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And good morning, good morning,
good morning, and welcome, welcome,

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welcome time now for community connection.
And we've got a very familiar face here

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with a kind of a new name
for the folks he represents. We have

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Michael Sikora in here, and I've
been trying to get this right, so

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I'm gonna let you do it.
So for four years I've been working for

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the Low Family Young scholars Program,
and they've been around since two thousand and

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six, even really kind of the
brainstorm started even before that with Karen and

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Barry Low, way back before my
time, and we've been working to help

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support economically disadvantaged children, prepare them
for college, and give them a scholarship

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in college. And thus to date
we have thirteen graduates. But over the

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past couple of years, we've been
talking with some community members and there's been

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a disparity between what they were saying
and what our mission is. And so

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in order to help alleviate some of
these problems like um people thinking that we

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were just a scholarship granting organization,
which we're not. We prepare students and

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that's that's what we do. That's
our public nonprofit position where Karen and Barry

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that Low name is different than Joe
Allen Lowe and is not associated with Lows

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the lumberyard down the street. I
keep calling it a lumberyard, and so

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forgive me Lows. It's not a
lumberyard. I mean, it's really is.

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But we wanted to um differentiate this
is this is a different family,

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this is a different organization, UM
not related to these companies and um lastly

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I'll get there. But we wanted
to change the name to help fit the

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mission and talking with our families and
our students and with the community members.

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Our new name is now the Young
Scholars of Bartlesville with the tagline low Family

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inspired, Community supported good. Here
you go that out of clear things up

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a lot, we sure hope.
So I see you're wearing the brand new

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logo on your on your shirt and
you give me a nice little notebook because

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you know how scatter brained I get, and it's as Young Scholars of Bartlesville.

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You've got a new little logo there
with a graduation tassel and everything else,

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like that little star there, and
that kind of reminds us of the

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owl the a little bit. Yeah, yeah, so the little owl's gone.

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Some people are a little a little
tear jerk, a little upset about

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that. But a lot of our
students really love this. And you know,

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for our my standpoint, our standpoint
is it puts the student up front.

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It's there, it's the reason we're
here, the student, the young

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scholar, that's why we're here.
In the college graduation cap just kind of

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puts that mission and goal in frame, even in just a logo, can

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say so much. Indeed, No, you're still this is still a mentoring

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process as we prepare the youngsters to
go to college. These are kids,

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like you said, are economically disadvantaged, and in many times they don't know

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of any of their family members who've
ever been to college. They might have

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been, but they don't know them, so they have really no basis.

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No how does this work. This
is where our mentors come in. Yeah,

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so we still are our mission is
the same. We are not changing

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that, and we're still partnering with
big brothers, big sisters. Hey there

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you go, so and we started
that partnership in two thousand and six,

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so we're going to keep continuing as
well. The mentors have so much experience,

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so much stuff and life and knowledge
that can help shape and guide and

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and challenge and support and cheer on
these students and give them so much more

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before when you know, the the
paper hits the pen and says, okay,

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so what do you want to do? Huh yeah, exactly, I

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had them. I'm now prepared because
I've had more conversations. So you know,

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all the conversations are happening with their
parents, with their mentors, with

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us, and with other community members. We have weekend trainings where community members

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come in talk, communicate and converse
with the students. These students are getting

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a lot of different opportunities to show
them, Hey, you know there's more

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than a couple of ways to go. That's great, that is absolutely great.

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I really wish this was around,
maybe be a couple of decades beforehand,

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because there were so many people I've
run across in my life. Had

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this been or something similar to it
been offered to them, who knows how

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many times better their lives might have
turned out. But you know, it

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is where we are, and it's
a great time now for people in the

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moment to take advantage of this.
And we also need mentors because as we

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have scholars, we need mentors.
So it's got to be it's got to

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be parsed out pretty good. Huh. That's right, that's right. We

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are still looking for one mentor for
a young man, seventh grader who's now

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about to become an eighth grader.
I guess if you're an eighth grader in

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summer, I don't know which way
it's. Are you the end of a

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seventh grade? You remember? You
remember how it goes. As soon as

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you know the end of school,
you go, yeah, I'm an eighth

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grade. Yeah, yeah, you
know how that works. Yeah. We

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are also interviewing two students this week
in one next week, so we've got

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and one of them actually already has
a mentor with big brothers, big sisters,

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so um, that's really great for
her. She's already established a great

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relationship. And so we'll be we'll
be potentially taking on a couple more students.

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And the other are two young women. So we've got a couple potentially

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lined up for these young women.
So we still just need one mentor right

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now. And yeah, we're just
looking for more students. This is great.

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Now we're talking with Michael's core and
he's with Young Scholars of Bartelsville and

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yeah, the name has changed.
Michael hasn't changed at all. Don't worry

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about that. Yeah, still,
guy, I may have another couple of

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gray hairs or two. Well,
you've got a daughter now, and she

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does it. Yeah, she does
it all this snow on the roof.

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Yeah. The boys I had,
they're kind of like the old man.

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Ain't that far out of the cave, you know. The gals who I

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just don't anyway. I always thought
they were two for Jule and they were

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going to break. And so they
keep telling me all the kids bounce,

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Well, don't try it. Just
whwald, don't even risk anyways, Young

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scholars of Bartle's wheels, where we're
talking about, you're still in the same

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location, just right upstairs melodies out
there at the RUE building, right.

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Yes, yeah, yep, we've
we've not changed anything, but the name

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still still over there at the RSU
building and everything's rolling pretty much the same.

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It's just we've clarified the name so
that everyone is who's been on board

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has the clarity of the mission.
And that's really good. And that took

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a you know, when you've had
a name for so long and you get

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to that point where you think maybe
this is in order that's a big decision.

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I imagine this took a little time. It took a little time.

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Yeah, yeah, that's something you
just say, Hey, it's Thursday.

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What are you doing. Let's change
the name of our of our non profit

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yep, yep. And Karen now
low Alton. She is completely on board

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with change your name as being a
co founder of this organization. So she

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was a part of the process from
the very beginning. We've had her in

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the studio with you once or twice. Anyway, very nice lady, and

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of course this really works well.
Now if you want to be a mentor,

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maybe you don't know you want to
be a mentor, but it kind

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of sounds interesting. How do we
go about that? Hey, call me

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nine eight seven six six six six
seven five. You can also find contact

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information on our website or Facebook.
You can reach out to us on Facebook.

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Our website is still low Young scholar
dot org. Again, you can

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call me at nine one eight seven
six six six six seven five, Facebook,

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or our email, our website,
low Young scholar dot org. That

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took a little work, get taken
care of working with that stuff. Oh

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but anyway, this is great for
anyone who's ever seen uh these youngsters,

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these young scholars. In a public
setting, first of all, you take

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a look at him and say,
oh, it's just a kid. Well,

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no, they present themselves as young
men and young women. They're very

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very smart, and they're very very
aware of what's going on. And of

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course those mentors helped them along too
a long way as well. So these

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are very special young people, and
I want to keep referring to them as

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young people because they have a level
of maturity that's a little bit beyond their

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peers. Ye oh yeah, oh
yeah. We are so blessed to work

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with some of these young men and
young women. They show, they continue

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to surprise me what comes out of
them out as the questions that they ask

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and just the things that they get
involved with. There are questions and then

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there are questions to make you go
yep, that's that's right, that's right,

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that's right. Now. Now we
work with Charlene do who with big

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brothers big sisters on the mentoring process. I understand, that's right, that's

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right. And can you be both? Can you be both a big brother

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or big sister and a mentor?
Well technically you would be both. Yeah,

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that's right. So so our partnership
with big brothers big sisters. It

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covers They cover like the social aspects
the howard, how's your relationship becoming?

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How's it working? How can we
continue to help support uh, the integration

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between you know, the the mentor
and the mentee and and I keep saying

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that because that's what we call them, but they call him big brother and

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big sister. Uh, and then
the little brother and the little sister and

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UH. They do an amazing job
of making that match happen and blossom and

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and really supporting, you know,
something that we as humans want to be

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in a community, in a thing, and we just have a tendency to

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shy away from something new. Well
that's where they just shine. They help

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peel back the We all really want
to be a part of something that when

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when two pieces come together, it's
just a better picture. And this is

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this is really a part of their
job and mission, and we just are

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so blessed to be a part of
them. And we just come in and

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say, you know, let's add
another goal, not just a goal of

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getting to know one another, but
let's get another goal of college graduation.

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So as we become in community now
as a community where we're going, and

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so this community, we say,
let's let's see if we can train you

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a little bit faster, a little
bit better, a little bit so that

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you can pass it on when you
become a big or you become a mentor.

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And a lot of our students have
now, so those who have graduated,

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some of them have families already,
So this is just amazing to see.

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And they've already when I don't have
youngsters, I want to give back

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in the same way that was given
back to me. So they're already expressing

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ways to mentor to get it back
involved and coming around circle. This is

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just such a blessing. It has
to be. And you get a front

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row seat, and that's really kind
of cool. I want you to remember

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folks who has been a bit of
a name change, but you're gonna remember

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it. It's easier to say young
Scholars of Bartlesville. That's young Scholars of

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Bartlesville, formerly low family young Scholars. That was a little bit of a

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mouthful. Sometime you really had to
pay attention and talk slowly, but this

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really rolls off the tongue easily.
Easy to remember. Young Scholars of Bartlesville,

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same mission, same ambition. That's
right, that's right, same goals.

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The only thing that's change is the
name and the logo, and that's

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just to clarify things a little bit
out with our community partners. I say,

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good on you, thank you,
thank you. We're really excited.

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Well you should be. What's the
website? People can go to low Young

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scholar dot org. Boy, that's
easy. I can remember that. Yeah,

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Monday, I can remember that.
And you have a Facebook page.

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We have Facebook. You can also
give me a call seven six six six

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six seven five. Well man,
that is really cool. Michael. I

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want to thank you very much for
coming in here and shedding the sharing the

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good news with us year because that
is really something. It's not every day

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that people have a little bit of
a name change, and especially kind of

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a big one like this, but
I'm glad that you shared it with that