Born in Gould, Arkansas, Janis Kearney was one of eighteen children of parents Ethel V. Kearney and James Kearney. After graduating from Gould High School in 1971, Kearney attended the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, earning a B.A. in journalism in 1976. She continued on with her education while working, earning thirty hours towards a M.P.A. from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
After earning her B.A. degree, Kearney was hired by the State of Arkansas in 1978, where she spent three years as a program manager for the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act program, and another six years as the director of information for the national headquarters of the Migrant Student Records Transfer System. Leaving government work, Kearney purchased the Arkansas State Press newspaper from Daisey Bates in 1987. She published the weekly paper for five years before joining the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign in 1992, where she served as director of minority media outreach. The following year, Kearney joined President Bill Clinton’s transition team. She began with the White House Media Affairs Office before being appointed as the director of public affairs and communications for the U.S. Small Business Administration, where she worked until 1995. That year, Kearney became the first presidential diarist in U.S. history, chronicling President Clinton’s day-to-day life. She remained in this capacity until President Clinton left office. Kearney came under scrutiny during the Starr Committee proceedings when her diary and testimony were subpoenaed. No wrongdoing was found.
After President Clinton left office, Kearney was named a fellow at Harvard University’s W.E.B. DuBois Institute in 2001, where she began work on a book about President Clinton entitled Conversations: William Jefferson Clinton-From Hope to Harlem. Kearney and her husband, former White House director of presidential personnel Bob Nash, are no strangers to the issues of race that still plague America. They were racially profiled by police following a car-jacking of a vehicle similar to theirs while still employed at the White House. Kearney served as the Chancellor’s Lecturer at the City Colleges of Chicago and continued her DuBois Institute writing project, as well as her work on Cotton Field of Dreams: A Memoir until moving with her husband and son to Arkansas.
Up In Your Business is a Radio Show by FlagandBanner.com
EPISODE 88
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:08.8] TB: Welcome to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. Stay tuned so you can hear how to get a copy of this program and other helpful documents.
Now, it's time for Kerry McCoy to get all up in your business.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:26.5] KM: Thank you, Tim. Like Tim said, I'm Kerry McCoy and it's time for me to get up in your business. This show Up In your Business with Kerry McCoy began with entrepreneurs in mind, a platform for me a small business owner and a guest to pay forward our experiential knowledge in a conversational way.
As with all new endeavors, it's had some unexpected outcomes like this show has a wide appeal to everyone, not just business owners, because we're all inspired by everyday people's American-made stories. My guest miss Janis Kearney is no exception. We're going to find out today how this young girl from Gould, Arkansas became the first presidential diarist in American history, to none other than Arkansas's favorite son, President Bill Clinton.
Miss Kearney is one of 18 children born in Gould, Arkansas to Ethel and James Kearney. After graduating from Gould High, she attended the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and a master's degree in public administration. Once out of school, Janis pursued her passion for writing by purchasing a newspaper called the Arkansas State Press from the Little Rock's famous African-American and civil rights activist, Daisy Bates.
She published and managed the paper for 5 years until being offered a job as the director of minority media outreach for the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign. This career move began her long relationship with President Bill Clinton. After winning the election, she became part of Clinton's transition team, which led to working in the White House media affairs office, which led to being appointed as the director of public affairs and communications for the US Small Business Administration.
Somehow and we will find out how in the middle of the Clinton-Gore era, Kearney became the first presidential diarist in US history, chronicling President Clinton's day-to-day life until he left office. Interestingly, her diary was subpoenaed by Kenneth Starr during the Whitewater investigations and revealed no wrongdoing.
With all this insider information, it would be impossible not to author a book, which she did entitled Conversations: William Jefferson Clinton; from Hope to Harlem. In the last decade Kearney and her husband Bob Nash, a former White House director of presidential personnel and son have moved back to Arkansas, where she has started the WOW Publishing Company and the nonprofit Celebrate Maya Angelou project, which we are going to find out more about today.
It is a pleasure to welcome to the table the entrepreneur, author, historian and first presidential diarist, Mrs. Janis Kearney.
[0:03:14.5] JK: Thank you. Wow.
[0:03:16.2] KM: Yeah, you sound really good.
[0:03:17.5] JK: It sounds great. Thank you. It’s good to be here.
[0:03:21.7] KM: You’re welcome. Thank you for joining me. You grew up in Gould, Arkansas. I don't even know where that is. Does anybody know where that is?
[0:03:28.0] JK: Southeast Arkansas. It's about 70 miles south of here.
[0:03:32.5] KM: Delta?
[0:03:33.0] JK: Delta. Yeah, yeah. It's a about 30 miles south of Pine Bluff. Most people know where Pine Bluff is.
[0:03:39.7] KM: Oh, yeah. You were one of 18, I read. Are all of your siblings successful like you?
[0:03:48.9] JK: They're probably more successful. We all decided what we wanted to do really early and the blessing is that most of us are doing what we dreamed about doing. Most of my brothers ended up lawyers, or judges, or something in the law. They work in the law. A lot of that I think had to do with growing up down during the pre-civil rights era and experiencing some things that they really wanted to see, write it. They felt going into the law would be a way to do that. I am the only certified writer in the family, but I was also the strangest probably, an introvert and writing was my way of expressing myself growing up.
[0:04:35.5] KM: What your mom and dad do?
[0:04:37.2] JK: Farmers. They were sharecroppers. For your listeners who don't know what sharecroppers are, usually very poor; that is a prerequisite, but also they leased land from large farm owners and they worked the land. Basically, we lived off our gardens and from the little that they would make from the land that they leased.
[0:05:00.5] KM: You grew up doing hard work.
[0:05:02.0] JK: Very hard work.
[0:05:03.8] KM: Did your mom and dad, can they read? Are they educated?
[0:05:06.6] JK: My parents were very – they didn't go to college, they didn't go to high school. My mother went to eighth grade. My dad went to school when he could. My dad is one of those people who lived an amazing life. He left home when he was 11. Somehow, they were very intelligent, very good readers, they loved reading and they instilled education into us. Very, very early, as a matter of fact before early education became real, my father taught us all to read and write and count before we went to school, the public school, every one of us.
[0:05:43.1] KM: I bet you didn't have a TV in your house.
[0:05:45.1] JK: We did. We did. We did have a little 12-inch black-and-white TV in our house.
[0:05:50.2] KM: Were your evenings filled with you all sitting around reading, or sitting around watching –
[0:05:53.2] JK: Reading, doing homework mostly and a lot of chores. We could watch TV on the weekends usually.
[0:06:03.0] KM: Yeah. You just didn't have time to sit around doing nothing.
[0:06:04.8] JK: No. No, no, no.
[0:06:06.7] KM: You got your first degree in journalism and then you re enrolled for a master's in public administration. Why?
[0:06:13.6] JK: Well, because I knew that journalism was not going to be something that paid a lot of money. It's something that I loved. I did work in journalism, but part-time. I ended up working for the State of Arkansas and I used my journalism degree to become a public information director, public affairs director for the State of Arkansas and I did that for about nine years. Then in 1987 is when I left state government and went to work for Daisy Bates.
[0:06:46.2] KM: Did you think when you were in – you felt journalism was not going to pay very much money, so you went into public administration and were you thinking I'll go into government? Did you have that mind?
[0:06:58.2] JK: No. I didn't really think about going into government, but that's the jobs that were available at the time. That was in the late 70s.
[0:07:05.0] KM: Then, was that in Fayetteville?
[0:07:07.1] JK: No. I came back to Little Rock. I went to school in Fayetteville, but I came back to Little Rock.
[0:07:11.8] KM: Took the government job. Then you decided, I'm going to buy a newspaper. That's a pretty big decision.
[0:07:19.8] JK: It really didn't work like that. What happened was that a friend of mine told me that Daisy Bates needed a managing editor. I felt like it was something in the stars, or God, or someone telling me this is what you're supposed to be doing. You're not supposed to be working for government all your life, because my love has always been writing. I went and interviewed with Daisy Bates and I told her. I had met her when I was 16-years-old and I interviewed for a job as a clerk, just a summer clerk. I didn't get the job, because I couldn't type. Not good enough for her anyway.
When I went to see her I told her, “You did not give me that job when I was 16. I really think you should do it now.” She did. She gave me the job as her managing editor. Three months later she came in and said, “I'm retiring. I’m going home.” She was sick. She had had lots of strokes by then and she really couldn't talk very well. She was going home. She retired and she was going to sell the newspaper to somebody. She had been interviewing people and I didn't even know what was going on.
I was just devastated, because I knew I was supposed to be there. I went home and talked to my husband and came back and said, “Mrs. Bates. Would you sell this newspaper to my husband and me? We can pay you half of what you're asking and then we pay the rest month-to-month.” She allowed me to do that, so I purchased the newspaper from her, on time as they say.
[0:08:56.5] KM: On time. What's that mean?
[0:08:57.8] JK: That's you pay it off from month-to-month.
[0:09:01.1] KM: Oh, on time. I never heard that term before. You worked for her for three months, you're now owning a newspaper. Is it harder than you ever thought it would be?
[0:09:12.0] JK: It was harder than chopping cotton and picking cotton. I grew up doing that and that was very, very hard, because it was all on me and I don't know how much about newspapers, but it's a transient role for people who work for newspapers. They don't usually stay there very long, so you're constantly bringing people in, which means you're going to end up doing a lot of the work yourself.
I had to learn so much that I didn't know about newspaper work. It was very, very hard. My son was then early teens 12, 13, whatever. My husband and I broke up, so I'm a single mother with a young son and –
[0:09:55.6] KM: A small business owner.
[0:09:56.5] JK: A small business owner.
[0:09:57.4] KM: Of a very competitive business.
[0:09:59.0] JK: Yeah. A very hard, hard business for – especially for the African-American community.
[0:10:04.4] KM: How'd you do it?
[0:10:05.7] JK: I just worked constantly. Constantly worked all night, many nights. I lived it.
[0:10:13.0] KM: What was your strength?
[0:10:14.9] JK: My strength was growing up with family, our parents that taught us that you never say never, that whatever you commit to you do it. You find a way to do it. That hard work basically is character building. I knew that I was doing the right thing.
[0:10:32.9] KM: What was your weakness? What do you feel like you could have done better, that you felt really out of your comfort zone?
[0:10:40.3] JK: Just not being able to bring in people that would stay. I know that is one of the things about small newspapers. You just can't do that. That bringing in people and then they stay for a little bit and then they leave. I think just not being able to have the time, or the resources to bring in really good people that –
[0:10:59.0] KM: It wasn't the writing, it wasn't the publishing. It was the managing of people. That's a bitch, I’ll just tell you around now. It was the managing of people and the constant – you never leave work. You never leave work. It's always there.
[0:11:11.2] JK: Yeah.
[0:11:12.1] KM: You're under a deadline with the newspaper.
[0:11:13.4] JK: Oh, wow. Yes.
[0:11:15.6] KM: Did Daisy Bates not help you out much?
[0:11:17.3] JK: Yes, she did.
[0:11:18.3] KM: How long did she stay after she sold it to you?
[0:11:19.4] JK: She stayed on. She stayed on for about a year. She helped me out a lot.
[0:11:24.2] KM: She was sickly.
[0:11:25.3] JK: She was sickly. There was just so much she could do. Just being there and telling me some things that I wouldn't have known if she hadn't been there, believing in me, all of that was very, very helpful. I wouldn't have stayed if she didn't stay with me, for at least that year.
[0:11:41.1] KM: Was there a time you thought, “I bit off more than I can chew”?
[0:11:43.4] JK: Oh, yeah. I'd wake up and think that.
[0:11:46.3] KM: At 3:00 in the morning.
[0:11:47.2] JK: Yeah, but I knew I had to go back.
[0:11:50.7] KM: It’s that 3:00 morning wake-up call. What am I doing?
[0:11:54.1] JK: Yes. I had those.
[0:11:56.5] KM: This is a great place to take a break. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with miss Janis Kearney, author, historian and entrepreneur and the first presidential diarist in US history. We'll dig into her life at the White House during the Clinton years and we'll find out what she's up to now. She's still moving and shaking.
[BREAK]
[0:12:15.9] TB: You're listening to Up In your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. If you miss any part of the show or want to learn more about Up In your Business, go to flagandbanner.com and click on Radio Show, or subscribe to your favorite podcast application. We’re everywhere. We'll be right back.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:12:35.4] KM: You're listening to Up In your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. I'm speaking today with miss Janis Kearney, author, entrepreneur, historian and first presidential diarist in US history to none other than Arkansas's favorite son, William Jefferson Clinton. For those that are just tuning in, Janis has graduated from college, was a sharecropper as a child, grew up in family of sharecroppers in Gould, Arkansas, has graduated from college, moved to Little Rock, ended up buying the Arkansas State Press Newspaper from a famous woman and activist, Daisy Bates.
Now Daisy Bates has retired and you're buying the newspaper from her. You get a job offer to become the director of minority media outreach for the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign and you've got to decide if you're going to stay with the newspaper. You've been doing it for five years, so you can say to yourself, “I've done it.” I think you said Daisy's moved. She moved to Chicago. Where’d she move?
[0:13:40.7] JK: No, she stayed. She stayed in Little Rock, but she went home. She did not continue. She moved earlier in her life.
[0:13:49.6] KM: What's the thing that you love the most about Daisy Bates? I'm fascinated by that woman. I never did – I think I met her once maybe.
[0:13:54.7] JK: Yeah. I think her truth and her willingness to speak truth to power. I love that about her, because that reminded me of my own parents. I mean, you just say what needs to be said and you hope that someone's listening. That carriage of hers, I think that's what I love most.
[0:14:16.0] KM: What was that newspaper? What was the name of the newspaper?
[0:14:18.2] JK: Arkansas State Press.
[0:14:19.3] KM: Yeah. What was its theme? Was it local news? Was it African-American news?
[0:14:24.2] JK: It was local news. Of course, when she and her husband owned it in the 40s and 50s, it was specifically African-American news and what was going on not only in Arkansas, but around the country. Because they –
[0:14:39.5] KM: How cool.
[0:14:40.5] JK: Yeah. They were one of the most noted newspapers in the south.
[0:14:45.6] KM: So cool. We didn’t have the internet. How did they even get that information?
[0:14:49.1] JK: I don't know. Word-of-mouth. I mean, there was a network.
[0:14:52.3] KM: A network.
[0:14:53.4] JK: Of newspaper. Yeah.
[0:14:55.5] KM: You've decided to take this job and you're going to – is Daisy still alive when you decide –
[0:14:59.4] JK: Oh, yeah. Daisy is –
[0:15:00.3] KM: Did you sell it, or did you close it?
[0:15:02.1] JK: No. In 1993 when I left Little Rock and went to Washington DC, my sister took over. She ran the newspaper a few years after I had left. I didn't leave the newspaper completely when I took on the role as minority media coordinator.
[0:15:23.6] KM: For the campaign.
[0:15:24.6] JK: Right. It was a full-time job, but I still did the newspaper. I would leave that job and go to the newspaper and work.
[0:15:32.8] KM: Hard worker.
[0:15:33.3] JK: Yeah. It wasn't until December I think that I decided that I was going to Washington DC. People don't believe me when I tell them I was not that excited about going to Washington DC, because I was leaving everything I knew and what was important to me.
[0:15:54.4] KM: You're an introvert.
[0:15:55.2] JK: Yes. Definitely. I heard all the stuff about Washington DC and how you have to be a certain way. You had to live up to certain things and I just wasn't really excited about that.
[0:16:09.8] KM: You've made the decision to leave. Is your sister okay? You're leaving the paper with her. You're moving – I mean, thank you Ross Perot. If he hadn't ran and made it a three-way, that –
[0:16:21.2] JK: Right.
[0:16:23.0] KM: Our favorite son wouldn't have gotten elected. You're like, “Oh, my gosh. He's elected. All right.” Governor from Arkansas. You're moving up there.
[0:16:33.0] JK: It was quite a transition from Arkansas to Washington DC. I thought –
[0:16:39.1] KM: How old was your son?
[0:16:40.7] JK: My son at that time was going off to college. That was the first year that he went to college that year. I didn't worry as much about him being at home and me worrying about that, but he was in college at that point. It was a transition, because it was just as different from Arkansas as I had heard and I was very unhappy for those first few months.
[0:17:02.3] KM: Did you close the paper?
[0:17:04.0] JK: No, I didn't close the paper until we closed the paper in 1998, I think. My sister just – she had done a great job, but it wasn't in her vein like it was in me.
[0:17:16.3] KM: 98 is about when the internet came on in 95, that was when everybody was like newspapers are folding and they thought it was going to be a dying industry. Of course, they found out since then it's not.
[0:17:26.3] JK: Yeah, now. Thank God, it’s not. Yeah. She did her very, very best and did a great job, but it just wasn't in the cards.
[0:17:35.3] KM: Talk about the transition team of going up there. You were on the transition team for Clinton, along with my mother-in-law Ann McCoy, who we had on the show. Talk about how – what was the first thing you did?
[0:17:47.8] JK: Well, the first thing we did – I can't even really remember that first week or so, because we were all getting ready for that inauguration. I know Ann has told you about that. It was work, work, work. I recall that I did not go to the first inauguration, because we were so wiped out.
[0:18:06.8] KM: You didn't go the inauguration?
[0:18:07.8] JK: No, no. I went to the second one, but I did not, because I was just so exhausted.
[0:18:12.6] KM: I didn't know there were two.
[0:18:14.5] JK: Yeah, when he was reelected.
[0:18:16.9] KM: Oh, I see what you mean.
[0:18:19.1] JK: Yes. It was really hard. The thing I remember most is going up to the gate to go into the White House on January 20th. That was something I'll never forget.
[0:18:29.3] KM: Had you been there before?
[0:18:30.6] JK: Never. Never.
[0:18:32.9] KM: What does a transition team doing like? I know that grant Ann went up way before and started looking at – she saw the White House before the Clintons did to find out where their furniture would go and where she put their clothes and stuff. What was your role?
[0:18:45.5] JK: My role was to work with press. We started already sending things out to press. They had lots of questions about the new administration, so I worked with that. Also, we just did a lot of things in preparation for the inauguration.
[0:19:02.4] KM: You were the White House media affairs office basically.
[0:19:06.1] JK: Yeah, I was part of that. Yes. Like I said, we worked with the press all over the country and from other countries as well.
[0:19:13.3] Nobody knows who Bill Clinton is. They're like, “Who is this guy?” I think he was mowing the lawn on the White House one time. They're like, “What president mows the lawn?” Is that true?
[0:19:23.9] JK: I never heard that one.
[0:19:25.9] KM: An urban legend.
[0:19:27.5] JK: We did have a picnic. We had several picnics there and had watermelon and different things that people eat in Arkansas.
[0:19:35.1] KM: In the south?
[0:19:35.6] JK: Yeah, yeah. Because Hope. Remember, he is from Hope?
[0:19:38.2] KM: Yeah, he’s from Hope.
[0:19:39.8] JK: They set up a whole bunch of watermelons, because that’s watermelon –
[0:19:43.0] KM: Can you not get watermelon in Washington DC?
[0:19:44.8] JK: Yeah, but that’s the capital. Hope is the watermelon capital, remember?
[0:19:47.8] KM: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah, you get the good watermelon down here. How long were you in the White House media affairs office? Is that on the – that's on the West Wing, I guess.
[0:19:56.8] JK: That is actually in OEOB.
[0:19:59.3] KM: What’s that?
[0:20:00.0] JK: The media fairs office. That is the big beautiful building that is part of the White House. Most people are in the OEOB, the executive office. I work there in media affairs. I did that for just a few months before I was appointed to the Small Business Administration. I was at Small Business Administration for two and a half years. When I left there, I came back as the diarist and I was in the West Wing when I came back.
[0:20:29.9] KM: I didn't know there was another – what you call it? EEOB?
[0:20:32.3] JK: OEOB.
[0:20:33.0] KM: OEOB. What’s that stand for?
[0:20:36.2] JK: Office of Executive – I’ll have to remember.
[0:20:40.6] KM: OEOB. I’ll have to remember that.
[0:20:42.1] JK: OEOB. It’s a beautiful building.
[0:20:45.4] KM: Why did you leave there and go to the SBA and become the – let's see, you were the director of public affairs and communications for the US Small Business Administration. Why did you leave that job to go to the other one? Was it or move up?
[0:21:00.6] JK: It was a move up, definitely. It was an appointment. It was like your two or three levels down from the administrator, and you're running the communications part of the national office.
[0:21:16.4] KM: If I remember correctly, people are – everybody that was very supportive in any election goes with the transition team. Then it's the president's job to fill all these positions with people. Is that what he was doing, is he was trying to give you a good job, because you'd been helping here in Arkansas for so long?
[0:21:36.5] JK: Well, I guess you could say that. Really, he had little knowledge of jobs day-to-day. There were people in the personnel office that we worked with and they helped move people around, put people where they felt they could be most helpful to the administration.
[0:21:55.0] KM: It didn't really have much to do, the president. You were just feeling slots, because people change after administrations. Who's our president now? Trump, he don't have all the slots filled.
[0:22:05.2] JK: No.
[0:22:06.4] KM: I mean, I don't know that that's a good or bad thing. I have no idea. Maybe just don’t have a lot of people favors, I don't know, or have many followers.
[0:22:13.6] JK: Well, I wouldn't think it was a good thing.
[0:22:15.3] KM: You wouldn’t?
[0:22:16.2] JK: Yeah. I'm not a policy person, but I would think that you need people to do a lot of things, especially when there's so much going on in the world today.
[0:22:26.4] KM: Yeah, but it does cut down on the budget, I guess. I want to learn all about how you ended up back at the White House as the first presidential diarist. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with miss Janis Kearney, entrepreneur, author, historian and first presidential diarist in US history. We will dig into her life at the White House during the Clinton years and we'll find out what she's up to now with her WOW publishing company and nonprofit, Celebrate! Maya Project.
[BREAK]
[0:22:59.3] AM: Arkansas Flag and Banner is proud to underwrite Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. McCoy began this broadcast a year and a half ago with the intention of offering a mentoring platform for those with an entrepreneurial spirit. Through candid conversations and interesting interviews with business and community-minded Arkansans, listeners gained insight into starting and running a business, the ups and downs of risk-taking and the commonalities of successful people.
Kerry McCoy, Founder and President of Arkansas Flag and Banner believes in paying knowledge and experience forward and developed this radio show as a means of doing so. The biographies, life experiences and wisdom of her guests would likely go unheard if not for this venue.
Rarely do people open up for an hour to an audience about their life, mistakes, triumphs and pitfalls. This unique radio show allows the listener intimate access into the stories of prominent leaders in our state. I am Adrienne McNally, Manager of the Arkansas Flag and Banner Showroom and Gift Shop located on the first floor of the historic Taborian Hall on the corner of 9th and State Streets in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas.
In business for 43 years, we offer an old school shopping experience with front door parking, clerks to help you and department store variety; open to the public Monday through Friday, 8 to 5:30 and Saturday 10 to 4.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:24:25.7] KM: You're listening to Up In your Business with me, Kerry McCoy and I'm speaking today with Miss Janis Kearney, author, historian and first presidential diarist in US history to none other than Arkansas's favorite son, William Jefferson Clinton.
If you're just tuning in, you might want to be caught up with where we are. We're talking to Janis Kearney. She's Fayetteville, was born in Gould, Arkansas. She graduated from Fayetteville with a master's in public relations and a BA in journalism. She ran a successful newspaper in Little Rock. She's part of the Clinton campaign, has moved to Washington and the transition team. She's now working for the SBA. All of a sudden, she gets a game-changer and she's now invited to become the first presidential diarist in US history. Tell us how that came to be.
[0:25:22.0] JK: Okay. When I learned about his interest in hiring someone to become the presidential diarist, I was working at the US Small Business Administration. Nancy Hernreich, I don't know whether you know Nancy.
[0:25:37.9] KM: I know Nancy.
[0:25:38.9] JK: Nancy called and asked would I like to interview for that job. I said yes. We went back and forth. I interviewed with it and she gave me things that I needed to look over and ask her questions about and all of that. Of course, many people were interviewing at the same time. I didn't think I probably would get it, but she called me in December, I think of 1994, and told me that I had the job.
[0:26:10.3] KM: When did you interview?
[0:26:12.5] JK: I interviewed in the fall. A little bit of the fall in the winter.
[0:26:15.5] KM: It took a couple of months.
[0:26:16.3] JK: Yeah, it took several months before.
[0:26:18.5] KM: You probably thought, “I didn't get the job.”
[0:26:19.8] JK: Yeah. Yeah. I really did.
[0:26:21.4] KM: Did you have to come back for a second interview?
[0:26:23.1] JK: Yeah, I did more than – at least two. I maybe did three, because there were lots of people there.
[0:26:27.9] KM: They were serious.
[0:26:29.1] JK: Yes. You found out, you run home, you jump up and down, you're all excited. Then you report to work. What's your first day like?
[0:26:36.8] JK: My first day was just learning little things about where I'd be sitting. I sat down. I set three doors down from the president's office.
[0:26:48.1] KM: You're in the West Wing.
[0:26:49.2] JK: I was in the West Wing. I talked to – spend a lot of time talking to Nancy, because nobody had ever held this job. We had to create what my role would be from day-to-day. We spent several – we may have spent about a week or so going over that and figuring it out and how would I talk to the president, or find out what the president was doing and all of that. It took a little while.
[0:27:17.1] KM: Because now, I mean, there's a difference between being a governor, or president.
[0:27:19.9] JK: Oh, yeah.
[0:27:20.6] KM: He was very approachable as a governor. When he became president, everything changed.
[0:27:24.9] JK: Yes, yes. It was different definitely. I mean, secret service everywhere and you couldn't just go up and talk to the president whenever you wanted to, even though you worked in the White House. It just wasn't happening.
[0:27:38.7] KM: Okay. Now you figured out what you're going to do. What is that? You're going to show up every day. Did you always work in the West Wing or did you go to the East Wing when he was brushing his teeth and go, “He brushed his teeth at 8:00 this morning. He got the newspaper at 6:00.”
[0:27:50.1] JK: No. All of my work was either in the West Wing, or when there was something official going on, somewhere else; East Wing OEOB, if he went to another agency and did something.
[0:28:04.3] KM: You were part of the entourage?
[0:28:05.7] JK: Sometimes I was. Yes. Very often.
[0:28:08.2] JK: I mean, you would have to be, wouldn't you?
[0:28:11.0] JK: I was most of the time, but I didn't have to be because there were times when he traveled to other countries that I did not go.
[0:28:18.2] KM: Oh, you didn't?
[0:28:18.8] JK: No. There were times. What happened during those times were there were people that worked with him. There was one young man named Kris Engskov, who was his body person. He was there wherever the president went, and he gathered all of the information that the president gathered when he traveled. Kris was part of our team, our group. He would come back and he would sit down and share everything with me that I was not there to witness, or see for myself.
I would sit down. When I'm not traveling with him, I would catch up on my diary, because the diary might be 40 pages long from one day to the next based on what President Clinton was doing.
[0:29:03.8] KM: Really?
[0:29:04.2] JK: Yeah, yeah. When he was traveling and I was not with him, I would spend that time catching up on –
[0:29:10.8] KM: Transcribing what you wrote.
[0:29:11.8] JK: Yeah, transcribing everything, because I could not use a tape recorder.
[0:29:15.5] KM: Why? Oh, because –
[0:29:17.3] JK: Tapes, no. I wrote everything longhand. I would have to come back and transfer that to my computer, which was dedicated just to my diary.
[0:29:29.3] KM: Wow. Why do you think you got that job?
[0:29:32.1] JK: Well, he knew me and he knew that I was a writer. I think that was a big part of it. He knew my family very well.
[0:29:43.3] KM: He did?
[0:29:44.7] JK: Oh, yeah. He worked with several of my brothers. The thing was that he had to feel comfortable whoever that was. It had to be somebody that he felt comfortable with.
[0:29:54.9] KM: Well this is radio, so people unless they’re watching on Facebook can't see that you have a lovely demeanor. Oh, I can see why he would feel comfortable with you. Like you said, you're an introvert so you're not trying to steal the show from me, like I’d been stealing the show. I've been talking over the president or something. Then like, “Shut that girl up over there.”
[0:30:14.1] JK: Yeah. I think that was important. Yeah. I could be the fly on the wall. I think one reporter called me the White House fly on the wall. I could go to meetings and sit at the back of the room and just take notes and not try to make anyone pay any attention to me.
[0:30:33.7] KM: I didn't know the president had almost like a valet that follows him everywhere around.
[0:30:39.0] JK: Right, right. We actually called him a butt boy.
[0:30:43.9] KM: Butt boy. What a nice name. I’ve never heard butt boy’s name before. What did you say his name was?
[0:30:49.4] JK: Well, there were several during the White House. The one that we worked with the longest was Kris Engskov, who is from –
[0:30:54.7] KM: I didn’t even heard of him.
[0:30:55.4] JK: Northeast Arkansas, Northwest Arkansas. Yeah.
[0:30:58.5] KM: A young man, I guess with no family.
[0:31:00.4] JK: At the time, no he didn't. He didn't. Because you have to devote 24/7 to the White House.
[0:31:07.6] KM: Yeah, I would imagine. Your diary was subpoenaed by Kenneth Starr during the Whitewater investigations. Were you frightened?
[0:31:18.6] JK: Frightened and nervous. Yeah, I was. Not only that, but I was subpoenaed. I had to testify, because of what I was doing, because of my role. That was what I call the dark period of my era in the White House, for a lot of us, for a lot of us. We had to go through that. On the other side, we felt really good about working for that president and felt like that he did some amazing things as president. We went through that and we still kept going.
[0:31:54.4] KM: Why was that Kenneth Starr investigation? I mean, Whitewater was only an $80,000 real estate deal. We spent – how much did the country spend on that?
[0:32:03.9] JK: Millions, millions.
[0:32:04.9] KM: Yeah. The whole thing was $80,000. It was an $80,000 lawn. Nobody even knows that. They’re like Whitewater. You ask people what it is and they're like, “I don't know.”
[0:32:16.0] JK: We asked that same question, but I don't think we ever got an answer.
[0:32:18.7] KM: What sticks in your mind from that time in your White House? What's your favorite memory of that time?
[0:32:24.6] JK: Oh, there was just so many. I'm always asked that, but I think –
[0:32:29.4] KM: You are.
[0:32:30.4] JK: Yeah. I think the time that is most memorable is seeing President Clinton and Nelson Mandela become friends, how that friendship evolved and how Nelson Mandela came to his defense during that really dark period. They just gelled. He would come over and it was just wonderful to watch these amazing huge personalities become friends. That was just for me to see Nelson Mandela, that was amazing. We got a chance to go to Africa and become a part of the whole little bubble that President Clinton and Mrs. Clinton took with them, and was able to meet Nelson Mandela and his family and do the state dinner over there. That was just an amazing experience for me.
[0:33:29.4] KM: I wish people could see your face. You're about to tear up over it. You’re about to make me tear up over it.
[0:33:34.8] JK: It was a wonderful, wonderful experience. You see these two great men that you really – to me, it was two great human beings, really believing in people, really wanting to make the world better for everyone.
[0:33:51.0] KM: How do you keep believing in people when you have so much obstacles? I don't understand. I don't know how you do that.
[0:33:55.6] JK: Some people have those hearts, those big hearts.
[0:34:00.4] KM: Let me just tell everybody who we're talking with. You're listening to Up In your Business with me, Kerry McCoy and I'm speaking today with Miss Janis Kearney, author, entrepreneur, historian and first presidential diarist to US president, Arkansas favorite son, William Jefferson Clinton. We both just got choked up over that last thing. He's out of office, you've moved back to Little Rock. Did you meet your husband up there?
[0:34:26.9] JK: No. I've known Bob Nash for years and years. He was in politics for a long time. He worked for Bill Clinton forever. When I was working for state government, he was with Bill Clinton, so I met him during those years.
[0:34:39.0] KM: He's not your first husband.
[0:34:40.0] JK: He's not my first husband.
[0:34:41.7] KM: Did you end up – do you have another son?
[0:34:44.0] JK: I have one son. Bob has one son.
[0:34:46.6] KM: Oh, I see.
[0:34:47.6] JK: Bob has a daughter. Together, we have three children.
[0:34:51.3] KM: Well, I read I think in your bio that you and Bob and your son moved back, or do I have that wrong?
[0:34:58.6] JK: Yeah, that's, that’s –
[0:34:59.7] KM: That’s not right.
[0:35:00.3] JK: Yeah. We moved back together.
[0:35:01.6] KM: Oh, you did? Bob Nash and you are working together at the White House. Is that when you kindled your relationship?
[0:35:09.7] JK: We started dating right before that. We started dating in the really, really early 90s. 92 I think, 1.
[0:35:18.2] KM: During the campaign, I guess.
[0:35:19.1] JK: Yes, during the campaign. Right before the campaign and we moved together when we moved to Washington DC and we got married in 1994.
[0:35:28.0] KM: Oh, great. While you were up there.
[0:35:29.6] JK: Yes, while we were there.
[0:35:31.2] KM: What made you decide to move back to Little Rock?
[0:35:33.1] JK: Oh, I would always come back to Little Rock. Arkansas is home and my father was still living. My father is someone I talk about a lot, because my mother died in 1982, so I became my father's caretaker, which was one of the big reasons I really wasn't excited about leaving.
[0:35:52.5] KM: Oh, yeah. Because that's right during them Clinton years.
[0:35:54.7] JK: Yeah, yeah. My father is just an amazing human being and that would take a whole other show to talk about. I think a lot of me comes from him. I mean, the nice part from me probably comes from my mother, but the quirky part and the dreamy part and the part that loves to write and the stories part, all of that comes from my dad.
[0:36:20.8] KM: Why do you keep calling yourself quirky? It’s twice you said that.
[0:36:24.0] JK: I am.
[0:36:25.4] KM: You don’t seem quirky to me.
[0:36:27.8] JK: My dad was just amazing. My dad lived until he was a 107. He just died in 2014. That was my main impetus for coming back to Arkansas when I came back, because when I came back he was turning a 100.
[0:36:45.4] KM: That's unbelievable.
[0:36:48.2] JK: Yeah. I was just so blessed that I was able to spend a lot of years with him when I came back to Arkansas.
[0:36:56.4] KM: I want to be good like that. I want my kids to love me that much when I'm a 100-years-old.
[0:37:01.2] JK: Oh, I'm sure they will.
[0:37:02.7] KM: That's a really nice story. Then we'll move on to your career. What is it you love about your dad so much?
[0:37:09.3] JK: He's just not like anybody I've ever met. You asked if he was educated. Educated in school, no. But my dad was the wisest man I know on this earth. I used to tell Bill Clinton, I say, “You are the one of the best storytellers I've ever met, but you're number two,” and he said, “Who? Who's better than me?” I say my dad. My dad was an amazing storyteller. That's where I fell in love with stories.
[0:37:37.1] KM: Writing. That's great. You've moved back and you started a publication. Is that the first thing you did when you moved back? You started WOW Publication or not?
[0:37:48.5] JK: Actually, I started WOW Publishing when I was in Chicago. My husband and I moved to Chicago.
[0:37:54.0] KM: Oh, after Washington you moved to Chicago.
[0:37:55.6] JK: We moved to Chicago. We lived there for seven years and that's where I started my writing, because I knew once I left the White House, that's what I’d do for the rest of my life. I started there and that's when I wrote my first book, which a memoir.
[0:38:09.0] KM: What is that book?
[0:38:10.0] JK: Cotton Field of Dreams.
[0:38:11.3] KM: Cotton Field of Dreams. That's a pretty cover. Everybody on Facebook, that’s a pretty cover.
[0:38:15.3] JK: It’s all about growing up. It’s all about our –
[0:38:18.4] KM: In Gould, Arkansas.
[0:38:19.4] JK: Mm-hmm. That’s what it’s about.
[0:38:20.4] KM: You and Maya Angelou.
[0:38:21.4] JK: Yeah.
[0:38:22.1] KM: No wonder y'all have got it. No wonder you’re kindred sisters.
[0:38:24.7] JK: That's right. That's what I did.
[0:38:27.9] KM: That's your first book?
[0:38:29.7] JK: Yes. This is the second book, Something to Write Home About is actually about my years as a personal diarist to President Clinton.
[0:38:39.1] KM: That's not the one that –
[0:38:40.4] JK: This one, Conversations is about Bill Clinton. It's actually a book that I started. I got a fellowship to Harvard to start this book, to start my research and –
[0:38:52.6] KM: Oh, look at those pictures.
[0:38:53.4] JK: - start my interviews. I went all over the country and interviewed people to talk about his legacy as a leader, but also the legacy, his race relations legacy.
[0:39:04.8] KM: Yeah, he had a great one.
[0:39:05.4] JK: Because when I was in Washington DC, I would have people who'd said, “Oh, he can't be real. This man is not real. He just started this because he's a politician.” I said, “No, that's not true.” I thought, “Well, why don't I go and talk to people and let them tell stories?” That's what that is, a book of stories and conversations about Bill Clinton from childhood on.
[0:39:28.0] KM: Well, that's three really big books. They look they're 300 or more pages.
[0:39:32.9] JK: No. They're 200 and that one maybe 300.
[0:39:36.5] KM: How long does it take it? Yeah, this one's 400 pages honey. I bet this was 300 too.
[0:39:41.8] JK: It’s probably 200.
[0:39:43.4] KM: I'm just going to find out here. How longs it take to write a book? 320. You don't even no.
[0:39:48.6] JK: See, I forget. Let’s see what this one is. 335. All right, she don’t even know what she’s writing. I can’t read books this thick. Although I have just read – well, we’re going to talk about Maya Angelou a minute. How long does it take you to write a book like this?
[0:40:05.9] JK: That book, because I started that very first book, Cotton Field of Dreams, I started when I was high school, college. Then you put it down and then you start it back.
[0:40:15.9] KM: Pick it back up.
[0:40:16.4] JK: Yeah. That one took a long time. Other books take about two years, a year and a half to two years.
[0:40:23.7] KM: This kind of a book that takes a long time, Cotton Field of Dreams by Janis Kearney, that looks like something I would really like to read, because it took a long time. It's probably got your heart in it.
[0:40:32.1] JK: It does.
[0:40:34.1] KM: Is it on book on tape?
[0:40:36.1] JK: No, it's not.
[0:40:37.9] KM: You’ve got a lovely voice. You're going to have to read your book.
[0:40:40.5] JK: Thank you.
[0:40:41.5] KM: You're welcome. Then you started a publishing company because you wanted to publish your own books? Why? You moved back. You left Chicago after seven years. You moved back to Little Rock, I guess because Bob Nash's job ran out, I don't know.
[0:40:55.9] JK: No. Actually, when I moved back, Bob was working for Hillary Clinton when she was running for president. Yeah, he's working for her.
[0:41:04.7] KM: Where was he living to do that?
[0:41:05.4] JK: DC.
[0:41:06.4] KM: You all weren't living together?
[0:41:07.7] JK: No. He went there and I came back here.
[0:41:09.2] KM: That's the perfect marriage. You weren’t married a little long. Is he here now?
[0:41:15.8] JK: He is.
[0:41:16.6] KM: Oh, and y'all still together?
[0:41:17.3] JK: Uh-huh.
[0:41:17.9] KM: Oh, well good. You come back to Little Rock and he’s helping Hillary?
[0:41:28.0] JK: Mm-hmm.
[0:41:28.7] KM: Okay.
[0:41:29.2] JK: He stayed in DC for a few years after that, because he had started working. I was here spending time with my dad. I think I did a little part-time work, but I was writing mostly.
[0:41:43.8] KM: When did you decided to start the WOW publishing company?
[0:41:46.5] JK: I started it shortly after we moved to Chicago in 2000 – about 2002 or 3. Yeah.
[0:41:53.7] KM: It’s mostly an online publication then?
[0:41:55.9] JK: Mm-hmm.
[0:41:56.5] KM: What was the purpose for starting that?
[0:41:58.4] JK: I started it to publish my books. That's the basic thing that I started doing, but once I started writing, a lot of people would meet me and they tell me they wanted to write books. I ended up starting to write other people's books. I'm also a ghostwriter for other people.
[0:42:16.9] KM: Is this yours? I would online and Googled up WOW Publication books with reality. Is that you, or is that another WOW Publication? I couldn't find your name anywhere on that.
[0:42:29.0] JK: No, that’s not me.
[0:42:29.6] KM: Do you have an online website?
[0:42:30.6] JK: I do. It’s called Wow Publishing.
[0:42:34.2] KM: W-O-W Publishing?
[0:42:35.2] JK: Mm-hmm.
[0:42:35.6] KM: That’s what this one is too. You have to take that with you. You can go look up and see who's got that.
[0:42:40.0] JK: I’ll take that with me.
[0:42:43.3] KM: Yeah. If people want to get in touch to publish books or to talk to you, do they go to – what e-mail –
[0:42:47.6] JK: Wow Publishing. www.wowpublishing.org.
[0:42:52.1] KM: .org.
[0:42:53.0] JK: Mm-hmm.
[0:42:53.7] KM: See, that one’s got a PVT. www.publishingpvt. I don’t know what that means.
[0:42:58.2] JK: I don’t either.
[0:43:00.3] KM: They can go there and there’s contact information? Or do you want to give out your e-mail?
[0:43:04.1] JK: Sure. I could give them my e-mail. Janis@wowpublishing.org.
[0:43:11.8] KM: Oh, okay. Janis@wowpublishing.org. We’ll have all her contact information on flagandbanner.com if you click on radio show and this interview will be uploaded next week after we get the podcast cleaned up, get all my mistakes out.
[0:43:29.2] JK: Can I make a correction on one thing?
[0:43:31.4] KM: Yes. Please do.
[0:43:32.8] JK: I got 30 hours toward my master's in public administration. I did not graduate.
[0:43:38.2] KM: You are guilt-ridden.
[0:43:39.7] JK: Well, I always try to make sure people know that.
[0:43:42.3] KM: Nobody cares.
[0:43:44.5] JK: I like to say that.
[0:43:45.7] KM: You just want to make – she is the honest, most honest person in the world. There you go.
[0:43:49.5] JK: No, I just want to make it clear. I did –
[0:43:53.9] KM: Almost.
[0:43:54.8] JK: Almost.
[0:43:55.4] KM: That’s good enough.
[0:43:55.9] JK: Very close.
[0:43:56.6] KM: That's good enough. Nobody's checking the records. You also have started a nonprofit that I have actually heard of before I met you. Tell us what it is.
[0:44:05.8] JK: Celebrate Maya. The Celebrate Maya project and we started it in 2014 just shortly after Maya Angelou passed away. We did it, because she was not being recognized in Arkansas by anybody.
[0:44:21.8] KM: Ain’t that unbelievable? I’ve noticed that too.
[0:44:24.0] JK: Yeah. We said, “This cannot be.”
[0:44:26.3] KM: Something’s not right.
[0:44:27.1] JK: I mean, she spent so much of her time, her early years here. I just got with a group of women and said, “Let's do something.” We did this amazing day of remembrance down in Stamps, Arkansas. I have to credit the mayor of Stamps at the time who was so instrumental in making sure that happened.
[0:44:48.1] KM: Because she's from Stamps, Arkansas.
[0:44:49.2] JK: She’s from Stamps.
[0:44:50.7] KM: If you listeners if you have not read why the – what's it? Why the Caged Bird Sings?
[0:44:54.9] JK: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
[0:44:55.6] KM: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It's fabulous. I just picked it up in March, Black History Month this year for again, for the first time in 10 years and reread it and I don't even read. It is so incredibly good.
[0:45:08.2] JK: It is on tape too. You can hear it. You can listen to it.
[0:45:11.5] KM: Oh, I bet she reads it probably. That lovely voice of her.
[0:45:12.7] JK: Yes, yes, yes.
[0:45:14.5] KM: You're exactly right. People do not recognize her. I didn't even know she was from Arkansas till probably not very long ago, five years ago maybe, and was like, “Why do we not have her own billboards and why is it not the Maya State?” She's just unbelievable.
[0:45:27.1] JK: Yes, yes. We're trying to change that a little bit.
[0:45:30.1] KM: Well, I thank you very much. I want to be a part of your organization.
[0:45:33.4] JK: I would love for you to be a part. I'll make sure you get all our information.
[0:45:37.6] KM: Good. That is so good of you.
[0:45:40.0] JK: We're very excited. We celebrated her 90th birthday this year and we had a wonderful luncheon. The woman who did the documentary that you saw –
[0:45:51.0] KM: On AETN.
[0:45:51.8] JK: Yes, she came and spoke. It was wonderful, because she –
[0:45:55.5] KM: Where’s she is from?
[0:45:56.5] JK: She is from Chicago, but she was a very good friend of mine. She was able to talk about all these different experiences.
[0:46:04.3] KM: I can't believe I didn't go.
[0:46:06.7] JK: Yeah. Well, you will come to the next time.
[0:46:08.5] KM: I will come to the next. That’s too bad. Why should people read Conversations with William Jefferson Clinton; from Hope to Harlem?
[0:46:18.3] JK: Well, if you don't know him you will learn some amazing things about him. You'll learn some things about him when he was a child, why he may have ended up the way that he is. You'll learn about his childhood, you'll learn about his grandfather who he credits with making him the person that he is. His grandfather owned a store down in Hope, Arkansas and he talked about how his grandfather told him you never treat people differently, because of whatever the color or what they have.
[0:46:50.4] KM: Education, color.
[0:46:51.4] JK: Yeah. He credit his grandfather with that. You just learned a lot about him and you learn that he did some really amazing things as far as race relations, that no other leader had done before.
[0:47:03.1] KM: He put more African-Americans in Washington and –
[0:47:08.9] JK: Before that, he did it in Arkansas. He made sure that there were diversity, women and people of color on every board and commission.
[0:47:17.9] KM: Why people get mad about that?
[0:47:19.9] JK: I don't know why they get mad – why would they get mad about that.
[0:47:22.7] KM: I don't understand, but they're threatened I guess by it or something, because I don't understand why that's not more celebrated.
[0:47:29.1] JK: Right, right. It should be.
[0:47:31.4] KM: We've already told people how they can get in touch with you, Janis@wowpublishing.com.
[0:47:36.3] JK: .org.
[0:47:36.8] KM: .org. Thank you. What do you think is your motivation to keep you doing stuff all the time? Because you’ve done a lot.
[0:47:43.9] JK: My foundation, my parents. I guess I'm always trying to make them proud, because they made me so proud and they just sacrificed so much for us. They were amazing parents. I think that's why I did what I did.
[0:47:57.9] KM: You think that you've done that, instill that in your children because that generation – my parents were the World War II generation, depression generation. They sacrificed, they gave so much, they set these great standards for us. I'm not sure that I'm able to do that, because I don't live in that time.
[0:48:15.6] JK: There's no question you do that, because you're living – you're showing them by example. You may not sit them down and talk about it, but your example, that teaches them.
[0:48:26.0] KM: Yeah, but I can't do the examples, the hard – your parents were sharecroppers. I mean, you can't show that –
[0:48:32.1] JK: You don't have to be a sharecropper teach good quality values. You don't have to be that.
[0:48:37.6] KM: If you could tell yourself something today – what you know today, if you could tell it to yourself 20 years ago, what would that be?
[0:48:50.5] JK: It would be –
[0:48:52.0] KM: That's a hard, ain’t it?
[0:48:53.1] JK: Yeah. Probably follow your dreams no matter what. I think I've done that to a certain extent, but I probably could have done it even more.
[0:49:04.6] KM: Be more trusting?
[0:49:05.5] JK: Mm-hmm.
[0:49:06.2] KM: You do seem like you follow your heart a lot, that you're not afraid to say, “You know, I don't really want to go to Washington, but I feel this is where God is sending me, this is where my life's path is, this is where I'm supposed to go.”
[0:49:15.7] JK: Well, you know what? My dad told me I had to go, because right before went, I went down and talked to him and said, “Daddy, they’re asking me if I want to go to Washington DC.” He said, “How can you not go? You have to go. I mean, your mom and I sacrificed all those years. You have to go. How can you turn something like that down?”
[0:49:36.6] KM: That's exactly what Ann McCoy’s mother Hazel said to her. She said, “When you come home, I will probably be dead, but you have to go.” Because Ann went to her mother who was aged older and said, “Mother, I've been offered this job but I don't want to leave, because you're 86 or something.”
[0:49:53.2] JK: Exactly.
[0:49:55.0] KM: She said, “You have to go. You cannot stay.” Sure enough, she came back and her mother was still alive when she came home.
[0:50:00.6] JK: Yeah. My dad loved it.
[0:50:02.4] KM: I think it kept them alive.
[0:50:03.4] JK: Yeah. Yeah. I think it did too.
[0:50:07.3] KM: I love that. I don't have to ask you who most inspired you in life, it's your father, but give me one word to sum you up.
[0:50:15.1] JK: Dreamer.
[0:50:16.0] KM: I think it is. You said dream about 10 times. If you didn't say it I was going to say it for you. Listen, here's your gift for coming on. You got a US and an Arkansas flag, a desk set for your –
[0:50:26.0] JK: Thank you.
[0:50:26.7] KM: You're welcome. I should’ve put Chicago –
[0:50:27.8] JK: I love it.
[0:50:28.7] KM: - on there I guess. I didn’t know.
[0:50:30.0] JK: No, these are the best ones.
[0:50:31.2] KM: That’s where your roots are right there.
[0:50:33.0] JK: That’s right. Thank you so much.
[0:50:33.7] KM: Gould, Arkansas and Washington DC, United States. Thank you for coming on. I have –
[0:50:37.5] JK: Thank you for asking me.
[0:50:38.8] KM: You are so welcome. Thank you. You're a special person. Who's our guest next week?
[0:50:44.4] TB: Next week is going to be Arnessa Bennett.
[0:50:48.1] KM: She's a life coach and a motivational speaker. I met her when I went and spoke to the Salvation Army, a group of women at the Salvation Army who did great work. Salvation Army is a great organization. They asked me to come for lunch and to talk to them. This woman was the head The Salvation Army volunteers or something, I don't know. She's very motivational and she's a really neat chick. I'll be interested to talk with her and get motivated. She's going to motivate us, pump us up.
[0:51:15.5] TB: All right.
[0:51:16.0] KM: I'm ready to be pumped up. If you have a great entrepreneurial story that you would like to share, I would love to hear from you. Send a brief bio and your contact info to –
[0:51:26.8] TB: Questions@upyourbusiness.org.
[0:51:29.6] KM: That's questions with an S. Finally to our listeners, thank you for spending time with me. If you think this program has been about you, you're right, but it's also been for me. Thank you for letting me fulfill my destiny. My hope today is that you've heard or learned something that's been inspiring or enlightening and that it whatever it is, will help you up your business, your independence or your life.
I'm Kerry McCoy and I'll see you next time on Up In your Business. Until then, be brave and keep it up.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:52:07.3] TB: You’ve been listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. If you’d like to hear this program again, next week a podcast will be made available online with links to resources you heard discussed in today’s show. Kerry’s goal, to help you live the American Dream.
[END]
