, what? And they're going to catch you on it.
Do you do proofread all this stuff? What does anybody do? Heather Ossiambi does. She says
proofread everything. Now what about fact checking? We do that too. So what does that get you in
trouble if you don't? It absolutely will. People don't, people like newspapers can print
anything or news services. No, there's slander laws and there's also, well, slander's speaking,
but there's a libel, libel laws. Well, I have libel insurance and I don't ever want to use it.
And I haven't turned out. You have to. Well, I have to. Yes. Yeah. Like malpractice. Making
things up is frowned upon in this establishment. Okay, you get any big stories on the horizon. You
can give us a little hint on. Well, a lot of it is we're working on some pieces around development
and looking through the lens of how is the community going to absorb a lot of these hits from
the federal government because actually they're working on budgets now at the municipal level and
county level. And so those are some of the things that we're going to be talking about. We're going
to be looking at like the infrastructure that's going to be impacted. But we're also going to
be doing some fun things like we're going to be doing some more high school sports. I can't believe
that's starting up in August because football starts early. They got a practice. August,
I think 21st is their first game. So we've got we're going to be expanding that section quite a bit.
I'm really excited about it. But honestly, no one on the face of the earth needs me to be writing
anything about sports. I root for the wrong team. But the buck guys. That's what my husband says.
The buck guys. Is that no? No, no, no, I just not all that's it's straight line. I usually
yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, it was nice meeting you. Welcome to receive. And it came at the
right time because all the festivals, all the street, what do you see party on the paper?
Oh, well, you said first Friday's we hung out together. I took to grant my husband and I took
grant up to for hotel for the top of hotel for Don. And I said, go take a picture and send it to
your mom and tell her it's okay. And by the way, when you were downtown at the hotel for Don,
right across the street is the Racine Art Museum Ram. That was a bank at one time. And that bank
was robbed by John Dillinger. And in the movie with Johnny Depp, public enemy, they mentioned that
on the radio. They said, John Dillinger just robbed the bank and received Wisconsin. And that was
the bank he robbed right there across the street. The building's there. It's different. But
and that was a original WRJ and studios inside that Ram building. Really? Yeah. Right. We're
I mean, Dillinger robbed it. We didn't hear it in the way to do here something in the
the lower level. But that's where we were at that time. Well, welcome to Racine. You couldn't
have worked for a better organization. Racine County, I. Oh, thank you. And you couldn't
work for a better boss who really loves what she's doing. And she really believes in it. And
that's that's good. When you believe in your your business. And I'm lucky to work for people
believe in radio. So good luck. Congratulations. You got a big future ahead of you. And this,
this is the lady to pay attention to. She knows everything about about news. Not everything.
She knows how to dig up a store. She's got to just got a nose for news. That's her super powers
humility friend. Super power. You know, my super powers. I know every movie I've ever seen
and the theater. I've seen it in my entire life. That's my super power. Wow. Are you
negative? I'll be impressive. I'll tell you any you've mentioned any movie. The theater I saw
it in. I could tell you the year I saw it. Where did you see an empires tracks back? Well,
I never saw it. What? Actually, I did. I saw it on VHS Gazette in my living room. What about
Star Wars though? Star Wars. I saw it at the Twin South Synorama Theater in when it came out
in the 76 or something. Our radio station was they didn't know if this movie was going to be
bigger or not. They just thought this is going to be they didn't know. They didn't know. They
didn't know. So they said the local radio station I worked on Long Island. They said we need to
promote this movie. All the announces have to be in their opening night. So we all went out
there opening night. We had tickets printed up with Star Wars. It was the big Synorama Theater.
It was huge. And we packed it with people who won tickets and they loved it. I said,
it's okay. It was the only one that said it was okay. It's the only one I've ever seen.
What about Jaws? Where did you see Jaws? Jaws, I saw it at the Wampong Theater opening
game. We got online at four o'clock in the afternoon. We didn't get in there till nine o'clock
at night. We had to sit through two showing stand through two showing to the Wampong Theater.
I'm going out. Yeah, I tell you. This is super power. You can't you can't fool me.
A nice meeting at Grant Richie and Denise Lockwood from Racine County. I would do a business
with you. I know. I so appreciate it.
