 All this month, get any smartphone 32-gigand under for a 50% off regular price at Appalachian Wireless. Better service, bigger savings. That's today's Appalachian Wireless. While supplies last, two-year agreement required. An organization listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist group is planning a rally in Pikeville this spring. According to a post on the group's Facebook page, the traditionalist worker party is planning a rally in Pikeville on April 29th. The group, citing Pike County's mostly white population and Donald Trump's overwhelming victory in Pike County last November, is asking those planning to attend to wear all black and to be prepared for potential pushback from left-leaning groups. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the group has strong ties to neo-Nazi groups and advocates for racially pure nations and communities and blames Jews for many of the world's problems. Shortly after the announcement, an opposition event, the Rally for Equality and American Values, was scheduled for the same day. Organizers for that rally say they hope to counter the message of the alleged white nationalist. So I'm the former president of the Pike County Young Democrats, and Ariana and I saw this coming around on Facebook. And once we checked it out and saw that it was legitimate, we decided that something needs to be done in a bipartisan manner to show that Republicans and Democrats, nobody thinks it's okay for Nazis to come into our town and hold a rally. It's something that we're all completely opposed to. We're trying to get people of Christian faith there. All faiths are welcome. We're getting Republicans, Democrats, people who don't affiliate, anyone we can to show up. It's an anti-hate rally basically. It's a rally for love, equality. Anybody that wants to come, veterans are especially welcome. I mean, this is something that we should have gotten over after World War II. They say history often repeats itself, but I say not today. The announcement of the traditionalist worker party rally in Pikeville also sparked a fire storm on social media comments mostly opposed to the planned rally. University of Pikeville Chaplain Robert Musick was among those commenting. But the chaplain instead invited the group to take part in a friendly debate type forum discussing the group's beliefs. They told EKB News. The group has accepted his invitation and planning is now underway. And I thought, well, here are people that have a concern. I may fundamentally disagree, but I want to respect them, invite them to the table. So that was, you know, let's not do any capital letters, no exclamation points. This is a respectful dialogue. What I did was I put it on their wall and then I sent them a private message. They emailed me right away and was like, man, we really appreciate the offer. This would be great. We would love to have this conversation. And so we're going to do it. We've invited them to do it in the evening so we could do a public time. We're going to host it hopefully at a church. We're looking for a church to host us and to have a public conversation. Pikeville City Manager Donovan Blackburn issued a statement to EKB News today confirming the traditionalist worker party had requested a permit to assemble in the city. Blackburn said the city and recognition of First Amendment rights of the group issued the permit. He added that communication is ongoing with the group to ensure all assemblies held in the city are done properly. He also said, quote, Pikeville is a peaceful, respectful, and a diverse community that fully supports the Constitution and the rights of all citizens, end quote. We'll have more, of course, on this developing story.