Charlotte's Coolest Dog (02-27-2025--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:29] Thanks a lot for hanging out. I appreciate it. And I want to welcome back to the program Charles Holler and Tim Dwyer. They are the representatives here for the Charlotte Kiwanis Club. How you doing, guys? Good to see you. Excellent. Good, good. And so, Charles, let me start with you. You are the vice president of the Kiwanis Club of Charlotte. So real quick, tell us, like, what is the Kiwanis Club? And then we'll get into why you're here. Or does Tim want to take this? I don't care who takes it. Tim will take it. He had the title, so I just deferred to the vice president.

[00:00:58] You know how they are. They are not doing all the work like we are. Kiwanis is a group of volunteers dedicated to serve the world one child and one community at a time. And in general, what does that mean? Basically, we come together, we meet every two weeks, and we figure out ways to generate revenue to help kids, all different age groups of kids from helping with after school activities to literacy to summer camps.

[00:01:26] And basically, we all come together, and men, women, executives, worker bees, all different kinds of people have lunch, break bread together, and figure out a way to help the next kid. Helping kids. That's a very controversial thing you guys have chosen to do. But we're here for you. We're going to help you. We've helped in the last two years.

[00:01:46] This is the third annual now, Coolest Dog in Charlotte contest. And so I guess the goal this year is to raise $20,000 still, $20,000, right? Okay. And for people who want information on this, go to charlotte-kiwanis.org. And that's spelled K-I-W-A-N-I-S, charlotte-kiwanis.org. So who wants to take up the explanation of what exactly is the Coolest Dog in Charlotte contest?

[00:02:15] Charles, all right. Charles, you're up. Well, you know, a few years ago, we heard from some of the local nonprofits that we support that literacy was a huge concern. And I think 40% of our children aren't reading at grade level. And I think the other statistic I had heard was one in six kids that's not reading at grade level will probably not graduate from high school. And so that's pretty powerful.

[00:02:41] We wanted to have a fundraiser, and we borrowed an idea from the Kiwanis Club of Columbus, Ohio. Y'all stole it. I talked to Mark last time. He said he totally stole it because that's where he came from. He was like, that's a great idea. I'm bringing it in. Borrow's fine with their permission. I think we might even borrowed some of their art for our graphics. And so we reached out to a local brewery, Suffolk Punch, and they're going to brew a beer for the winning dog. And it's kind of basically you just sign up your dog, and it's $10.

[00:03:07] And you get your friends, family, coworkers to vote for your dog. Every vote is a dollar. Every dollar goes to our fund, and the fund then gets distributed in grant money to local nonprofits that support kids in literacy. Over the past couple years, $20,000, $20,000. This year our goal is another $20. We have corporate sponsors, Tyler Toot Construction. We're kind of having a dog theme here. Skip Town is donating some things.

[00:03:35] Charlotte Mecklenburg Police has animal control, and they'll be at our event at Suffolk Punch when we tell who won the contest. And they'll be checking microchips in dogs and giving away dog tags. So it's kind of an animal theme, but it all goes back into this community, every dollar you spend. Queen City Canine also still with you guys or no? That was last year. That was last year. Yeah, pulled last year's data apparently. So Suffolk Punch Brewery, they're still there.

[00:04:01] Tyler Toot Construction, I think, didn't one of their people win last year too? They had the most popular dog. They have a company dog. Yeah. Oh, a company dog. Well, their logo's a dog. That's right. They don't have project managers. They have lead dogs. Lead dogs. And so actually I remember talking when y'all first did this, when the idea migrated down here from Ohio, let's say. But it was right after the pandemic.

[00:04:29] And kids had been shut out of the schools, and they were remote learning, and the literacy, the test scores just plummeted. And to your stat that you gave earlier, it's like if kids don't know how to read at that third grade level by third grade, like the data is not good for them.

[00:04:50] And so if ever there was a time to help kids with the literacy programs, and we're only two years, three years removed from that, so you've got, there's still this need to get those kids up to a grade level in reading, especially reading. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, it's a, I don't know if it's a pandemic or an endemic, but sure. And who's going to do it?

[00:05:14] And we as a club can't do it for everybody, so we need other organizations who are already doing it and help support them. So that's part of what the Kiwanis is, is helping the people that are helping the people. And in this case, helping the kids that need the help. And it's very empowerful. It's empowering.

[00:05:36] And to see these organizations at the, you know, when they get this $3,500 of donations to their charity and what it's going to be used for, it's pretty remarkable. But most of the money goes to literacy. We also help with after-school activities, which are important to keep kids busy between three and five. And, you know, so there's a lot of things that the, that these kids need. It's, it's literacy. It's, it's activities. It's summer camps. And it's just a lot of different things.

[00:06:03] And if, if there's people out there who also, maybe you don't have a dog, but you want to volunteer. We're always looking for people to help who want to contribute, who want to do something different. All the money that we raise goes to help our community. That's it. So we're just a group of volunteers that get together, break bread and figure out a way to help, help some more kids in town. Well, and I've said for years, if, you know, people who are limited government, conservative types, if you want government to do less, then that means people do more.

[00:06:32] Whether it's through these types of civic organizations, which really have been the backbone of American society since its founding. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about them, right? These civic groups like Kiwanis churches, like this is how people do things on their own. And if you do it on your own, you are, you know, you're right there. You see how all the money gets spent and you, you have the, the personal interaction with the people that you're impacting. Right. And, and you can make a difference.

[00:06:59] I mean, that's a lot of people want to help or it takes, it doesn't take that much time. I'm saying that the average Kiwanis, Kiwanian, I guess we are. Yeah. I was told last year it's Kiwanian. Kiwanian. I mean, we spend about three to five hours a month. I mean, we'll have some different events like the barbecue event will come in May. You might put in a little extra time for that and, and, and, and a, and a Christmas time event that might take a little bit.

[00:07:24] But in general, you're spending three to five hours a month and contributing what the other cool thing about the Kiwanis club is everybody's got their own individual skill. You know, I'm, I'm in marketing and Charles is in flooring and, and we have accountants and lawyers and it's just an amalgamation of society and everybody can do something. And it, and it's really fun when people step up and, and figure out a different way to help, uh, help the group grow.

[00:07:53] So this event, coolest dog in Charlotte contest, uh, it is running now. And is, uh, the voting. Well, first off, you need people to get their dogs on camera, get a good picture of them, right? Something, you know, don't put a person in it, just a dog, right? You want just the dog and then submit it onto the website. Right. And then, um, then people can vote for the dog. Yes. That's how it works. Correct. I think I saw this morning, we had 10 dogs. Shelby is in the lead. I happen to know Shelby, she was up the street from me.

[00:08:23] She's her owner thinks she can talk, but I'm not sure about that. Don't ever teach a dog to talk on command. You will regret it. And then the key thing is, is to work the crowd, right? I mean, so if you want to win the coolest dog contest and get your dog to be on a beer brewed by Suffolk punch on the label of a beer, then, and you get to name the beer, by the way, then keep the pictures coming.

[00:08:50] The crowd that's coming to visit, you know, you, you might go because your friend, uh, has a dog and you wanted to vote for them. But then you see this other really cute dog and you're like, oh man, that's a really cute one. So anyways, you can throw a vote to them too. It's only, it's a dollar per vote basically. And it's a fundraiser. So the more, you know, the votes, uh, the more money you donate, the more votes you can cast. Um, I have always offered up my votes for sale. Uh, always, uh, I'm willing to be bribed for that. It's for the kids. It's for the kids. Exactly.

[00:09:17] Uh, so you submit a photo of the dog, you write up a couple sentences, why your dog is the coolest of the cool. And, uh, then the photo, uh, gets, you know, posted. Um, it should be in focus. I feel like I need to say that no filters people don't be putting the, like, I don't know, cat ears. Yeah. Don't be doing fake ears or fake hats and stuff on the dogs. Um, and then the photos, uh, or the, the, the votes, $10 to post the dog.

[00:09:45] Uh, but you get 10 votes when you enter your dog. So if you've got multiple dogs, take separate photos, enter them separately, create the rivalry in the household. Uh, right. That's a good thing. Probably, um, $10 posting fee applies to each dog that you enter and the votes are a dollar per vote. No maximum on how many votes that a person can buy. Very, this is very, well, like Tammany Hall-esque here. Well, it comes down to the wire. Sometimes it comes down to the wire. That's right.

[00:10:13] We had a call from a senior living facility in Charlotte. They asked if the dog had to be living. Good question. Uh, the Kiwanis board met and we agreed that's fine. That it could be a dead dog. It could be a dead dog. It can be. In memoriam. Yeah. So in memoriam. What a great tribute. So the coolest dog in Charlotte could be deceased. As long as you have a good picture of it, you know? No ashes. All right. No judgment here. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina,

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[00:11:38] And they have pet-friendly accommodations. Call or text 828-367-7068. Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. A few more minutes here with the fellas from the Kiwanis Club of Charlotte, Tim Dwyer. He is the co-chair of the Coolest Dog in Charlotte contest, ongoing, well, starting up now. Voting runs for about a month. You can go to charlotte-kiwanis.org.

[00:12:05] Charles Holler, also co-chair of the event, but also the vice president of the Charlotte Kiwanis Club. Do you guys, I meant to ask you, do you have a theme for this year? Because don't you guys use like an annual theme or something? Did you used to do that? No. Yeah, have fun. Oh, that's a good one. Oh, yeah, that was Mark's theme. I think the new president of Kiwanis gets to bring his own theme, and I do not think Don Williams is our new president. I don't think he has introduced anything.

[00:12:33] Don does a good job recognizing our members, and he has a quantian of the month. Yeah. And he'll recognize folks for their volunteer hours and bringing new ideas to our club. Okay. So one of the ideas that you guys have been doing for a long time, and you've probably seen the bumper stickers on people's cars. Like, I have a terrific kid at some school, and so that's you guys. Those are your bumper stickers. So what's that program about?

[00:13:01] Yeah, and that's the funny thing is people have probably seen these bumper stickers all around town, and they don't really know. What is that? You know, like my kid doesn't get good grades. No, no, no, the Terrific Kid. Terrific Kid is a program that we use to recognize children in these different schools, and Charles can go into the specific schools, but we asked the teachers to recognize somebody. This last one, I was one at recently, February 12th, at Berry Hill School,

[00:13:27] which is over by the airport, and it's got a lot of underprivileged kids there, and they got recognized that month for the word responsibility. Responsibility, so everything in Terrific, although Charles and I just found out that they're missing one R, but everything stands for something. Responsibility was the issue, and to see these kids from kindergarten to fourth grade or fifth grade, to see them stand up and get awarded, they get recognized. You know, it comes over the PA system.

[00:13:55] You know, Tim DeWire, please come down to the... Oh, boy. You know, as a kid, I would get scared to hear that message, but these kids are going to get a Chick-fil-A gift card. They get the Terrific Kids magnet. They get a pencil. They get a bunch of different things and a recognition award that they get to bring home, and just to see their faces grinning ear to ear, they were recognized for having responsibility, and the teachers do a great job, and they write a little note of what, you know, a junior did to receive the Responsibility Award.

[00:14:24] So, yes, we give away these Terrific Kids things. We do this every month, I believe, Charles, right? We do, yeah. Yeah, we're in four schools, CMS schools. So, Raymond School, Berry Hill, Wingate Park. Wingate Park, and Oakhurst Steam. And so... You do summer camps as well, right? Yes, sir. So, tell us real quick about the summer camps. Summer camps are Camp Greer, and we use, we have a barbecue coming up in May that we will hopefully get to talk about on air,

[00:14:54] but the summer camps are to send kids that might not get a chance to go to a summer camp, give them their first opportunity. So, underprivileged kids get to have a week of summer camp. That means staying in the bunks, playing with friends, you know, shooting BB guns and bows and arrows and canoeing and jumping off, you know, diving boards and just being a kid for a week. And it's just, a lot of these kids will go to that camp, and we don't necessarily see them go to the camp.

[00:15:23] We don't get to see them, but they'll come back, and they'll thank us at the Kiwanis Club, and they'll say, like, hey, that was the first time I had ever been away from home. And then one kid came back and said he had become a counselor at Camp Greer, right, Charles? Yeah, as he said, first time he's ever played in a creek, first time I've ever been in a canoe, first time he ever saw stars. Came back the next year on scholarship, and now he's a camp counselor at Camp Greer. That's a partnership we have with First Prez Church uptown. They work with the guidance counselors at CMS. They identify kids that need that opportunity to get away in the summertime.

[00:15:52] It just changes their lives. Yeah. I was going to say, you've impacted that kid for the rest of his life because of the programs you guys do. And then also, Pete, during Christmas, you know, when you're off for a Christmas break and the holidays, you know, you don't think about this, but a lot of the kids, a lot of these underprivileged kids, they need food. They're getting food from the school system, and when they don't, you know, so the Kiwanis Club, not only do we rally and get them some presents

[00:16:19] and help them out like that, but we give the family food so that they can make it through that two-week period or so to, you know, they're not going to have meals anymore, so they're going to, they need to get some food in-house, and so we'll do that during the Christmas season. So it's always ongoing. We always meet. We're always having these meetings on every other Thursday to figure out what we want to do next and who we want to help or what, somebody will bring something to our problem. You know, that's a problem.

[00:16:47] Literacy is a problem, you know, so we didn't know. Yeah. So now we give away books. No, it's like anything else. It's the people and what they're willing to do to help the effort and the organization. So if you want to be a part of the solution, Charlotte Kiwanis would love to have you. Charlotte-Kiwanis.org. That's K-I-W-A-N-I-S. Charlotte-Kiwanis.org. It's the Coolest Dog in Charlotte contest. You can get the details at that website. Enter your dog. Raise some money.

[00:17:15] Help some kids learn to read and put them on the right path for the rest of their life. Guys, good to see you. Thank you. Thanks so much, and we'll touch base again. The contest runs for about another month. Register your dog. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Create-A-Video. Started in 1997 in Mint Hill, North Carolina,

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[00:18:14] all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life, told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you. And they will tell others to come who you are. Visit createavideo.com. North Carolina House lawmakers moved a bill through committee aimed at curbing student cell phone use during classroom instruction time. The House version of the bill, House Bill 87,

[00:18:43] is a companion bill to a similar bill that was introduced over in the Senate earlier this month. The bill directs governing bodies of public school units to adopt a cell phone-free education policy to eliminate or severely restrict student access to cell phones during instructional time.

[00:19:10] Now, how that looks in each individual school will be up to the individual schools, according to the bill's primary sponsor, Neil Jackson, from Moore County. The bill does not apply to remote charters or academies. 77 school districts already have policies on cell phone use in classrooms, according to the bill's summary. So this would just, you know,

[00:19:38] mandate it for the remaining schools. And look, this is a... Smartphone use is one of these topics that I have been following for several years. I know that... I know that smartphones are addictive. I know this, okay? I use my cell phone, my smartphone, mainly for Twitter, and I tell myself it's because of the work that I do.

[00:20:07] I have to be, you know, aware of what's going on at all times. And truth be told, that's a little bit of a crutch. That's an excuse. I sometimes check it when I shouldn't, but I've become way more over the last two, three years or so, I've become way more cognizant of how often I use it. And when I put the thing away and I try to, like, I put it away on weekends and stuff, I don't try to open it up, right?

[00:20:36] During the weekends, it is rare that I will check emails. That was sort of the first thing that I did years ago. I stopped, you know, wearing the email handcuffs. I know I would have missed the email from Elon if I was a federal worker. I would have totally missed it. But I try not to open emails if it's important enough for people to text me, right? I still look at if somebody texts, I will look at the text messages and stuff.

[00:21:04] Obviously, people make a phone call to me. I will answer the phone. But as far as, like, going through and monitoring emails, don't do it. And so the only thing that I'm really looking at a lot is Twitter. And I know that I shouldn't be looking at it as much as I do. That's why I know that for people who do not have fully formed brains, mine is fully formed now, people,

[00:21:34] despite what you may think. It is fully formed. It's never going to get any better than it is right now, okay? I have achieved peak brain maturation. And actually, I'm probably on the down, I'm probably on the decline now, right? Because your brain does not fully form until you're in your, like, early 20s. We are going through a real-time mass experiment because the technology

[00:22:03] that was introduced to us within the last 15 years, the human race has never had before. We don't know all of the impacts. But we're starting to figure it out. We're starting to realize it. And all of these studies, they're showing the same sorts of behavioral problems that are attached to smartphone use, screen time in general, right?

[00:22:33] Just screen time. Increased rates of anxiety, depression. You've got people's lives that get ruined because they're tweeting stuff or texting stuff. I mean, all of the scams that are out there and the extortion and the, I mean, just awful things, right? When the internet is wide open and that means a lot of bad people

[00:23:02] now have access to your kids, right? They have access to you. And with AI coming on board now, you're going to be able to, you know, just fabricate stuff about people. It is a mass experiment we are in. We have to be able in a rational way fighting back our addiction to the screens, right? We have to be able to step back and say on the net,

[00:23:29] is this technology good or bad? Is it beneficial or not or detrimental, right? And for which age groups? Because what might be perfectly appropriate for somebody in their 30s may not be so for somebody in their teens. This used to be well understood, but now apparently, you know, people are resistant to this because I think convenience. I think a lot of people just find it very convenient

[00:23:57] to give their kids a tablet and then the kid shuts up. Really. Like, I think that's, it's easier. I get it. It's just like the television was. Put the kid in front of the TV, turn it on, put some cartoons on, and then the kid leaves you alone for a while. Like, I understand that. One of the arguments that I hear all the time, though, about why we can't ban the cell phones in class is for safety. And I don't buy this argument either.

[00:24:27] All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do too, and you've probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check.ground.news slash Pete. I put the link

[00:24:56] in the podcast description too. I started using Ground News a few months ago, and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The Blind Spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. check.ground.news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link, and you'll get 15% off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then

[00:25:26] not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. All right, so the smartphones in schools. Like, this is now, it's becoming very obvious, so much so that even GovCo has started to ban the smartphones in schools. There was a debate about this in the North Carolina House on a committee where they moved the bill

[00:25:54] through their committee that would curb student cell phone use during classroom instruction time, and one of the people who spoke against it was a Democrat from Durham, Representative Marsha Morey. This woman was a judge, by the way, and she questioned the bill for its potential to limit parents' contact with their child in schools.

[00:26:24] Now, this woman, Marsha Morey, she's, I believe, older than I am, and, and, not to be insulting or anything, but she remembers a time before kids were in constant communication with everybody and parents in constant communication with their kids throughout the school day. So, like, you have a personal memory of the way things were before everybody had

[00:26:52] a supercomputer in their pocket, right? She says, I think the idea behind this bill is really good, and if I were a teacher, I would really like it. When I have gotten some emails from constituents, it's been the parents. They are worried about being in touch with their child, especially if it's an emergency, if it's an active shooter, they want to be in touch with their kids. Right? So, first off, and I've heard this argument, too.

[00:27:23] First off, the school shooter scenario is such a rare phenomenon. It is so rare. Right? This is not a realistic fear. I understand it's a fear, but it's not a realistic one because the chance of it happening is so remote, number one. Number two, if it is an active shooting situation,

[00:27:54] why would you want your kid to have a phone that might ring while they're hiding or that they might be calling you and talking to you and then the perpetrator hears them? Why would you want to set the conditions for that kind of a scenario? video? Also, if there are instructions that are being given, you want your kid to hear them, not to be trying to dial out.

[00:28:24] And also, what exactly do you intend to do? What is the point of the communication? Right? It's, right, because you can't, you're, you know, you're at work or you're at home, you're miles away, you can't stop that thing from happening, you can't come and save them, so what is the purpose of the communication? Is it to tell them that you love them in a very scary situation? Right? You should tell them you love them before they go to school every day.

[00:28:55] Right? So this way there's never any doubt. Is it to provide comfort in that moment? Right? Okay. But does that outweigh all of the other potential harms? The downsides there. Are they going to be so worried talking to you, trying to get comforted, that they, that they don't do what might be necessary

[00:29:24] to save themselves? And again, this is a very, very, very rare thing anyway. So I don't, I really don't put a lot of weight behind this argument. Because again, there are no solutions, there are only trade-offs. The trade-offs here are so far in one direction versus keeping the smartphones. Right? Banning them in the classroom, you can, like they have lockers or bags,

[00:29:53] you can put them in that, you know, then they're out of sight, out of mind. Like the studies are all, they're all on the same page with this stuff. Like, even having a smartphone, like, oh, I'll just keep it at my desk and I won't turn it on. That's distracting. They've done studies on that too. You sit at a desk and you're taking a test and you have your smartphone next to you, the brain keeps wanting to go over and grab it and turn it on. It is still

[00:30:23] a distraction. You have to take the thing out of the room. It's got to be set aside somewhere. I went to one school, I recently visited, gave a speech to a couple classes and this school had all of the cell phones out in the hallway. They had a big rack and all the kids would come and they would plug their phones in and sit them on the rack. And then during the switching of the classes, they could come over and pick their phones up. And they

[00:30:52] could Snapchat away or whatever for the minute that they have. So there are things you can do to mitigate this because the harm being done to the kids in the instructional time, I think it's pretty clear what's happening. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to

[00:31:22] thepetecalendershow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.