Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington October 21, 2023

What is Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington?

Veteran's Affairs Plus discusses the issues that veterans in Las Vegas deal with on a daily basis. Your host, David L. Washington connects listeners with relevant community resources and information that they need to help veterans or themselves.

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Unknown Speaker 0:41
You can see what's going on what's going on? What's going on. Good morning, Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more. I am Dave Washington, your host. As always, I got to start out with a few announcements, man. We got birthdays in the month of October and I gave you many last week. But additionally, my game is celebrating a birthday this month. And our community guy, DJ extraordinaire, talker, community activist Luke Collins has a birthday this month. And before we get into our guests is Dr. Shannon. And we will talk a little bit about what he's got going on and what he's been doing to assist my nephew. Brian rolling and getting his barbershop going. So with that we're going to have Miss Cassandra. Cassandra, I don't know why I want to call you Cassandra, Sandra Marshall. She is the president of the American Legion Post 10 Women's auxilary. And they got a lot of stuff going on. I thought it would be nice to hear her voice. Good morning, sister.

Unknown Speaker 1:57
Good morning. How are you?

Unknown Speaker 1:59
I am well. And I appreciate you so much for coming in with the 45 minutes notice. And don't tell your husband. You have to tell him because he can sit down. He didn't give me 20 minutes. Anyway. All right. So tell us what you guys got going on. If he would?

Unknown Speaker 2:17
October the 14th. That's this Saturday, we have our auxilary monthly meeting. So I said he's never been a him. After the meeting. We're going to honor Legionnaire Leonard green with a plaque dedication. He's the one that does all the building murals. Right. So that that'd be a great. A great dedication.

Unknown Speaker 2:39
Absolutely. Let me just add this. He is a great individual and a prolific I don't know if prolific is the right word for for an actual visual type artists. I know it prolific goes well with writing but for sure. Leonard is very, very good. And he greatly appreciate he does tremendous work. I remember when I became fire chief, he he painted a picture of me in a fire engine on the window of the Heritage Lounge. I was like, man, it's very good likeness of me. Go get go. Yeah, absolutely go yes, this

Unknown Speaker 3:14
October 21. We will be having our country Westering party dance starts at 7pm and that will be at the post is a ticketed event which will be $10 per person. And you can pay at the door. We will be having food, a DJ and raffles and a lot of play. What day again? That's October the 21st. Okay, that's the third Saturday this month.

Unknown Speaker 3:45
You know? Yeah, yeah. We got Dora Dora le grandes 70th birthday party that night anyway, maybe I'll try to get by anyway. For you.

Unknown Speaker 3:58
Okay, that will be great. He is working on a once a year event to show our appreciation to our auxiliary members. And we don't have a date yet. We're still working on that process. October 31. At 5pm we're gonna have a trunk or treat. That'll be in the parking lot of the post. That's our Halloween Halloween celebrations for the community children. So we're going to give them plenty of candy. Sorry, parents. We're gonna give them plenty of candy hotdogs, chips and jukeboxes juice boxes and water. Okay. All right. So that'd be a big event. Absolutely, absolutely. Veterans Day, which is November the 11th. We will be participating in a post and parade the post at the auxilary and afterwards, we're planning to have just like fingerfood He's

Unknown Speaker 5:01
at the post. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 5:04
Something else that's in the making, that the auxilary is doing is communities bike light, right? That means we're gonna, we're gonna get the kids and adults who can. We're gonna be riding bikes in the community. And we don't have a date as to when that's gonna happen yet, but that's in the process.

Unknown Speaker 5:25
Okay, that sounds good. But but please do it before it gets too cold. Oh, yeah. Because I might I might fix my wife's little bike and come out with you. Yes.

Unknown Speaker 5:34
Okay, great. Yeah, the more the better. Right. The kids will love it. And we love it. Also. We are planning on a bingo night and a crash night. Yeah, we're working. Very busy.

Unknown Speaker 5:49
I can tell and I can hear it. And you know what? I'm glad I did make contact with you. Because you got some additional things since you guys were on the show that you're embarking upon. And it's greatly appreciated. Because the more activities and particularly getting young folks involved, I think it's admirable of you guys to do that.

Unknown Speaker 6:08
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we're all about our veterans and our community. They want to serve.

Unknown Speaker 6:14
Absolutely. All right. Is there anything else before we let you go?

Unknown Speaker 6:21
Let me just give a little shout out to some classmates of mine that are here in town on a conference from Cambridge, Maryland. That's Jerome and Vicky Stanley. And they are here and she made me so proud. But I am so proud of her. She told me today, she said, You will be so proud of me. She said I joined the American Legion. Oh, wonderful. That's awesome. We don't get in there and make a difference. Excellent. I'm really proud of her and shout out to them and safe journey when they leave on Thursday. Okay, that's in Cambridge, merrily. All right,

Unknown Speaker 7:01
Madam President, once again, we appreciate you coming on to give some updates on some of the activities that you guys are embarking upon. Thank you so much, and take care. Thank you. Have a great day. All right, tell Tony. I said what up? I will. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more. On the other side, we'll have Dr. Shannon, who has some good news to share. He's a friend of the barber, my nephew, Brian Rowland. So we'll be right back.

Unknown Speaker 7:40
Once again, good morning, Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 Jazz and more. Got West keeping me on track and I'm excited about the fact that we have Mr. Dr. Shannon, in the house this morning. And we're going to talk about his involvement with my nephew in the barbershop called politics,

Unknown Speaker 8:00
politics politics, barbershop, politics barbershop.

Unknown Speaker 8:03
What a name it because we know when you go to the barber shop, the beauty shop, the beauty parlor, whatever they call it today. There's a lot of discussion that goes on. So that's an apropos name. So tell us a little bit about that. We're particularly for a listening audience. Where are you from? And where were you raised?

Unknown Speaker 8:23
Believe it or not, I'm born and raised in Las Vegas. I'm a native. And I had too many of us here but I'm born and raised in Las Vegas on the west side of Las Vegas. been here all my life I went to school. I actually graduate from Clark High School, went to Rancho High School for for a couple years. Then I moved when to Clark High School my last year my senior graduate from there and actually met Brian at Rancho Rancho Yes, I met Brian we. I met him probably around 615 16 years old. You know, I was ticketing and 10th graders somewhere around there.

Unknown Speaker 9:00
Well, Clark, that's my alma mater. Okay, I did not graduate. I got kicked out of my junior year. And my class graduated in 1970. I got a GED. I said, You know what, I got the book. I studied that book. And they were surprised that I was able to pass that test. I forget what the test is called. But anyway, I passed the test and they were surprised they said, Gosh, you did okay in English. I love to read. And I think I I get sentence structure from from all the reading that that I that I that I had done. And I continue to do in fact, I encourage my my grandchildren our children had to read. During the summer when school was out. I want you to know who you are as a people. And it's important. And oh, they would moan and groan in fact now I'm doing it with my grandchild. I think it's important because reading is a loss. I don't know if you'd call it an art but and I give them reading assignments because I think it's important for for folks to read.

Unknown Speaker 10:01
No, I believe that I mean strongly to my oldest son. He's He's a reader. I mean, he loves to read. He's he's in college now. And he actually goes to West Point. He's back on West Point. Yeah, he's he's back in New York when I'm playing football, Army football. Yeah, so position. He played well, he's played running back tonight, he got removed to receiver. So we met a fact we just came back from New York, the army net, the army, Boston College game, and happened to happen to lose about three points.

Unknown Speaker 10:32
So how did he do

Unknown Speaker 10:33
it? He didn't dress out this last game, but it got he had that he got doing during training to a spring training he, he he taught us PEC muscle. So so he's still kind of going through the whole process.

Unknown Speaker 10:46
Well let him know that we wish him well. And this is a veterans affairs show. So one day, we'll get him on the show. To represent the family as a veteran. That's cool. Yeah. So what is it? What does he study?

Unknown Speaker 10:57
He is studying was sociology I believe? Yeah. Sociology. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 11:04
You know, for former United States Senator Richard Bryan, I used to serve on a on a committee for him, which helped to for the various What do you call them the academies? Yeah. And I, you know, one of my jobs that, you know, nobody has to tell people to ensure that some blacks and browns get opportunity, but they have that notice stuff. Yeah, yeah, maybe half steppin. So how did he get his designation of did he get a designation to go? Or did he just apply? So

Unknown Speaker 11:31
so he actually his he got offered a scholarship for football. And then he went to the prep school first. And then when he went to West Point, we got to get letters. So he got a letter from all the sinister here in town. He got like four senators, and I believe, if I'm not mistaken, he even got a recommendation from the Vice President to Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 11:54
cool. Those those letters helped me. And then besides that, too, though, you got to have the grade point average. And that's one of the things that they part of the evaluation process. And then how do you handle yourself and all that stuff we take a look at for sure. But that was a proud moment for me to to serve on such a committee. So we born and raised here

Unknown Speaker 12:16
born and raised native here in Las Vegas all my life. Yes. So what is your occupation and what is your profession? So what I do, I'm a residential designer here in town I design I have a firm called Black Rock custom designs. We design high end custom homes, and I'm also in partnership with a company called terra firma. We owned about maybe 40 lots out in the garden Highlands area, and we do stew. He's big mansions, you know, for anywhere from no 10,000 We don't house now about 50,000 square feet. Wow. So that's that's kind of I've been doing that for the last probably 31 years now. Yeah, really? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 12:55
So you've been associated with with this other company that that build the big house and you are part of that team?

Unknown Speaker 13:01
I am. I am. Yeah, we actually started together. We started about 2020. It's called terra firma. And we started there, and we, we gotta get a good team of people that work with us and we just moving forward. Yeah, it's really it

Unknown Speaker 13:18
is that is excellent. That is excellent. So how many on you got your company and then your partner in another company?

Unknown Speaker 13:26
So I have my company's called Black Rock and I'm partnering in a company called terra firma.

Unknown Speaker 13:30
So staffing on both sides. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 13:33
so it's small. Now we have we have made probably in the whole company, probably around

Unknown Speaker 13:38
2020 own with both companies with both but

Unknown Speaker 13:41
we both come here and we're growing, we're growing. So and what we're trying to do is one of the things that I've learned in my career you know, like I said, 3031 some years it's not to get too big too fast and not to house so many people we want to we want to focus in on quality of the homes you know, taking our time getting the quality getting these people that come in to us there's been a

Unknown Speaker 14:09
lot of money No, you

Unknown Speaker 14:13
want to make sure that they get exactly what they stand for and they get the quality that they deserve and me

Unknown Speaker 14:19
excellent excellent. Well young man I don't know you but I'm proud of you because I think that anytime see it 33 years is a lot of people know what Las Vegas Fire and Rescue great retirement, but the people I admire most like a frank Hawkins Frank has been doing this to get so he got several different businesses. I talked to him yesterday and he told me out and I won't even put it out to y'all I asked him but he just do we get so many businessmen it my head starts spinning. I mean, you got to keep up with a lot of stuff. And and I say that because again when you're working for the government, or someone else, or you got to do to be efficient, and some people aren't efficient, be on time, have integrity, commitment to whatever it is you're doing. And your checkbook come, generally every two weeks. Now, when you owe your business, you got to grind, you got to hit. And then as people counting on us to ensure that you get these contracts, that they can maintain their work experience, and get paid.

Unknown Speaker 15:26
It's a task, man. You gotta like what you said, you gotta keep the grind going. And making sure that that the business it flourishes. Yes,

Unknown Speaker 15:35
and you can do it. And you've been doing this for 3131 years. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 15:39
I when I when I left, when I graduate from Clark, I went out to less almost like a junior college in Arizona for architecture and went out there that I came back probably since roughly 9192. I think I started my career as a just a junior brat. It's funny, he got tough everybody back then. Money's not the way it was, it is today. I started off, I was probably making like seven bucks an hour. I thought I was rich. Man, I got so much money, like rolling into. I thought it has so much more, but then just just starting as a young young drafter and just learning my way just learning you know,

Unknown Speaker 16:19
so the next level would be architect and where you sit so so

Unknown Speaker 16:23
well. What I do, I'm like, I'm licensed and Vatta and I'm licensed as a residential designer, I just do home to residential. I don't do any any commercial work. So the next level from that would be an architect you can do both are gonna do commercial work, and residential. I just specialize in residential homes.

Unknown Speaker 16:45
And let me see this man, as I see buildings, man, because I'm writing I got this little part time job with Frank Hawkins. And I'm looking at these what he called the cranes. Man like, and they think that firefighting or police work is this and that, like, man, ain't no way I, first of all, who's stalking that stuff to get up there? And I know they're working from from I'm assuming from monitors. They looking down? Man, first you gotta get up there.

Unknown Speaker 17:16
It's funny because they said that the sphere I think they had one of the largest crane in the world working on that sphere. One of the largest one they had they had to had to have other cranes to build it. You know, to stack a one of the largest in the world had to have it shipped over. I think it's like from Jeremy Smith. Yes,

Unknown Speaker 17:33
I saw what he had all the stuff that make the roundness of it. Staged right across from from the fashion show mall, and it was trucks bring this down like, man, what's going on? He's just starting to go together like, wow, look, I just want to get a lot of background from share that with people out there and in our listening audience now I want to swing to your involvement with Brian with politics. So the barber shop and and you guys have been known each other since

Unknown Speaker 18:05
since since high school. So it was just some work here. So we've been always like that since we were kids. When Brian I think he went to barber school in Texas, in Houston, I believe. But when he came back to Vegas I'd say probably maybe like a cup of maybe a year or so before he got self established. I remember I had I had just had my kids my two boys and we started selling almost as are going to prom up in northern Brian follow me and Brian was to kind of we'd be kicking buddies used to go back and forth to California, you know, in our early 20s And just, you know, kind of did a little thing, you know, Luxus but um, we I started going to him with me and my two boys. Brian, pretty much when they were just like, like toddlers like really young, right? And and as I got older and Brian, he actually worked at a popsicle in a cut the same spot we're at right now. And we had just had conversation I say, Brian, have you ever thought about owning your own barber shop? I see. You know, this person got one person got one but Well, I mean, you ever thought about it? He's like, Man, I thought about de se but you always call me Do you have no ID? No, no, no, I might be somebody who asked me You know, I call. I said as soon as as soon as I get my money right soon because it gets the stuff together, man, we should try to strike it and get it get a shot together. We should get one and now we're just like, we just talked about it. Years pass on us pass on and things just happened. You know, I'm a strong believer in God. You know, and I think things happen you know, God put things in position to work when it's supposed to work. And I just truly believe that and so I've been blessed I've been blessed to where with my job and my business is doing very very well. You know even with the partnership new company things are really happening well for me and it's nothing but the HANA the kind of caught doing that. And so Brian had a call me he said like, Hey, I got a call from from the owner of it. His name is called Jack in the cut and he's like you want to get rid of it man. He said he had a call a couple of people before me. And they didn't answer the phone and he's out for the first one to answer. He's like, you know, he wants to sell the shop. So I think Norwich I'd be No, me and my boy d been talking about this for a long time he'd been out to eat it's always out looking for spaces to space. I've been driving around calling roadster everything and look for spaces. And so he comments against it. He you know, he was a selfish type man. I mean, you want to win get to don't want to do it. I say, you know, a man, let's do it. And so we jumped on it, we jumped on and we got it done. And we got it a whole entire shop down. And you know, we just got it all out, cleaned it out. And, and by me being the design I am you know, in in what I do, I say, you know, we're gonna make this shop, the baddest shop in town, you know, we're gonna make it we're gonna make it what it needs to be. And so we just, I really, I have my, my interior designer works for me. I came out and also my wife and me. She's a graphic artist. She did all the are your wife is a graphic artist. She's a graduate, she works for the she worked for the district attorney's office. But background has a graphic artist. So she did the logo for us all the branding, you know, and we just we do as a team. And Brian, he pretty much came up with that name. I mean, even before we had the shot, I mean, we was talking and Brian was like, the name politics, I go politics. He's like, Man, I got seen as the store in California, you know, and every time we come to the shop, we always talking about different issues or things I've asked, he's like, if we ever get a shop together, we're going to politics. And so that's how today came. He came up with the name, you know, and they kind of came up with a little a color scheme. And that's kind of how it all got started.

Unknown Speaker 21:50
You know, the the address, often Yes, so we can share that with our public because you know, one thing about Las Vegas and I know this from a previous business that I was in, I was the chairman of the board for, in fact, Brian's father, new ventures Capital Development Company. And we we did long packaging man all over the place. And one thing I know, earnest would always share stats, we were over 20,000. That's not a lot. When you compare it to for Hispanics, for example, I think they between six and 800,000. Wow. Yes, yes. And we're at the time that last time I looked, we were like maybe 250 to 60. But the point is, we live all over the place. Yeah. Because I was thinking, why the heck way out here. But black folks live everywhere. And then to include, as you train, from what I've seen him go into some of the barber schools, you got to you got no idea what you're about to say. That's right, because you never know who might drop me and I better know your stuff. And so it came about as a result of just knowing that people talk about this. And he saw something in California too. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 22:55
he saw the name California. So he came without data, because he just jumped up. But the actual logo, the name everything, and we just moved to put it into motion, man, we like I said, you know, God opened door for us. And we stepped through it.

Unknown Speaker 23:15
You know, you know, when you talk about that, you know, when I became the fire chief, for Las Vegas, man, God was sending me so many different messages and people thought I was losing my mind. You know? What if you don't get it, they think and I'm gonna chop off. So look, I love me. But God has given me so many messages that if you don't respond, the blessing, we'll go somewhere else. And the other thing that that I want to roll into to knowing and I consider myself more than religious. I'm a more spiritual. Yeah, that's what I feel. You know, and, and just hearing you talk, man, you know that when God puts things there, you got to take action. Or again, they'll go away. And the other thing I really admire that I want to talk about is you scholarship to young man. Yeah, I should talk a little bit about that. Because, you know, that brought tears to my eyes. Because see a lot of people talk a good game. Do they talk a good game? But see when you put stuff into action, man, and I guarantee you and I know, you know, what do you call it? I can see way down the road that I got all that No, I don't have all of that. But I guarantee you that young man is going to do well and he's going to he's going to pay it forward. He's going to help somebody as he gets us up together because he's young. Yeah, but I'm looking at him smiling man. He was like and I got a picture him and his mom in fact that my phone that I'm gonna use at some point because I think it's it's admirable what you did. So give us a little bit about that.

Unknown Speaker 24:44
So so that his name is Zhu Zhu Bosley, so, so Brian and I, we had a real close friend asked who was my roommate. His name was Kevin Bosley. He had passed away years ago. Probably I guess now what 19 year, maybe like 17 years ago, somewhere around there anyway, his job was his son. You know, he was a baby when his father passed, he's good friends with us. He's in front of the whole family, him and his mom. And he was at the house one day and I'm just kind of just chopping up with him just coincidence kind of seeing what he what he's doing because I would like said, Bo, I have one son at West Point. My other son is actually closer to you know, V, my youngest son, he's 19 he's studying computer science. So I'm just coming up with a hey, you know, Jews like, what's going on? What you may have been going and stuff? No, how you doing? No, I What do you want to do with your life? I'm just kind of just picking his brain and say, You know what? I think I want to I think I want to be a barber, you know, so he just kind of this this as should be for we had the shop, I believe. It's like, I think want to be a barber. So Oh, yeah. I said, Why don't we do this? Well, you know, because some of our friends and everything you know, and I think you know this kind of this kind of like when I kind of want to do so when he told me kind of stuck to me. No. And so fast forward a little bit, you know, we kind of got the shop and everything. And then I woke up every morning, I wake up and I pray. And and God put that on my spirit. Put that on my spirits. You know what? I want you to know, my wife had had made mention of it beforehand. But he put that on my spirit said this is what I want to do. And I just put it into motion. Wow.

Unknown Speaker 26:25
So interesting. Yeah, I just believe, you know, you can sometimes feel the person spirit. He just seems like he's a good young man. Yeah, you know, you can feel in that. And I tell how much he loves his mom. And he, like I say, I gotta pitch everyone, but he just smiled at me. But when he when that check shot up, I'm like, this is doing what we supposed to do if we can help someone.

Unknown Speaker 26:48
And that's what it's about. I mean, I mean, you see a lot of people, and we talked about a lot of times to about our own community. But how you see a lot of different communities helping each other You see, like the Asian community, the Hispanic community, you know, you see all these communities, like, when when when I community when someone does well do good, you know, you know, a lot of time you don't really see them giving back, you know, I'm sure we need to give back, we should give back and help other people and, and this is something that that you know, that that it might not just be the one the one I might continue to do something, right. But just to help back because, you know, it's called come full force back on you as well. More you help anything, you always gonna be positive and be blessed. But, but we need to help back, you know, and that's just something that was in my heart.

Unknown Speaker 27:35
Absolutely. Well, I admire that. And I hope God continue to bless you. But would you please share? Because obviously, Brian had a dream this young man, he has dreams, what would you say to our listening audience, whether they're veterans or whomever young Oh, to keep pushing for some dream that you may have? What was the inspiration?

Unknown Speaker 27:59
The one thing that this isn't my wife always telling me too is like, stay positive, don't ever have negative energy in you stay positive. If you have a dream, I mean, the dream of me the partnership that I have with my architectural company, was a dream of mine, I've always dreamed having an investor come right. partner up with an investor and allow me to build a design home. That was my dream years ago, that dream came to fruition, that was my dream. Keep dreaming, keep being positive and keep pushing forward. And what I believe is if you if you being a positive person, you know, and keep dreaming that dream and moving forward and that aspiration, that that will come come to fruition. I believe that Brian kept dreaming, you know, we talked about he had dreamed that and he came in he came in and he's so happy. I mean, final CLOUD NINE you know, he got nine getting everything done so so I'm happy for him. I'm happy that you know, we can make this happen. And it's just it's a blast all around.

Unknown Speaker 29:13
Will ladies and gentlemen out there we have Mr. Dr. Shannon, he is a a partner with Brian in the barber shop, politics, politics, give the address again if he was

Unknown Speaker 29:24
6415 South Fort Apache in his suite 120. All right, so and we opened we opened in a barber shop from Tuesdays and Saturdays, you know from from nine to six. Well,

Unknown Speaker 29:37
once again, this is vintage affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more. We will talk to you all next week. And thank you for coming I really appreciate Thank you Wes.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai