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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.
Announcer 0:00
This is a KU NV studios original program.
Wesley Knight 0:04
You're listening to special programming sponsored by making moves, life coaching services. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. You
Music 0:30
you can see what's going great
Dave Washington 0:50
day Las Vegas. Great day Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host, and shortly after I make a few announcements, we'll get a pastor up Church on the line pretty excited about something that will be occurring in his life that's pretty exciting, so we'll talk to him shortly. Certainly want to acknowledge and send out condolences to our dear friends, the mother and father of Daphne Whitson, that's Thomas and their dear mother, Claudette. They lost her most recently, and what a wonderful young lady she is. And by and by, it is my intent to try to get one of her best friends on the line and including our daughter Amber and a couple other young ladies who knew her well, but tragic loss, but only God knows, and we thank her for all the work that she did and her commitment to life and her family. So again to the Winson family birthdays, Ramon Savoy, Brenda Williams, Bobby McRoy, Kim Scott, Lois green Commissioner William McCurdy, oh. We have Bishop John, John James Rogers, cousin Carolyn Jordan. We have judge Belinda Harris. Number of birthdays this month to include Sandra Douglas Morgan over there with the raiders and the basketball team and all that good stuff that they're doing over there in our world, in Las Vegas, as we prepare for an NBA team to come to our city, Curtis green, April Harris, Lana King, Brenda. Dave is an ancestor. Great guy. Steve short, man, I learned so much about from Steve about how to raise money when you're doing different functions within the community. And DeMarco Lewis, and with respect to raising money, I should say pastor, as you listen in, Steve shore knew how to go get the money. So speaking of that, most recently, I had a birthday party 70 celebrating my 75th birthday. I said, I'm going to be three quarters of a century. So why don't we raise some money? And we did, and we'll be putting it out soon to all that the Dr William Bill and Cherie Sullivan, they have an endowment here, here at a foundation, I should say, here at the university, we'll be providing them 4500 also to our daughter, April's look back program. She do a lot of wonderful work assisting people in the community. And I mentioned endowment, the Carl homes, executive development endowment, each one of those groups, we were able to raise, once again, 4500 for each group. And they're doing tremendous work, and we feel very blessed and thankful to all those who made that happen. So with that, I'm going to introduce a colleague. We work both work for the City of Las Vegas. Pastor, up, cheat, up, up church. How you doing, sir?
Pastor Upchurch 3:53
I'm doing fine. Dave, good,
n/a 3:55
good.
Dave Washington 3:56
A long time. Yes, sir, yes, sir. In fact, I think the last time I saw you, and I could be wrong, because my mind be slipping sometimes faster, was with Louis Connor, who his services. That's one of the last and I probably seen you since then, but I just don't remember. So you've been doing okay, huh?
Pastor Upchurch 4:15
Yeah, I've been doing that. Been doing well. Dave,
Dave Washington 4:18
excellent. Excellent.
Pastor Upchurch 4:19
Quite well,
Dave Washington 4:20
excellent. Got a couple questions for you, and then I want to talk about this exciting trip you're about to go on coming up shortly. So pastor, where were you born and raised?
Pastor Upchurch 4:30
I was born in Chicago, Illinois, provident hospital, 1945 February 15.
Dave Washington 4:37
February 15. Oh my goodness, Chicago. Yeah, a dear friend. She's the Fire Commissioner, and Aunt Nance Hope is the Fire Commissioner for the Chicago Fire Department. In fact, went to our fire school, the Carl Holmes executive development institute. She came in as a lieutenant, and ultimately went right up through the ranks to run that entire department. Now I think it's maybe second, third largest in this in the whole country. So pastor, what branch of military Did you serve in and how long?
Pastor Upchurch 5:08
Yeah, I was. I enlisted 1963 in the Air Force, and I retired here at Nellis Air Force Base. In 1985 I completed 22 years, one month and 13 days,
Dave Washington 5:24
got it down, huh? Oh, that's wonderful. So what was your job in the military?
Pastor Upchurch 5:31
I had three jobs. I started off as a as a hospital, dietary cook. Three and
Dave Washington 5:38
a
Pastor Upchurch 5:38
half years,
Dave Washington 5:39
okay?
Pastor Upchurch 5:40
And then I said I was going, I need to get out of the cooking business. And I went into the ordinance business, where I was weapons mechanic, and I was loading all various ordinance on various aircrafts, primary air force, the aircraft. And my last job was, I thought that that wasn't exciting enough, so I volunteered and went into I was in explosive Explosive Ordinance Disposal
Dave Washington 6:11
my
Pastor Upchurch 6:11
last 14 years in in the military.
Dave Washington 6:15
Wow, that's I'm thinking off the top of my head, similar to bomb squad for. And you say it was ordinance that, yeah, ordinance me in my mind and correct me if I'm wrong. That means some kind of big bomb,
Pastor Upchurch 6:31
big bombs, little bombs, improvised explosive devices, anything chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear, we could. We had to learn it all
Dave Washington 6:43
and how many years you spent in that area of responsibility.
Pastor Upchurch 6:46
That was my, that was my last 14 years in service. Dave,
Dave Washington 6:50
wow. So cooking, dietitian cooking. I did my 24 actually 28 months as a cook in the army, and got out and actually wanted to be a gourmet cook, but that didn't quite pan out, and wind up joining the fire department. That is very interesting. So no desire, though, after you got out, because I know that in terms of bomb squad for for this valley, it's Las Vegas Fire and Rescue. In fact, that's all that attachment came through the FBI. And I remember when Sheriff Bill Young took over, there some guys in his in his leadership roles, they wanted to, they wanted bomb squad. We're like, No, we're keeping this in FBI. We met with them, and they said, Yeah, there'll be one bomb squad in this jurisdiction. And right now, until anything changes, it is Las Vegas Fire and Rescue. So that's very interesting, very interesting. So how did you went? You also came to the city?
Pastor Upchurch 7:46
Yes, when I retired, Dave, I didn't I was putting in applications, and so I met a guy down at the state employment office. He was retired, e8 and he says, hey, you know, the prisons are hiring all the time. I said, what corrections you say, yeah, they're hiring all the time. I work, you know, and, and so I said, Okay, now here I am, you know. I go from cook ordinance DOD and his corrections. And so I went now, I applied, and I worked at southern desert for about nine months, and then I changed over to the city. That's where we you know, we met, and I went over city in 85 and I retired in 98
Dave Washington 8:44
so how many years you do that with the city?
Pastor Upchurch 8:47
I did about 14.
Dave Washington 8:48
Okay, all right, that is excellent. So yeah, that's where the passion I met with a great guy, you know, very stable man, keep wild guys like me on track. Greatly appreciate it. So
Pastor Upchurch 9:04
you
Pastor Upchurch 9:04
know what it was about cooperation, and you know that what it was treating each other with mutual respect, and you had a job to do, and I had a job to do, and we, we, you know, we did it together.
Dave Washington 9:19
That's right, absolutely, absolutely. So you say you, you moved to Las Vegas, and what was it? 85
Pastor Upchurch 9:26
No, no, I got, I got stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in 1983
Dave Washington 9:31
okay,
Pastor Upchurch 9:32
my wife, and she was in the military. Also, she was a, she was a full fuel system repair technician. And we had met, we had gotten married at Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, and so we met, we went to we went to Germany, and so we got stationed here at Nellis. And what she did was she out at 11 years and. Then when I retired in 1985 she went into the reserves. So she finished 13 years in the reserves, and she's a veteran of Desert Storm.
Dave Washington 10:12
Okay, all right, yeah, we have to get her on sometime to give us some indication of her experience. So tell us I happen to see and I said, when I saw you on TV the other night, I said, I know Pastor of church, so it's pretty exciting about particularly as they discussed how Vietnam and I'm a Vietnam era veteran, but when I went in, they were winding down. In fact, I was last of the draftees. So tell us a little bit about your experience there, and also about what you're getting ready to embark upon you and some of the others flying back to Washington.
Pastor Upchurch 10:50
Okay, I left. Well, actually I did. I volunteered. I was stationed in Japan, the sour Air Base Japan, and then I volunteered to go to Vietnam. And the reason was, it wasn't, you know, I was just that gung ho, I was getting ready to reenlist. And so if I reenlist in Vietnam, I would get tax free money.
Dave Washington 11:14
So
Pastor Upchurch 11:15
that was,
Dave Washington 11:16
that
Pastor Upchurch 11:16
was an, you know, what an incentive to go to Vietnam. I just to get tax free reenlistment bonus,
Arkee Hodges 11:22
right, right?
Pastor Upchurch 11:23
But that's how I ended up in Vietnam in 1970 and went there. And so what I was doing that was my second job. I was primarily loading ordinance bombs, rockets, and we even got some new it was new then, but that was 1975 things have changed, ordinance wise. And so that's what I was doing. I was loading munitions on, primarily for sea aircraft. And then one of the jobs we had was to put munitions and fuel aircraft that were already on alert status, to get pilots back up to support troops in the field, ground, ground support with with the aircraft dead. So that was primarily
Dave Washington 12:16
your job. Yeah. Look, I want to check with my engineer, producer, director, see if I can get a couple additional minutes with you. Because I think you, I think now I want you to talk about this trip you're getting ready to go on because I think it's important. That's one of the main reasons. And we talked about a lot of tell us a little bit about that.
Pastor Upchurch 12:34
Well, let me take I completed the trip. I came back Sunday. Oh,
Dave Washington 12:39
okay.
Pastor Upchurch 12:39
And it was a, it was what they call Honor Flight. And they select, you select veterans we had on this trip. We had Korean War Vietnam vets. And it was, well, you know, World War Two is not many left, right? And so what they do, they select veterans to go on these trips, and it is primarily to go and visit the memorials,
Dave Washington 13:08
the
Pastor Upchurch 13:09
Second World War Memorial, Vietnam, Korean war memorials. And also they had memorials for nurses,
Dave Washington 13:17
right?
Pastor Upchurch 13:18
And also they had an Iwo Jima award. And so we also, I got a chance to see the changing of the guard at Arlington Cemetery. So it was we left Friday, Saturday. I mean, we didn't come back. We saw everything on Saturday, and we came back Sunday. So
Dave Washington 13:36
how are you selected?
Pastor Upchurch 13:38
How
Dave Washington 13:38
are you selected?
Pastor Upchurch 13:40
Major Isaac, who was a jrot commander at Cheyenne High School, where, where I teach at he came to me, and he was one that initiated
Dave Washington 13:50
it,
Pastor Upchurch 13:50
and that's how, then they have a selection list
Dave Washington 13:53
and
Pastor Upchurch 13:54
interviewed, and that's, that's how we selected Dave.
Dave Washington 13:57
All right. Well, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. Pastor, up church, a colleague of mine with the City of Las Vegas military veteran, in fact, Vietnam actually went to Vietnam. So we thank you for your time, and I think it was important for people to know some of the things that you accomplish in our city. So pastor, thank you so much for coming on, particularly at short notice. Thank you, Dave. Appreciate you for all the for these many years. Thank you for the friendship and blessings my brother. All right, thank you, sir. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs. Plus signing off for this segment, we'll be back with a king Hodges with the black achievement fund. You once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host. And as I mentioned on the other side, we had pastor up church, and I mentioned that we would have, ah King. I. I Hodges these the president of the Black achievement fund. So once again, pleased to have him. He's been on here several times in the past, and when I talked to him earlier this morning, told me about some of the exciting things that he was embarking upon, so I thought it'd be good idea to get him on. So how you doing, sir,
Arkee Hodges 15:18
I'm doing great. Brother Washington yourself.
Dave Washington 15:21
Can't complain. Can't complain. Tell us about some of the things that you're got going on. And like I said, as I mentioned a second ago, some pretty exciting stuff that you're moving toward completion of. And I know it's a while off yet, but you're still working toward long as you're getting something done that means that there's some there's motion, and there's movement, and that's a good game. Good thing called progress.
Arkee Hodges 15:48
Absolutely, absolutely the First off, let me just remind everyone what the black achieving fund is all about. We are a nonprofit, 501, c3, economic and community development corporation. And our mission is very simple. We're trying to finance our own development through collective economics, 10 million of us, $9 a month, equals 90 million a month, and over a billion dollars a year. Just ponder that for a while. The Black achievement funds. First major project is a new retreat and residential community called our new Kim retreat. And what we're trying to do, essentially, is rebuild all of those great towns and retreats that we used to have, doing segregation that we no longer have. So this is our first community. We have 112 acres here in tombsboro, Georgia, which is two hours south of Atlanta, between Macon and Milledgeville. And we are building 40 a frame homes here on one acre lots. We're building our very first two right now in our first mini subdivision. So I'm super, super excited. We're about three quarters complete, complete of our first house, which is 31 feet tall, three floors, but is really a work of art, and it's all inspired by ancient Kemet. So we, you know, want all you guys to pay attention to what we're doing, because we're creating this community as a model community, because we're trying to showcase what we can achieve right now without waiting on anyone, without government assistance, without foundation support, without corporate support, with our own dollars. And just to give you an example, when first off, we're not waiting for 10 million people. We purchased our first six acres of land in 24 months, with 159 people across 22 states donating approximately $40 a month. And yeah, and we own the land outright, no mortgage. And I'm literally standing in front of it, and I'm watching the sunset on it. So I'm telling all of our members that you know, for those of you who haven't contributed to our fundraiser to build our first pyramid home on our collectively owned land, please, please do so, but more so I really, really want our people to think about the moment that we're in, and understand that the black achievement fund is taking a giant effort in trying to steer us back to towards a reality that was far more fruitful for us, that gave us a higher level of independent self sufficiency. So we're just trying to remind our people that we don't have to accept the world as is. We have the power, the resources, the intelligence to create our own oasis in the midst of all of this chaos.
Dave Washington 18:53
Absolutely, absolutely, well said, in fact, we must do things that's going to assist us to grow. And I love the way you talk about previous communities that we've had that that no longer exist. And in fact, as I recall, in Oklahoma, had more black towns than any other state in the United States of America, and there are still a few around. But what you're doing, I think, is exciting, and I trust that others will get involved.
Arkee Hodges 19:21
Yeah, thank you, man. And just to give you know, we're out here on virgin land, we just did a an analysis of the plants and trees on our land. And brother we have when I say countless, I mean literally. Mean countless persimmon trees, countless muscadines, countless plum trees, all types of varieties of plums, all types of varieties of blueberries. We have a natural stream that runs all throughout the backside of the land, but it's absolutely beautiful out here. So. So on that note, I also for you guys who want to come out here and visit and check out what we're doing. We host events out here. We're going to have be having a community camp out May 2. We have one of our members is a singer, and she is doing her debut performance on on the land May 23 which I believe is maybe Memorial weekend, but all throughout the summer, and as we continue to grow, we're going to continue to have these events to let our community know and to showcase in real time what we can do when we work together, when we're not thinking about people trying to steal and be corrupt and run off with the money and things like that. So
Dave Washington 20:47
once, once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more, we have Hakeem Hodges. He's the president of black achievement fund. Now it's interesting. Tell me, how did you stumble upon or did you go look specifically for land that had all these different fruit type trees on it.
Arkee Hodges 21:05
Well, we, you know, we stumble on it like the land. We're in the middle of a timber town, so all of the land around us is just timberland. No one is growing anything or whatever, but our plot of land. I guess they were hunting, so they planted all of these trees and things like that to attract wildlife.
Dave Washington 21:28
Oh, okay, that makes sense, yeah. And
Arkee Hodges 21:32
we
Arkee Hodges 21:32
have,
Dave Washington 21:32
and you happen to find it that's, that's very inner well, as they say, God sent that is cool, man, that you were able to to get that type of land with all these and as you speak about it, I'm visualizing these are mature trees,
Arkee Hodges 21:47
all mature. And we have a I stumbled upon a 30 foot tall black cherry tree, you know. And it's just just just insane the amount of wealth in just the fruit trees alone and the serenity of it. So I can't wait to come out here, brother, hopefully it's going to be sometime this year. You can really talk about it and brag about it on the show.
Dave Washington 22:15
And I do know that, and I've actually seen some of the videos that you guys have put up on some of the different media, media formats where you got a couple people that are members of the organization, that are actually farmers or gardeners, or however you want to frame it
Arkee Hodges 22:34
absolutely. I mean, we have, right now, we have a member who is doing sheetrock work. In our first house. One of our members did the electrical work for the house, you know. So our members are involved, and everyone's getting paid. This is not a volunteer, but this is a way for us to recycle our wealth back into our community, paying our own people to do work. You know,
Dave Washington 23:04
excellent, excellent. So you say 40 houses, and you're in the process of completing the first one, and all in terms of how these houses are to be built, Spec wise, they're all to take on the same structure as the first one that you're building,
Arkee Hodges 23:21
yeah, but they're all of these are custom built homes. So you have, I mean, just really a very you can just think of anything. These designs are very, very futuristic, and we have an in house architect that will guide you along the process of building your home. And when you come out here and build a home, we're only building on 40 acres out of 112 so all the rest of that space is green space trails, our farm land, our clubhouse, all of the those types of amenities, as opposed to and our glamping resort.
Dave Washington 24:06
Let me, let me ask,
Arkee Hodges 24:08
building everything out,
Dave Washington 24:09
sure. Let me ask you, is there a potential for even to grow beyond the 112 you said 112 is, is that correct acres? And I know you're saying, Hold on, Dave Washington, me pushing. I'm trying to get this
Arkee Hodges 24:21
done. No, no, but, um, that's the goal. The goal is to utilize this community as a model,
Dave Washington 24:32
right?
Arkee Hodges 24:33
Not just us to continue to build new communities like this, but for us to see this as the new movement towards black. I guess you can say independence in so many in so many words, but in these types of times, man, it's becoming more and more and more clear that we're going to have to be able to create our own safe. Faces our own economy that is impervious to a lot of the things that we have no control about in the greater political arena.
Dave Washington 25:10
Sure.
Arkee Hodges 25:11
So
Dave Washington 25:11
So take us to the headquarters I know you got the chemic club. Give us a little indication, particularly to our listening audience, about what goes on there. Because certainly people travel, and who knows, someone may be down in the Atlanta area and may want to come by, and, you know, Spark further interest in becoming members.
Arkee Hodges 25:29
Absolutely. So we have our very own members only Cultural Club, chemic club in Atlanta, Georgia and East Point. And the club is open to all of our members. If you are coming into town, you can just hit us up. We'll give you the door code. You don't have to call in advance. You can go online. You can see what programming that we're offering at the club before you go. You can also rent the club out. We're preparing for another art show with our resident artists that will be happening in the next month. Then we also have, this weekend, we're having a talent show, and there's prizes for talent show, and I think it's like some type of talent tournament, because they're doing multiple shows, and
Dave Washington 26:16
then
Arkee Hodges 26:17
there's going to be a big finale at the end of the summer. So we have a lot of things going on there. People come just to do work or have a business meeting, but all of the things that we've done, and what we're doing is off of the $9 that we're receiving. That's the most important part, that it's all independent, and we're showcasing, once again, without a million people, without 500,000 people, right? Just literally 3500 members.
Dave Washington 26:47
You know, that's excellent. And you know, I was telling him Wes, I said, God, I know he's near the airport. And I'm trying to remember the little small town outside East Point. In fact, Rosemary cloud was the first African American woman to become fire chief. She probably said, Man, Dave, you can't remember the city that I was a fire chief in. So, no, I think that's excellent. We got about two and a half minutes. So give us some wrap up, if you will, on what the rest of us to include. Those who may not be familiar, where can they go get information to further explore possibly coming members. And once again, I know you stated many, many times, you don't have to be black to be a member. You just have to have the same kind of mindset that that those who are members of the Black achievement fund have going forward.
Arkee Hodges 27:35
Yes, that's a very important part that I didn't mention. The Black achievement fund is open to anyone who believes in our mission and our guiding principles, regardless of race, religion, political preference or sexual orientation, we all want the basic same things, great schools, great hospitals, great communities, clean Water, organic food that we can locally, grow and see and those sorts of things. So that's what we're here to provide, utilizing our own capital. And you can learn more about the black achievement fund at B, A F, as in black achievement fund
Dave Washington 28:15
dot
Arkee Hodges 28:15
solutions, no.com or No, no.org or anything like that. Just B, A, F, dot solutions. And we're also on all of social media. We're on tick tock and YouTube and Facebook and Instagram. You just go and type in black achievement fund.
Dave Washington 28:34
Excellent. Well, once again, Las Vegas, we had Akeem Hodges. He is the president of the Black achievement fund. He gave us some great indication of some of the things that they're embarking upon through his leadership. So we appreciate you, man, and you got a seat at this table anytime you choose to come back and talk about things that you're doing. And we're very, very excited about, once again, the movement. You're not waiting on the means of people that hopefully will become members, but you're taking and doing something with those 3500 members that you have, so we're excited. We appreciate your leadership and continue on. And once again, this is Veterans Affairs. Oh.
Music 29:40
All the smoke in the air, till the hate when they stare, all the pain that we bear.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai