 All right, I am Luke Stevens and Alabama 4-H State Ambassador from Clark County for 2020-2021. And this is Mayor Mike Norris of Fulton, Alabama. And I have interview questions for him today, so we will get started with those. All right, Mr. Mike, what is a day like as a mayor for you, just day to day? Luke and Fulton, it's kind of a unique situation for me because it's my hometown and I've been here for 63 years. But being the mayor is kind of a challenge on some days, but it's very exciting to be able to do for your hometown people. So I guess I enjoy being the mayor and I enjoy doing things and mostly I must serve it for the town of Fulton and I like doing for everybody and keeping everybody happy. But being the mayor on a daily basis is very exciting for me. All right, what kind of training did it require, or if you need to become the mayor? Well, anyone can be a mayor and if you want to really do a good job, you have to have some grant writing skills and have to have some connections with some grant writers and different people. And over the years, we've been very fortunate in Fulton and 20 years of being mayor here, I've actually been able to receive for the town of Fulton about $20 million in grants here. So it's having some grant writing abilities and some personal relations with guys and girls all over the state of Alabama has really been a big help. But those are not requirements, it's just more benefits for us. All right, other than being a mayor of Fulton, what are your other jobs or responsibilities around here? Luke, I am the water operator and the superintendent manager of water company called Mid Central Water and we service everybody inside of Central Clark County like from Thomasville to Grove Hill. And I'm the superintendent of the Fulton Utility Board since I'm the mayor, I care that title. So it's a pretty heavy load for me at times, but the responsibilities or trying to keep potable water for everybody and being trained and doing that is a pretty high responsibility, but I enjoy doing that. Also, being the water operator, I do on the side, I operate, I'm in a referee high school football and baseball, so I'm a pretty busy guy. You are that. Was there any special schooling for the water board jobs that you had to have? In 1994, Alabama Department of Environmental Management come out with some pretty strict training issues. They wanted to have licensed operators on board of all the water systems and that's when I retired from Scott's Lumber Company and went to work with Mid Central and become a full-time operator. And there is a pretty good chance it has to be taken, about 15% pass rate, and that's kind of gotten much harder over the last few years because of, I guess, insurance attacks on water. Water is one of our main infrastructures that we have and it has to be treated. It has to have somebody responsible to be able to treat it and do it in the proper way. So it does require a lot of training. We have to have 24 hours of CEUs or credit education units to keep our license and stay renewed. So I have to do some classroom training and stuff from time to time. So how many water customers do you have around here? Fortin has about close to 300 and Mid Central has about 800. So we're looking at about 1,200 total with Fortin and Mid Central all together. So those are water meters and the rule of thumb is you multiply that by three. So we got 1,200 customers times three would be a pretty good average of, I guess, the constituents that we have or the users that we have. What is the best thing in your opinion about being the mayor of Fortin? I guess the best thing of being the mayor is my hometown and I like doing stuff from my hometown and everybody here knows everybody. And being able to look back and see what the mayor and the council members have done over the years really gives you a boost to be able to do more. I guess being in your hometown is probably one of the most exciting things. All right. Do you have any employees that you're in charge of here? We do. We have some water employees and some town employees and we have to kind of look out for them. There's a lot of grass cutting, picking up and cleaning up and street work and sidewalk work and stuff like that around town. And that's kind of the mayor's job to keep people out and that kind of stuff and be sure that everybody's happy and everybody's taken care of. How did you feel when the ballpark here in Fortin was named after you? What did you think? That was very exciting. That was a project that we worked on several years ago and it was a very exciting time to be able to get. We had an old ballpark there. All the fence were falling down and some high waters had torn it all down. So we actually got a grant approved to put a walking trail and a new ballpark down there. And then first thing I knew that the council members had got together and they wanted to name it the Mike Noss Ball Field and Playground. And that was very exciting for me. You feel like all the hard work you do kind of paid off a little bit and put a big smile on your face. What advice and this is our last question. What advice would you give a youth interested in either of your jobs? Working in your hometown is always a benefit. A lot of people have to get an education and go off and find jobs somewhere else. I was very fortunate to be able to work in my hometown and be able to get a job. Being in the water business is something that's always going to be there. Luke is something that people are going to always need water. And being able to be trained to treat the pot of water to meet the ADM regulations is pretty high prestige and I enjoy doing that. And being the mayor obviously is something that is pretty exciting at times. And this guy is good and it's bad days. And a lot of times you've got dissatisfied constituents around town that I want to gripe and grumble about something. And then you've got something that's happy about something. I served 12 years on the council before I became the mayor. So I'm finishing up 20 years as mayor. And if I didn't like it, I guess it would have quit many years ago. But it's very exciting to be able to work for the hometown people, especially the ones that appreciate it. And that really keeps me going because there's more people that do appreciate it. There's a few bad apples out there that like to gripe and grumble about stuff. But I'm going to keep working and keep trying to help the ones that really want to make their town look good. And I'm going to keep working to benefit the ones that like it. Well, I know that I am grateful for what you do around here. So I know that you work really hard. So I thank you for coming and let me interview you to do all this today. We definitely appreciate you Luke and all the other young kids around town. You showed a lot of interest in the town of Fulton and the school and the Fletch program. And we definitely support you and what your kids do 100%. We thank you. All right, now thank you.