 Caught up with James Hooper another inductee to their member's Hall of Fame last night. Well done. How did it feel? Well, I don't mind telling you I was anxious and nervous and trying to figure out how to consolidate all my thoughts into a time period that I felt like I should stay in but it was wonderful. It was a great honor and is a great honor and to be in that room with all those people that had previously received these awards and to be able to even recollect and recall some of the issues and some of the things that we've gone through and how all those people come to you that remembered that and thank you for your time was very heartwarming and is very heartwarming and it's an honor that I will treasure and I appreciate the recognition and I have no regrets for any stir that I may have made in in the process and I just told Bill that he mentioned me standing up or sitting up in the bleachers by myself. Nobody around. I told him that was by design that after serving his president for two years you really don't want to answer a bunch of questions about politics and too if I went back home I'd have all these chores to do so I just get off and watch the cutting but it's um I told him I don't feel like I lost any friends from having been president uh as a matter of fact you won't believe the number of phone calls that I get and and God and and and and saying hey you know you shook the tree that need to be shook and some good things will come from it and um so I um I understand when you you suggest legislation that affects someone's income that um you have you're on a touchy subject and uh they're not going to agree with it but we emphasize so many times in those two years that when you're on the executive committee and or you're an officer that when you walk into that room you have to take that personal hat off and hang it on the wall and you have to put an association hat on and every decision you make and every argument you make should be on behalf of the growth and development of NCHA even if it hurts you uh and we we really emphasize that so I have good feelings and I enjoyed last night it was a wonderful evening and um it's done and I'm not nervous about making speeches anymore but I appreciate you asking me there were a lot of people who have said today they didn't know all those things that you had achieved so it's important to get that recorded and recognized well I appreciate that I uh you know the chatter was read a lot more back then than it is now a lot of people I guess are operating off of the internet and off of their cell phones and um I guess I'm old-fashioned but I kept a scrapbook of uh a bunch of letters to the membership that I put in the chatter back in 94 95 and when I'm when I'm getting sentimental or whatever I'll pull out that scrapbook and I'll read some of those things but uh yeah there's a lot of people do not know uh what happened back then and rewriting the constitution uh that they're now about to rewrite again which is good I mean you know I'm not saying this and I explain to them I'm not I'm not offended by them trying to tweak the the bylaws because there's some things that need tweaking and I I I wish them good luck and but I can tell them when they step on some people's toes they're going they're going to get bad phone calls and they're going to get conversations but no I am I realize that not many people remember 20 years ago well I guess the real takeaway is that sometimes there's some short term pain to get the long term gain and that it's worth it because people looking back now to the changes that you brought in can see the benefits and if they're having to bring in changes now perhaps they can have faith that it'll be in the long term benefit of members well I hope that's the case and and that's I mean you can plan a seed like you say that sometimes doesn't develop a product or plant for several years and I believe that um we we touched on some real touchy subjects back there as far as dominance in the non-pro and talked about putting a cap on the non-pro and those kind of things and but the whole reason for it is why are people exiting this sport why are they leaving after they've won $50,000 and the the issue we got back is because we're now stepped into a classic we can't compete and then you go about you hit your head against the wall about 10 times and you win no check then you've got a decision to make personally and and I think it's the association's responsibility to provide a structured class structure with as much of a level playing field as you can for people to progress and to be able to compete otherwise they won't stay they won't they won't keep competing so yeah I uh I think there was some seed planted back then that that some good things have come from it but I certainly don't take credit for it because I was in a room with 13 other people and we were trying our best to do what's best for NCHA well congratulations again and well deserved thank you thank you very much