 Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Ryan Coleman. I'm the director of economic development for the city of Columbia. And we are here at Parler 818, and it is a great day in Columbia. There are three things that we know to be true today. One, it is a gorgeous day outside in Columbia. Two, we are excited for some Gamecocks women's basketball this evening. Absolutely. And most importantly, three, we are honored to be here and celebrate the rebirth of Parler 818 at their newly renovated location here at 3306 Millwood Avenue. It's my privilege to introduce our speakers for today. First up, we will have the honorable Mayor Daniel Rickerman, who will be followed by Ms. Brenda Nichols, the head of operations here at Parler 818, and then finally our esteemed guests of honor, Chas Ellis and Alex Moore, the owners of Parler. And with that, I'd like to turn it over to Mayor Rickerman. Ryan did not get his hair styled here. I just want to put that for the record. No, this is exciting. Chas reached out to me and, you know, these guys are such a big part of our community, and it's so exciting that they have opportunity to grow their business. And I hope everybody has an opportunity to walk around and take a look at this beautiful space, what it looks like. I didn't realize how big it was, but when you walk around here and see and look at this beautiful cast of employees that they have here that are going to take care of you. But having a business grow in our community is what we want. We celebrate a lot of ribbon cuttings from the sense of brand new businesses, but having a rebirth in a business that's expanding in our community with some hometown heroes is what we love. And it's so exciting to have y'all do this and make this investment and continue to be part of this community. And I hope that every chair is full in there, that their appointments are going. I know that they will take good care of you. I probably could use a little cleanup myself at some point, but I'm going to try to leave that alone because I jinx. I don't get haircuts on basketball days. I have this superstition. But I really want to thank y'all for your continued investment. I know you've got another surprise y'all may talk about later on about what you're doing with your old spot. I'm going to leave that to y'all. But with that, I'm going to pass it on to Ms. Brenda. Come on, Ms. Brenda. Thank you. You're welcome. Well, I have the honor of filling in for Ms. South Carolina, who was stuck in traffic. So for those of you that don't know, I am here as a friend of Chas-N-Lex and I am gracious to be also an employee here. I also represent the Ms. South Carolina organization. I'm on the board. Parler is near and dear to me. I've been here for five years and I was here when there were only six employees and we were in the little space behind us. We all couldn't even really fit in the break room. And now we have this beautiful building and it was once a dream of Chas-N-Lex's and to see all these employees standing behind behind us is just great. But what you probably don't know is this is also a place of learning. Many of these young ladies behind me came here as students and Chas-N-Lex have elevated them. And just really quickly, an example, we met one of these young ladies at Starbucks and talked to her and she said, I just need to make $800 a month. And we were kind of taken back that she could live on $800 a month. But she has elevated herself to tripling and beyond. And that is what's so empowering to me about Parler 818. It's a learning place and these women behind us have grown and Chas-N-Lex take these young girls and there is one young man behind us as well who is stellar. They take these people and grow them and learn them. So they're not only just stylists but Chas-N-Lex are teachers and they elevate people in the community. So they're community ambassadors as well. The Miss South Carolina brings so many people to this city in June. So many people come to this city here and they come to Parler because they see what a wonderful place this is. So on behalf of myself, Miss South Carolina, I want to thank you Chas-N-Lex for all you do. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for being here for the rebirth. When we started there were only three employees, one being myself and I don't do hair. So thank you for being here today. I think it's one of those things when we, it was truly a vision and a dream six years ago that it was established by Lex, who I call the visionary of this whole process. And we now stand here today with 13 stylists that are a part of our team and we have 16 employees. And so, and we just continue to grow. And it's kind of like Brenda said that, you know, we see this as a place of education and empowering and elevating people to be the best self, you know. And so we also, I think it with, one of those things is like, you know, when you start business, if you've ever heard people say, oh, you want to own your own business, but then if you can own your own building. So being able to buy this building and being a part of revitalizing what Columbia's doing and the things that the mayor's office is doing in the city of Columbia is so great. I do have to thank Jean and Anna and Hart from Pond Designs who really kind of took our ideas and put it on paper. And then Kenneth Tucker with Charleston built who came, they work all over the state of South Carolina who brought this to life. And we started the groundbreaking on September the 19th. I told him we had to be finished by December the 19th and he made this happen and it truly is a beautiful place. Some of the people behind me, as Brenda said, came to us, you know, as students and are some heck of amazing stylists. And we're just so thankful for them and what they do and as they continue to grow their personal brands by parlaying it with our brand. So I just want to thank y'all for being here. I could probably go on for quite a while about I'm never at loss for words but I feel like I kind of am today. For the people that stand behind me because I could not do and Lex could not do what we do if we did not have the individuals behind us. We are an educational salon and I can tell you that it is our hope in 2024. We've established some great things and by the end of 2024 or early 2025 we plan to continue to expand our reach of what we do for empowering and elevating young people in this industry. So unless there's any questions I just want to thank everybody. And with that I guess we can cut the ribbon to the rebirth.