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Oxford, Actually: Privacy or public safety? Gameday parking, etc

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Chase Parham and Raegan Settle examine Oxford’s automated license-plate readers, student opposition to the Flock Safety system and the balance between public safety and personal privacy. They also discuss the city’s unresolved game-day parking problem and remember Dolly Parton’s connection to Oxford. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Oxford, Actually: Privacy or public safety? Gameday parking, etc

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MPW DigitalOxford, Actually: Privacy or public safety? Gameday parking, etc. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.

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Welcome into the second week of Oxford Actual, actually, Chase Parham in P.B. Digital, Rebels 24-7, CBS Sports, Reagan Settle, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Mesippian inside the Student Media Center. There at Ole Miss, really appreciate all the comments and the shares from week one, Nicole Boyd joined us, Mississippi State Senator, discussing a ton of I.H.L. funding formulas, and then toward the end of the show, some other Oxford news, which is what we hope to focus on every single week here with you. So really appreciate another week and another opportunity, a first regular edition of the Daily Mesippian coming out on Thursday, September 3rd, Reagan. You had the Back to School edition, and now this first edition, and looking at a three main news stories, the focus for this week. What do we have going on this week? So first we're talking about flock cameras. The story isn't officially coming out until next week, but we've got a lot of really exciting information that I'd like to share with you all about the developments of those

popping up around the city that was written by Taff Landers. He's my assistant arts and culture editor at the Daily Mesippian. And we've got a recap of the Board of Alderman meeting on Tuesday for the City of Oxford. There was some debate over new pay by play, parking system that's come on the rest of the square that was previously, if you had time left from the person before you, you could take that. That's no longer a thing anymore. And finally, a little tribute to Dully Parton, who passed away last week, talking about when she came to Oxford in 2022. Yeah, we'll close with that a good. I hate to say light because obviously her death, but Dully, who makes some everybody feel good and is such a just a high character person throughout our country and our world. So we're in there a little bit, but we'll start with the flock cameras. And I've known these existed, but you did do a really good job of giving me a little more information.

Hopefully other people out there as well, because everybody's probably seen them around town. And I noticed it, even if you don't realize you have, we use flock and that's kind of like a bandaid. That's actually a brand name that is not the name of the device. They are automated license plate readers. That is the way that they are termed and categorized, but shorthand we're going to use flock, except for when we talk about some competitors and how that might make into the story here this week as well. But they're, they're operated by this company called flock safety. They're an organized effort by Ole Miss students to get Oxford to stop using them. They're all over town or they're in a lot of different places. And let's start there, Reagan, explain to me a little bit of what TAF was able to find as far as where are we right now and what do we know for sure. So Oxford Police Department, OPD, confirmed that there are 16 of them in town that OPD received footage from. So they're 20 total four from private neighborhoods, but Deflock is a public crowdsource system

that they've spotted 20 throughout the Oxford City limits and another 14 in the county. But pretty much how this works is flock safety that we're referring to is a private corporation and they're the ones that actually own the hardware and they own the online platform where OPD can access the online footage from the cameras. And OPD pays flock safety, incorporated $2,500 per year per camera to be able to use the cameras and access that footage. So let's get into where we are, what the actual conflict is and in that point, what are the cameras collecting, like what are what are we giving up by citizens with these cameras being there? So pretty much the cameras are monitoring every vehicle that passes by, they're collecting your license plate information but also collecting any stickers or dents on your car or characteristics that might help identify you. So the more cameras that there are, that network builds this information system where they're

seeing everywhere that you go around town. That information is provided and the officers at the Oxford Police Department can access that information, so can officers at law enforcement agencies all across the US that's able to access that information because they, the more cameras that are in this network, owned by Fox Safety, the more that they can see you travel across state lines. So the big complaint with these is that many people believe that this amounts to warrantless mass surveillance. A lot of students, a lot of locals across the country see this as a forth amendment violation of warrantless search and c's are without a recent to collect your information or monitor your travel. How long, or do we know the answer to this? How long can, does the database hold this material? I mean, is it unlimited, is it a certain period of time? What are we looking at? Okay, according to OPD's contract with Flock, the law enforcement agency has 30 days to view, save and or transmit the footage and data before Flock automatically deletes it.

Before the deletion, OPD has the right to use and save the footage without a warrant as long as it falls under investigative purposes. Brecht Jones, OPD's public information officer has said that the use of Flock cameras in Oxford and Lafega County has allowed them to be a direct technological tool to solve crime investigations in the area, including sexual assault cases, mental health case, burglary. You know, the thing with that, and it's really the conversation overall that we're having is that what are the potential successes and possibilities for solving crimes and protection and safety of people versus the liberties that you're giving up? And this is a very fundamental American thing. We have this conversation in a lot of different ways that the forth amendment could come into play or different things that come into play along these lines. And I'll give OPD credit here is that they did put a very tangible thing on it. This has work for something.

It's not simply a hypothetical. And you know, as I was reading the story that you sent me that would be in the Mississippi and soon, was that we've used this not Flock cameras, but we've used similar type things in some ways in our neighborhood. We had some break ins a couple years ago and they have done different things and everybody started using the neighborhood group me that's probably sometimes a little annoying, but this is a positive where it's, hey, who has cameras in their garage, who has cameras at the front door? Who saw what? Who saw cars coming through? Cops came through and asked for that. And I mean, it is a very obvious thing. If you have something happen, you can track cars through areas. I guess the question is in saying that is, what is the hope or where are we trying to find on how much privacy citizens are willing to trade for a tool that has the potential to have a good quality of helping police solve things? Yeah, I think that's the big debate here is people understand that there are a lot of benefits to them.

I know a lot of people in neighborhoods have really liked them for reducing porch thefts or I was a Nashville over the summer where there's a lot of stolen cars that are stealing packages of people's porches. So by having that large network of Flock cameras on enforcement agencies were able to track where those cars were going even if the person that owned the car was not the driver. So it's useful for things like that. But I think the problem that people have with them comes from that they're being tracked if they're not necessarily under criminal investigation. The average citizen does not seem to like, and this is a bipartisan swath of issues. There's very few things that Democrats and Republicans and Independents all agree on, the Cato Institute, data for progress, multiple things hangs have been tracking net favorability ranking, ratings, foreflock cameras, negative 18% among Democrats, negative 28 among Independents, and negative 13 among Republicans.

Very few things in this country that we can find people so united against, but the average person in America really does not seem to like based on these polls being tracked and having their right to privacy potentially violated when they have not necessarily been committing any criminal violations. You make it, you make it win because yeah, go ahead, fit in the shut right in, then I'll go ahead. I was going to touch on students, Ole Miss students, UM College Democrats have started, they started a petition last week, August 26th, to get Oxford to deflock oxes, the name of their petition. And they've amassed over 500 signatures as of yesterday, Mike Kavanaugh who started that petition, he's a public policy leadership and economics major at Ole Miss and president of UN College Democrats. He said that his mission was for this position to give them leverage to get in the door with the board of alderman, to kind of force the alderman's hand, not to vote to renew

the contract. Next time it comes up with luck. What's going to say is it's interesting when you mention partisan numbers and where that sits because I feel like people who are against it, even if they're across the ald, they kind of come in from different directions. I mean, you have just the overall, hey, I want my privacy versus being washed a certain way or just the government trust that comes by the general and where, and I don't mean this is not anything in the story, it's targeted a really good job, but for the standpoint of, I bet it's age related to, I could see where older people are, what more willing to be good with it for the potential positives versus younger. And I think that's a cross-lines and just, you know, really human nature-wise, we change a little bit as we get older on how we see those things because you have, again, I don't want to paint with too broad of a brush, there's never any certainty here, but in general, there's a lot of people that go, well, I'm pretty boring anyway and it doesn't matter. So come see whatever you want, you know, I don't care. It's not too far away from when people worry about Alexa knowing that you need shampoo

and then it puts it in your Amazon card accidentally. It's all the same general premise in a lot of ways. Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you on the age lines there. I think that older folks, especially homeowner, see it as a lot more of a positive than younger people who don't own property yet and they really don't like people stalking their information. So when we talk about, you mentioned college Democrats, people who are against it, is the problem more in your opinion, the existence of technology or the sufficiency of the laws and oversight that are covering how it's used? Basically, would people be opposed to it if they were satisfied by stricture retention limits, warrant requirements, different things like that with independent audits or is it simply they should not be collecting this information at all? Do we have any sort of standard on where we sit on that? I think people are most concerned of already seeing misuse of footage collected.

There have been at least 50 cases across the country so far of law enforcement officers using this information for personal purposes, like stalking an ex-partner or stalking family and loved ones. Based on the information and footage that they have access to. Now Oxford Police Department, they do have a policy in place where law enforcement officers have to enter a reason before they log into a system to observe footage and track footage that the fought cameras have collected. But I think people are concerned that even with these policies that law enforcement agents could just make up a reason of speeding or looking for someone who was potentially targeting a neighborhood and not actually being the case. So I think people are just concerned about oversight of who's really enforcing that, how do they know for sure that that reason is what it's being used for? I think people are just concerned about who is access to be able to track them going

all over town. And that statistic is noteworthy in a lot of different ways because number one, there's no way that every single case of misuse has been tracked and documented. At the same time, 50 is a very small number compared to the number of cameras around the country and the number of hours that have instituted. However, it gives you enough for anecdotal evidence should you be trying to find different cases where it has been a problem. So that's almost a perfect number in the wheelhouse if I can turn whatever I would like to in from that number being the case, which probably doesn't help when you have a disagree even on what should or should not be going at that point. And I do think it's worth mentioning as we said at the beginning, this is not ultimately just a flock question. This is an ALPR question as we were calling it because if you completely focus on one company, there are some competitors that could be in this mix as well, right? Yes, Axon, Motorola Solutions are the two next biggest competitors to name a few. So I think people are concerned too that with people just calling them flock cameras instead

of automatic license plate readers that eventually another competitor might come in and replace them and the opposition movement, people are afraid might lose traction because it's just a different company and not necessarily united against AI automated license plate readers in general. So we'll close this part of the show with something very obvious, which is what's next. You mentioned Mike Kavanaugh wanting to expand his petition. The Oxford Police says in their mind justified the reasons for it and why it makes tons of sense. I know you mentioned that Kavanaugh would like to get in front of the Alderman, which we'll discuss regarding something else here in a second. But what's the actual decision point? I mean, what is it that we're moving into or is it just simply where we are? And then there's the possibility that this is a stagnant situation for a while. I think really this will be a stagnant situation for a while until it's time to renew the contract with flock.

I know the Daily Mississippi and in the next couple of weeks is going to continue to gauge opinion across campus and in the local community of why exactly do people support flock cameras and why exactly are they against them on a personal level, not just from what they've discovered on the internet from their research. So I want to more accurately gauge public opinion across Oxford to really better understand the reality of how people feel about them ahead of the flock contract coming back again in the future. We moved from one story to the next. I think this is the kind of story that we're trying to highlight with this show. If TapTist didn't write the student's starter petition, it'd be really easy to make one still placennets one thing about this. Instead, you're looking at contracts, you're figuring out what Oxford is paying, you're talking to police, you're getting things from from Breck and you're getting into the actual data of the situation. So I think that's important to note here as we as a move into an alternate meeting that was on Tuesday night, I believe this this week, five o'clock, Chance Marlow, your reporter

on this, your city news editor. And before we get into that, what was it about chance that you like for a position that you brought back when I was a supporter of the DM a long, long, long time ago, we had a city news editor, but it went away for a little while and that's one of the early achievements of your tenure to be able to do that. So what was it about that position and also Chance taking over that role? Well, as we talked last week, the DM's motto is Serving Oxford and Ole Miss since 1911. So I wanted to tap into more of Serving Oxford. Since we do live in a bit of a news desert and people are hungry for the content that Chase and I are providing and general local news information. Now Chase, in my time working with the Daily Mississippi Inn, is one of the most adamant Serving reporters that I've ever met. Chance is the kind of person that's not afraid to bother people, continue calling and asking questions, even when other people might feel like they're being annoying. He's very thorough in his reporting and it's very eagre to learn things about the community

because not just that he's a very curious person, but that he knows so many other people are too and wants to provide that information for them. And he really enjoys going to public meetings. So we sent him to the Board of Alderman meeting on Tuesday to kind of track a little bit more about parking developments on the square. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact that you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with progressive save over $900 on average. They make it super simple. Popovertoprogressive.com, answer some questions and you'll get a quick quote with coverage options tailored to your choices. Plus you'll see which discounts you may qualify for, like the online quote discount or savings for paying in full. In fact, 99% of progressive auto customers earn at least one discount. See if you could save when you switch to progressive. You'll feel good about making a savvy choice. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little extra cash back.

Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates. No average 12 month savings of $946 by new customer surveyed who saved with progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary. And it's really one of the more Oxford conversations you can have. It is people taking advantage or not. I'm again, it depends where you're sitting like most other things, but definitely finding the cheapest way to park as close to campus as possible without having the parking permits for a game day, game day parking the main topic or the longest talked about topic from the meeting there on Tuesday. What the story is about, you can find that again at dmlline.com by chance for the associated. We'll put the link in the story form here as we put it up in a podcast standpoint. But the cliffs of it and then I'll open it up to you a little bit is that there's the basic problem. Somebody can park directly in front of a square business for relatively little money, leave the car there, walk to the grove for maybe the entire football day.

Merchants hate that because some of the most valuable retail parking in Oxford becomes really cheap stadium parking. It affects people parking downtown to shop. It affects businesses because shoppers can't get downtown and what it's supposed to be such a high traffic day and weekend for Oxford and the university and everything from a financial standpoint. This will start there and I'll get into some of the details in a minute because it's a great study for us as far as how to report these things and how to talk about it into really accent the riders reporting because nothing happened and yet a lot happened at the same time. If you look at it just in general, they had a proposal come out currently it's $1.25 per hour to park on the square. It's $5 an hour for the first three hours, $15 an hour afterward was a proposal here that would be $60 for six hours. But the problem and I think Rod Maintainee will talk about it the mayor that you're trying

to deter something where people probably are still more willing to pay that than other things. There is the situation that they moved in and I'm probably doing a bad job here. I should have just shut up and let you talk. They put the kiosk in recently. That's changed the game because now they admitted they can't even program or they would have to reprogram them to take the added amount over three hours that when you're looking at how to really make it punitive to people who leave their car for a period of time that poses an issue because the kiosk that as opposed to the parking meter simply do not allow that. There's also the argument of it's three hours the correct sample. There was some conversation about moving it to four because look if you go to dinner and you're there for a while and you go stroll around the square that easily can move you past that three hour mark. So I'll bring it to you here is who brought the proposal forward and then there's been a perception online the city was looking for another way to make money and Tanya Hill

specifically said that that's not what happened. What's the problem originally stemming from in your mind and what you've seen from chances reporting? I think this is really stemming from local business owners on the square of just as you said in what's supposed to be one of their most high traffic days. It makes it really difficult for regular patrons to just come to the square if the parking spots are taken up by people all day who instead of wanting to pay 60, 80 bucks to park in a neighborhood around the square they're paying the dollar 25 an hour to park on the square currently pretty cheap is parking in town. But there was originally a three hour parking limit but they set out the board of all the meeting that that really has not been enforced. So they decided to do away with that in general. And as you said they'd have to reprogram the passport parking app to actually be able to withdraw that money and enforce it. I'm not really sure what the budget would be if they were to try and pay to reprogram

the app in order to do that. But I can imagine it's a heftier amount than you would think it would be. Have you used the kiosk downtown yet? I admit that I am one of the people that would purposely go around and search for a spot where someone had left an extra two hours so I don't have to necessarily pay anything. That's college kid lifestyle. You'll also go to the garage pretty happily if you're on that side of the square. I go to the garage pretty happily unless it's a weekend. If it's a Thursday night, Thursday, Friday or Saturday night, I've gotten stuck at that top of the parking garage waiting to turn around at the top for an hour more times than I'm willing to admit. Anybody who's been under a rock the last couple of weeks and has not been to Oxford maybe you're coming for the football game next weekend. What is the difference you're going to see? The parking meters downtown, they're gone. They have these kiosk instead.

The same kiosk that we're still located in a couple areas around town already. They were located behind City Hall already. They were located over by the parking garage that we're speaking of and some of the paid parking outside of the garage. Now they're everywhere and you can use the app. You still can pay right there with card. They say it takes coins. I have never actually tried that. I hear that is part of the kiosk that is true. What you just mentioned is absolutely the number one, I guess negative if you are somebody coming in the square is you no longer can do the pay it forward thing where you find the meter and you're really happy for a minute because it's three hours and 15 minutes left on it. It's 45 minutes on it. Just a little bit of a game of roulette. That part's gone because now you are just putting in the time that you anticipate that you are going to be there and you have no ability to sort of siphon off and use what was already there. We're trying to make people park somewhere else that we're going to the game that they're

using it for game day functions in that way because I don't remember the business but I want to say the last couple of years there was even somebody who would go and park and then put an advertising sign on their car and leave it parked all day. They were essentially getting free advertising on the square in a parking place to then pay as you said a very cheap amount, especially if they weren't even enforcing the over three hour period. I think that you had a chance there. I went back and watched a good bit and I think they wanted to do something. I think that they absolutely wanted to make a new ruling and a new thing to abide by for the public. It's just a complicated issue. There's no easy way to do it. There's no guarantee that you're fixing the problem when you saw the proposal, as I said, the $5 an hour for the first three hours and then $15 an hour afterward and then there's still no vote.

No vote passed for that. It shows you just how you're caught of an impasse and sounds like, at least in my opinion, we'll see if we move forward. The same questions are still going to be raised in two weeks at the next regular meeting when it happens and this is probably something that's going to go into the season without any further answer than we currently have. Yeah, it's kind of a counterintuitive proposed solution of that you could raise prices and make it more punitive to deter people from parking there all day. But then if you're trying to move those people away so that there's more parking spots for patrons of businesses downtown, I don't know if there's many people that are willing to pay that amount of money to go into a boutique on the square on game day. And if there are more parking spots available. You know what, this is an opinion and I know this is more of a new show. But the thing with the parking in general is we have so many problems on game days or mid-the-fraud before game days and the weekends and we have sort of two different oxford because

we're using things to solve problems that aren't problems 350 days a year. You know, is that the people aren't converging on the town in the same way and how you go about that and how you problems to solve through that is some of the more interesting parts of what we do in trying to report news and also when you're watching city government and see how they they react to some of those things. There was information from the meeting, a chance had this, the parking meter is generated about 1.1 million in FY 2026 for the year. And about 900,000 of that going toward the annual debt payment on the current parking garage that is over opposite city all the way across by Jackson Avenue. Sorry, I was kind of losing my turn to thought there for a four a quick second. So 900,000 of the 1.1 million ongoing toward that not leaving a lot considering the dedicated parking maintenance that has been described by chance and other people throughout the story. I'm going to put you on the spot though. If I'm curious what you would do. If I make you if I make you mayor for five minutes, what do you do?

How do you handle this? What was what would your opinion be? I'll start by praising Robin Tanahill. I will what she said and their problems that can be managed and their problems that can be solved. And this is not one of those problems that can just be solved. So I'm curious to see what the city will do is taking approaches in the future. If it were me. I didn't prepare for this before the show. Trying to put my public policy degree to good use here. Because are you over punishing the regular consumer when you make really punitive prices in general? Like what? Because that's the other part of this that I think gave the alderman such polls on Tuesday night, which is what segment of our populace downtown that's using the square is currently disobeying this to the point that we are making it punitive on everyone else. And that's hard to define.

If it were me, I would continue to have different game day policies versus policies on the rest of the 350 days of the year. Oxford's towing companies get quite a few think it quite the amount of revenue. If I were mayor for five minutes, I would probably call in the towing companies that only for game days to truly enforce people that are purging for more than three hours at a time to open that back up for businesses. Because that's the main problem is people that leave their cars parked there all day. So we don't want to publish the regular patron that's just going to local businesses, but instead we are truly trying to open up those spots for those people that actually have access to those businesses and allow them to make more revenue on game days that they're trying to do and not just using it for free parking when those people could go park somewhere and take the shuttle. Yeah, and it's a great example when you mentioned the the manage versus solve because you have

mundane implementation issues a lot of times can simply kill the policies because we said a few minutes ago when you have a machine or a kiosk that doesn't allow for certain settings that could be creative or fix it, you have to go to these next level issues and try to decide. I think the biggest thing and I won't leave you out on an island. I was thinking about it from what I would do. And I think it's one of those areas where probably need to be as creative as possible and maybe creative beyond just simply letting the kiosks fix it. I mean, I don't know what this looks like. Thankfully not paid to figure out what this looks like, but reservations football specific zones. You know, some places have merchant validation. I mean, we're not a place in Oxford that does validation, but maybe on certain days that makes sense. I like some of those options more than just simply hard time limits where you go, okay, no, you can only leave your car here and we're going to set it because I do believe unless you're making it at least four hours probably you are you are negatively impacting

tourists that are not trying to take advantage of it for strictly a go to the stadium and enjoy the game situation, but just simply people who are there to enjoy the square, which is legal and what is wanted downtown as you as you do that. So it's a it's it's not a fun story, but it is a very Oxford story as we look at what they do or do not move forward. And again, they spend a lot of a lot of words and a lot of time on that Tuesday night during the board of auto meeting for this week. Again, that's Chance Marlow. You can find that the dm online dot com for that. And you know, he did a good job where he didn't just say the board voted no explain why the merchants want to change the sticky situation that the aldermen are in that city officials are in trying to figure out where this is and where the money goes at the at the same time. The third story this week, Dolly Parton and Oxford, it feels like after her her death in multiple ways, some people doing it for self gratuitous purposes and other simply

telling stories that had not been heard before, Lauren Best giving a an example of Dolly's visit to Oxford within the last few years and the way that she made people feel like she did across the world. You know, one of the things that I said on one of our main shows right after her death is I don't know if there's another person on earth who had such appeal across the generations where you know, my daughter cried when she died and you're talking about a 10 year old because she was listening to Joeline on this way to school like three days before that all the way up to people that are in their their 70s and 80s and their different connections. You know, so we spent half an hour on surveillance cameras and parking ordinances and all that stuff. Let's go somewhere completely different for this with Lauren's story and a genuine connection between Oxford and Ole Miss. What was it for 2022 between that? Well, Dolly was awarded the Ole Miss Wellman's Council on Philanthropy Legacy Award in 2020,

but obviously during COVID, while she was busy funding vaccines herself and doing all kinds of philanthropic work, she was enabled to come to Oxford and accept that award. So she did come in 2022 to the Ford Center to accept the Women's Council Legacy Award. Now the former chair of the Women's Council was a woman named Mary Haskell and her husband, Sam Haskell was actually Dolly's agent. But Sam and Dolly, Sam Haskell and Dolly won their first Emmy Award together for a film called Christmas on the Square and the set was partially inspired by the Square in Oxford. So, fun tidbit, sweet, sweet sentiment that Dolly enjoyed Oxford so much. She called it home for her and that she loved the culture, the literature forward music for children culture of Oxford that she cherishes so much about Southern States. Do you know where Sam Haskell is from, Reagan?

I have no clue. He's from Aemory, my hometown. There you go, connection, right there for you. Yep, that is true. Well, so you've never heard of Starr's Over Mississippi which was a benefit concert that used to happen in Aemory every couple of years or so. Sam Haskell put it on and Dolly came to town one of those years. Had a lot of his clients when he was a high-powered agent, Sam later ran Miss America. But yeah, a lot of the Starr's came to such a small town back in the day. So yeah, little tidbit for you. I want to learn everybody else tidbits here. But I gave my perspective of it. What is sort of your affiliation with Dolly or why you think she's become such a, or became such a prominent person across the generations? I think regardless of generations, people are so refreshed to see celebrities that don't just use their wealth for personal purposes and personal gain, but give back everything

that they have. Dolly notably was not able to have children, so she considered everybody's children, her children. So she started the imagination library in order to honor her father who was not able to read. And she sends one book a month to children from birth through five years old when they go to kindergarten. Did you ever do imagination library? So I don't know if it was a thing when I was that age. And if so, I don't remember it, but my daughter did. I want to say my brother did as well. And then I've got a little more involved now, actually, this week. I was named the new board member for the Littles County Literacy Council. So we're doing a good bit of imagination library right now. And hey, it's been one of the really cool parts. I will say this is just the uptick in kids joining now because you kind of think that's such a known program across the country. But there's a lot of people who didn't know until her passing. And we're seeing across every chapter, it blow up and increase and really pick up the number of people who are getting these books and being involved with the imagination library

in that way. Speaking of the way you're talking, I'm assuming you are definitely a imagination library client back in the day receiver. I'm actually not entirely sure. I'll have to ask my mom. I dig her up. It was a college town and we lived two blocks from the library. So it was our Friday night activity every week. As however many chapter books that we were able to finish was the number of movies that we would rent from the library that week. Back when you got DVDs still and you would flip through the plastic sleeves of the movie covers. So that was one of my favorite memories. I love going to the library and plus to have that love of reading, not necessarily that it was instilled by Dolly, but respect or even more for being able to spread that passion in kids across the US. So you remember renting movies and stuff? You can't remember that a little bit. I do. Do you really? I do. Yeah, there was a wooden, yeah, we still had a VCR when I was born. Well, of course when you were born, yeah, I mean, I'm not that much older than you, but

yeah, but I didn't remember like, I didn't know if you was a kid thought, oh, I remember going to blockbuster or movie gallery or wherever and we're going to get to the- Yeah, we had a family video. It was a family video store. I grew up in a big movie family. So that was our big Friday nights. There was this big wooden box at the library and they would put these movie covers in plastic sleeves and I- it's an nostalgic sound for me to flip through and hear the plastic banging against the little wood slot. But yeah, I was a big- I sold the library out of bed knobs and broomsticks for probably a period of two years where we just renewed it every single Friday. That was my favorite movie growing up. Yeah, we would do a thing where when I was really young, you had to sign the movie out so you would rent it and then you would see who else had signed it out and some of my favorite movies I'm the only name on the sheet because I just kept re-getting them over and over and over again. So it was just my name scribbled and really bad handwriting all the way down the screen.

But you know, as we put those two events together, I mean, that was the big thing even when she was an Oxford dolly had story time with dolly and it was an event associated with that and all school children invited for free, obviously, and having them as many in there as possible. And, you know, the quote she gave at the time speaking of not coming in 2020 was quote, come, Hillary, high water, I'm getting to Oxford, I'm not going to go somewhere that have to wear a mask. I'm going to come when I can hug people and that's a lasting thought and memory that a lot of people will have with her. So a good way to- to close that, Mary Haskell you spoke of had the quote when grief slows you down and just stops you in your tracks gives you to give to time and reflection. A lot of different topics this week, a lot of different things going on. I know you've already started to get your budget together for next week as well. Did you kind of need the first week for an introductory period now get your footing a little bit getting into week two as we're back for the fall? Yeah, now we're finally getting into the swing of things with regular publishing schedule.

We're about to celebrate Labor Day weekend so hopefully things don't crumble apart for next week. But we're going to do some more reporting on plot cameras in the next week to get a better idea across Oxford and among the student body at Ole Miss. What exactly the sentiments are toward plot cameras? So be looking forward to that in the next few weeks. Also next week we will speak with Oxford Mayor Robin Tannie Hill by the way. She's agreed to join us on the show so we'll have that for you. And all the light is going on in Oxford LeVat County and the University win that applies as well. So for Reagan this week, I'm Chase and we will talk to you again with Robin coming up in just seven days. Hope if you have a great weekend, first game weekend, even though away for Ole Miss, and we'll talk to you again soon, the DMOnline.com in the meantime. Take care.

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