I am Lauren Sullivan.

What I liked best about Fans First by Jesse Cole was that I felt like I was a part of the moment, especially when he was talking in the beginning, when he was talking, at the opening of their tour and the excitement that they were all going through, and like the adrenaline, and I was feeling it.

Jesse Cole's writing style is definitely very conversational and it feels like I'm in like, it's kinda like a podcast type of thing.

Like you've, like, he like laughs in it.

He like, makes it seem like he's like, if you ever, if you've ever met Jesse Cole, I've ever seen him perform in the Bananas game, he's very energetic and you can just feel the energy.

>> I'm Holly Jackson.

Join us as we bring you powerful stories from both new and established southern authors as we sit By The River.

♪ opening music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Major funding for By The River is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

For more than 40 years, the ETV Endowment of South Carolina has been a partner of South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio.

Additional funding is provided by the USCB Center for the Arts Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USCB and the Pat Conroy Literary Center.

It is another beautiful day here in our waterfront studio in Beaufort, South Carolina.

As part of our love letter to southern writing, we're bringing you powerful stories from both new and established southern authors.

This season we are focusing on unexpected southern stories and writers, and we're here with the author of Fans First, change the game, break the rules, create an unforgettable experience.

It's Jesse Cole, and yeah, talk about surprising and unforgettable.

We haven't had anybody with a bright yellow suit before.

>> Nice.

I'm glad.

I'm glad.

That would be really crazy if you had.

<Holly> Yes.

All right, so we have just this little bit of time to talk about a whole lot of stuff, so let's, let's get at it.

We can't talk about the book until we talk about what Savannah Bananas is, so give me a little rundown of that and then I'll really want to dive into the book.

<Jesse> The Savannah Bananas has one goal for our baseball team.

It's to make baseball fun, and so most people describe it as a circus and a baseball game breaks out because we have break dancing coaches, senior citizen dance team called the Banana Bananas, a male cheerleading team called The Man Annas.

Our players celebrate everything and it's pretty much a party and baseball happens, and so yes, we've been doing that now for seven years, and fortunate to take it all over the country and soon to be all over the world.

<Holly> I mean, you're everywhere, every time I turn on the TV, you're...there again.

You're in Savannah.

You're running.

You're having a family.

How do you do it all and put a, writing a book in there?

>> Well, you know, when we first started, it was just myself, my wife, Emily, our 24 year old team president and three 22 year olds out of college, and you know, we showed up and after professional baseball it came into Savannah, and...we proceeded to fail.

You know, we only sold a handful of tickets.

My wife and I had to sell our house, empty out our savings account, and we were sleeping on an airbed.

So while it looks easy now, seven years later, we went through a tremendous amount of adversity and challenges, and what we learned is just to be focused on what we could be the best in.

Focus on creating fans and creating an experience people have never seen before, and now we've got a tremendous team.

You know, we're 200 plus... working on the team.

People from all over the country that are supporting us and just never would've, never would've imagined this.

>>You must have put a lot of hours in the book.

It's not a quick read.

So when are you sleeping?

When are you writing?

(Jesse laughs) <Jesse> I...write every day and, and it's part of my morning ritual.

I mean, I write down 10 ideas every single morning.

So since 2015 I've come up with thousands of terrible ideas, but there's a few good ones.

<Holly> Right.

<Jesse> And part of my idea writing, I also write in my journal and I write for clarity, and so I wrote my first book, Find Your Yellow Tux back in 2018, and then over the last three or four years, just writing and writing and writing and realizing what's so important and what really my wife and I and our team care about, and it's about...creating fans.

So we put time in every day to writing, put time every day to communicating who we are and what we stand for.

<Holly> The title of the book, Fans First, what does that philosophy mean to you?

<Jesse> Well, it's everything for us.

...the name of our business is Fans First Entertainment.

Our mission is fans first, entertain always, every decision we make, we ask ourself, is it fans first?

Give you an example, after our games, our whole team, at the end of the night, we play our band.

We have a pep band, which of course no other baseball teams have pep band.

Why wouldn't we?

So we have a pep band and they play the opening beats to Stand By Me, and everyone puts their arms around each other, the players, the cast, the fans, and we sing Stand By Me, and when it finishes, it's a goosebump moments, but when it finishes, everyone comes together.

The fans, staff and our players break it down, and we all say fans first.

It's why we do what we do.

It's to create fans and create an experience by bringing people together, and so, you know, when you look about, think about a book and you got lots of great authors all around the world, you know, write a book that no one else can write.

Write a book that's, who you are and what you stand for, and that's it.

Fans first, it's every decision we make.

It's how we run our business, and I believe, you know, if you look at businesses and people throughout their life, if they focus on the fans in their life, the people that love what they do, the people that believe in what they do, and they become the biggest fan of what they do, anything is possible.

<Holly> You know, in the book you reference a lot of big companies, Amazon, Disney, and I can remember being one time at one of those afternoon parades at Disney and all of a sudden I have tears running down my face and I'm like, why am I crying?

This is crazy.

It's weird, you know?

And then I start thinking about it, because I'm looking at everybody and this is like, just such a joyous moment in their life, and I, I feel like that's the same thing whenever you've got that run through, and especially that at the end when people are dancing and you're letting the fans, you know, take part in that with the players, that kind of emotion comes out.

Are you trying to get that or is it just, it happens to be that way?

<Jesse>Oh, I think it's a goal and once you feel it, it becomes this thing you want to keep feeling it and share with everyone, and so, yes, at our games, bringing joy, bringing fun, you know, we call our ballpark in wherever we play Banana land, and when you come to Banana Land, this is where the world goes bananas.

You express yourselves.

You...have fun.

You don't worry about what anyone else thinks, and whether you're two years old or 82 year old, you're dancing and yeah, I've heard numerous moments from mothers, fathers, grandparents that say they get emotional at our games, which is crazy cause we're just having fun.

<Holly>Right.

>>I mean, we have players in stilts.

We play in kilts.

We throw out dolce and banana underwear.

I mean, it's ridiculous, but yeah, I mean, every game our players go into the crowd and they get down to a knee and they deliver a rose to a little girl every night in the seven inning.

Instead of singing, Take Me Out To The Ball Game like everyone else does, we put up our phones and our flashlights and we sing Yellow by Coldplay.

Look at the stars, look how they shine for you, and you look around and you feel like you're a part of something and it's magical, and I believe right now it's more than ever, you know, we're hungry for fun.

We're hungry for belonging.

We're hungry to feel like we're a part of something special, and if we can deliver that every night at our stadium, that's...a huge goal of ours.

<Holly> In that, with the emotion.

Have you seen a difference pre-Covid, post-Covid?

<Jesse> Yes, but I don't know if it's directly related to Covid.

I think, you know, we never completely shut down during Covid.

You know, we knew we had an obligation whether we could play in front of 10 people, 20 people or a 100 people, to bring joy to those people, and I actually had a gentleman come up to me at the last game in 2020 when again, we were playing in front of very spread out small crowds, which was tough for selling out every game for us.

For me it was like, where's the energy?

But a gentleman came up to me, a big guy, yeah, big season ticket holder and he says tears in his eyes coming out, and he goes, "just want to thank you", and I go, 'No, thank you.

Thank you.'

He goes, "No, you guys saved my life", and I go, 'What do you mean?'

He goes, "During Covid, March, April, May, "I was in a really dark place, a really dark place, "and I found out you were going to play, "and I came out that first night and I felt like I was "a part of something again, "and I had every night to look forward "to coming out to the ballpark, "sitting in my seat and just watching people have fun", and it's like, wow, you know, you never realize what you do and the impact you make until people start sharing it with you, and so, yeah, I mean, I think obviously Covid had an impact.

People felt more of that.

They needed that.

They were more hungry for that, but I think it hasn't changed our mindset is, you know, we bring people together and bring people to have fun, Like we need more fun.

<Holly> Oh.

Yeah, absolutely.

<Jesse> I'm in yellow tuxedo.

I mean, let's be honest, how many owners run around in a yellow tuxedo and a yellow top hat?

<Holly> I think.

You're the only one.

<Jesse> I probably am.

<Holly> Okay, so back to the book.

You're kind of giving away your secret.

Why...do you wanna share it all?

<Jesse> Oh geez.

You can either have an abundance mindset in this world, or you can have a scarcity mindset, and since the beginning, you know, my dad taught me so much as a kid, and I remember when I used to come up to bat as a kid playing baseball, five years old, my dad would yell, Jess, swing hard in case you hit it, which was very interesting advice when you think about it, <Holly> Right.

>> And in that mindset of swing hard, in case you hit it, I've taken it with me.

in everything we do and you know, don't, if you're gonna do something, you believe in it, share it with everybody, and so I've been fortunate for my wife have been fortunate to go from sleeping on an airbed, having to sell our house, down to our last dollar, and just six, seven years ago we were grocery shopping with only $30 we had for a whole week.

That was it.

We were down to our last dollar, but then we've unlocked something that to...stop focusing on money.

Stop focusing on sales.

Stop focusing on profit, you know, stop chasing customers.

Just focus on creating fans and having fun, and we found there's a process to it.

It's not just like, 'Hey, create fans.

Everyone would want to do that.'

We found what we did and we reverse engineered it, and now to think we have almost a hundred thousand people on our wait list to get tickets right now, and major league teams are calling us to play at their stadium, and we have a TV show on ESPN.

I never would have imagined it.

So why would we hold that tight?

Share it with everyone, if it brings more joy, more happiness, more fun, why not?

<Holly> I've seen the references to the Grateful Dead and the quotes throughout the book.

It's obvious that you do a lot of reading yourself.

Tell me about some of the books you read.

Is there a certain genre you go towards and are you a note taker as you read or a highlighter?

What's your style of reading?

<Jesse> Emily and the team hates my style of reading because I pretty much earmark every single page.

It's either the top or the bottom.

I don't highlight because what I do is I actually do book reports on every book I read, and I can read up to a hundred books a year, but I earmark it, and so what I do is when I look and I can know in the first half what I wanted to remember and then I write it all down, but yeah, my,...I was forced to read, you know, I think a lot of kids, students, you know, when I was one, you know, I did well in school, but I...didn't want to, I was kind of like, my dad was like, "Jesse, you better do well at school."

I didn't love reading cause I was forced to read certain books I wasn't interested in, but when I was 23 years old and took over a team in Gastonia, North Carolina and there was $268 in the bank account and only 200 fans coming to the games and I couldn't pay myself for the first three months as a 23 year old, I was like, I got to figure this out, quick.

So I started reading every book, not about the baseball industry, but about the entertainment industry, about customer experience, about marketing, and, you know, two people had a huge impact in the beginning for me was Walt Disney and PT Barnum, and I read every book about Walt Disney, like how to be like Walt and how he was as a leader and PT Barnum and what he did to create attention and get people to feel galvanized behind what he was doing, and yeah, since that point I've read, I've really tried to surround myself with the greatest leaders, the greatest visionaries, most importantly the greatest dreamers, because I love dreaming big, and so I read yeah, from Steve Jobs to Jeff Bezos to, you know, you mentioned the Grateful Dead, I mean the greatest touring, I mean, I don't even love their music, but they had more fans than anyone.

They had people deadheads traveling around the world to follow them.

I'm fascinated by that.

It's...really intriguing to me.

<Holly> Okay, so when we talk about Fans First, you know, I wanna get into the cover and it was voted on by the fans.

<Jesse> Yes.

>> I think I was one of those who's the... <Jesse>Did you choose that one or the other one?

<Holly> I think I did.

So I remember, I'm really liking that bold print.

What happens, you might not have run across this yet, but when the fans aren't for one of your ideas that you think is gonna fly?

<Jesse> Has it happened yet.

It happens every day.

<Holly> Okay.

So, how did you handle that?

I mean, do the fans always win or what?

<Jesse> No, you know, I...think you have to, you have to be your biggest fan yourself, and if you ever choose something or make a decision that you're really not a fan of, you'll never go all in and put your heart and soul into it, and so I... that was one of the secrets in the book and it talks about the five E's to create raving fans.

Now anybody can do it in their life, but if you're not your biggest fan, good luck, and so, so for me, with the fans, you know, the key is to listen and to get input, but understand that not everyone has as much background or knowledge or knows or as big of a visionary.

I mean, there's only a small percentage of the people that look into the future, you know, and a lot of people are against change.

When we name the team, the Savannah Bananas, people did not like it, and that's an understatement.

All right.

I wasn't invited anywhere for like the first year.

They're like, you know, this is the worst name.

The owner should be thrown outta town.

You're an embarrassment to the city.

Well, if you compare a team name to every other team name, the Savannah Bananas does not make sense.

<Holly> Right.

>> But I and our team believed, no, no, no.

We're not gonna be like every other baseball team.

<Holly> You do what's not normal.

<Jesse> Whatever's normal, do the exact opposite and we're gonna be completely fun and we're gonna go bananas and our mascot's gonna be named, Split and we're gonna, you know, everything we themed to bananas.

So we had that vision.

They didn't know that.

So I don't blame them.

<Holly> Yeah.

>> And then we just made, the toughest criticism I've ever received just happened the last few weeks, and when we announced that we were leaving the Coastal Playing League, the league that we were in, that we won three championships the last two, three of those six years we were in, and we're going all in on banana ball, a different form of baseball with a two hour time limit, and literally batters can steal first.

There's no walks.

There's no bunting, and if a fan catches a foul ball, it's an out.

It is a crazy form of baseball.

and we got a lot of criticism, but I watched as 98% of our fans stayed till the end of the game.

I watched as we played nine innings in an hour and 50 minutes, and I watched how the fans react.

If you're on the outside and you're not there in that, it's very easy to give criticism.

So I think when you have to realize that if you're not getting criticized, you're playing it too safe.

and to believe in your vision and sometimes ignore the naysayers.

and if people are trying to throw shade and throw negativity our way, I just keep moving on.

<Holly> That keep moving on part.

I've watched you during the games and I'm like, I'm gonna catch this guy not smiling.

I'm gonna do it.

Like, how do you keep the energy going?

Of course it's easy, I imagine during the game, but like you're always going, there's gotta be a bad day.

How do you handle and get through those?

<Jesse> Well, you can feel it right now from you.

So I've been fortunate, you know, when no one wanted to talk to me the first year, now I have the opportunity to do many interviews and you can tell based on the energy coming from the other person.

So right now I could tell, like, you're engaged.

You're fired up.

You're into this.

Some people, it's not that way.

If you watch me during the game, that's not a facade.

I get so much energy from being around the fans and bringing joy and bringing fun and throwing out banana's, underwear and dolce and banana underwear... to the fans.

I get so much joy out of that, and so that's one of the bonus E's in the book.

It's everyone asks Jesse, how do you have so much energy?

and I answer, and they think I'm like joking when I say, I do what gives me energy.

When I used to do operations at the stadium, finances and sold sponsorship that I didn't really believe in, everything there, I was exhausted at the end of the day, but we have three kids, two foster kids, two four year olds and a baby.

I better come home with energy.

<Holly> Yeah.

>>The only way I can do that is if I'm doing what gives me energy.

So at the end of a game, at the end of the night, and I'm running around and I get 50,000 steps.

I keep track of my watch, which is crazy.

<Holly> That is crazy.

<Jesse> I'm still fired up.

Emily said, Jesse, you're gonna go to bed?

Soon still, energized, but when I sleep, I sleep very well, but anyways, I, think that's the big key.

It's... you can tell and if someone's doing something that doesn't give them energy or they don't believe in, or they're not a fan of, start looking and trying and testing and experiment with other things, and I was fortunate to have that opportunity.

<Holly> We talk about the audience.

Who is your audience for this book?

Who do you believe should, who's your average reader you're going after?

<Jesse> It's...such a great question, and I think that's the challenge with some books, they try to be everything to everyone.

and you know, when people come to, and you've been to Bananas games, everyone's like, what's your demographic at Bananas Games?

Good luck from 2 to 82 years old, every demographic, every background from all over the country.

Now we have fans coming from 30 to 40 states every night.

and so when I told, you know, my editor, and the publisher, you know what the audience is, I said, I speak normally to a business audience and I normally speak to a business audience, but I believe in this book that anyone can find something that will inspire them, that will give them passion and fire for what they are doing or something else.

So it, it's targeted from a business owner, a visionary, talking about how to create fans and why it's important.

That's the tip, that's the main audience, but I've got people from kids literally after games, like a 12 year old say, I read your book, I really enjoyed it.

Can you sign it for me?

I'm like, you read this book?

<Holly> That's cool.

Yeah.

>> ...and then when most people say they get a book, I say, well great, if you don't like it, it'll help you sleep at night.

So like that's, so hopefully it's what I've seen the first few months with more copies than I ever would imagine selling.

It's really hit home with a lot of people.

<Holly> You know, I've found myself whenever I'm feeling a certain way writing is some sort of therapy.

<Jesse> Yeah.

<Holly> Did you learn anything about yourself through this writing process?

<Jesse> No.

Yeah.

Every time you write, I mean, there's a great book called Write It Down, Make It Happen.

and you know, they say people that achieve goals or anything in their life, like 98% of them write it down, wrote it down.

My staff always tells me, don't listen to Jesse's stats cause a 100% of them are made up.

So maybe it's not 98%, but it's, it's, it's a high level.

<Holly> Something like that.

>>It's very, it's in the 90s, I know that.

<Holly> Yeah.

>>I don't remember numbers.

I'm not a numbers guy.

Walt Disney said this, he said, "Money doesn't excite me, "my ideas excite me."

And I'm the same way ideas fire me up.

So yeah, I mean, it's, to me, it's just something that I...would write, I would give clarity every single day, and I think writing is so huge for anybody.

If you really want to know where you're going, you gotta start writing it down.

You gotta start believing it, seeing it, and be able to clearly communicate it.

I mean, the greatest leaders are the greatest communicators.

and if you're not writing down, if you're not practicing talking and getting your reps in, good luck trying to communicate to people and get them inspired.

I mean, Walt Disney used to literally when he came up with Snow White and the idea of doing Snow White, a full length animated film, he brought all the animators out, he sent them out to dinner, gave 'em all $5.

They came back in and he acted out every part of the, of Snow White, all the dwarfs, everybody for an hour and a half.

He acted out and they, they saw the vision.

<Holly> Yeah.

>> and then they created one of the most successful box office films in history.

You have to be able to communicate.

>> So you've mentioned a lot of celebrities that names we all know of, but as far as your risk taking, I've heard dad mentioned a few times, where does that come from?

Who's your inspiration in that?

<Jesse> Not my dad.

My dad is very conservative.

He thinks I'm crazy most of the time.

<Holly> Still?

>> Oh yeah.

<Holly> Okay.

>> He believes in me and, and obviously my dad and I are very close, but I think anybody who gets their risk taking trait, it's from people that are constantly trying things, constantly experimenting.

For me, in art of Ballpark, our fans know that we do between 10 to 15 things new every single night that have never happened before in a baseball field, and 10 of them, don't go well every single night.

But we're always to the next of bat.

I mean from the horse head promotion to the living pinata to Flatlands Fun night to a lot of the things that we have done have not worked, but you either have a success or you have a story, and I think we build a lot of stories and we build a lot of success because we're trying more than anyone else.

So if you wanna become a risk taker, my question to you or anybody is, how many experiments are you doing this month, this week or today?

and if we're constantly doing the same things, you're learning slower than everyone else, cause we learn faster because we're trying more and we're experiencing more, and that's the third E of creating raving fans.

It's to experiment constantly.

So I've become it because I've tried more of the last 15, 20 years probably than anyone in the sports industry.

<Holly> All right.

Let's talk about the guys on the team.

What kind of changes have you seen from them as a person?

I mean, they come in, they're ready to play ball, and they're probably, well now they are, but in the beginning they weren't expecting what might be coming their way.

What kind of changes have you seen in those guys?

<Jesse> Yeah, guys, when we first started, they're like, I'm not playing for a team named after a fruit.

What, I have to dance now?

What is it I'm doing, a music video in the shower, like, what is this all about?

Now we have over 1500 players reach out to us to play on a 30 minute roster, so we're very fortunate.

A big part of leadership too.

Again, I've learned that the vision is so important that when every guy joins our team, before they even get a uniform, I personally go through an entire bananas orientation with them.

So I talk about the stories, I talk about the struggles.

I tell the story about Brian Encarnacion, who on his first day with us as a conditional player who was just gonna with us for a week, two kids came up to him, young kids, and said, "Can I have your autograph?"

and he said, "Nope."

But he got down to his knee and said, "Only if I can have yours first."

<Holly> Oh, that's cool!

>> and he handed the kids his hat, handed them the Sharpie, and they signed their name on his hat, and now when you look around our players, most of them got autographs of kids and even on their jerseys, and so when you share stories and you share moments and you share why we do what we do after that first day of orientation, they're all in, and if they're not, it's not a good fit.

They move their way.

So I think, again, coming back to redundant here, communication, communication.

I wrote this book as much for our team as I did for other people.

Now our team can read this and know, <Holly> Is it a reading requirement?

<Jesse> I don't like to make anything a requirement.

I don't like to make anything a required.

<Holly> Encouraged.

<Jesse> It's... encouraging, but you also learn more from, ...we have players that joined us for the first time this past summer, and they're like, I read your book in one day and I'm in, and it's like, Okay, let's...talk, let's have some fun.

<Holly> Yeah, we talk about them.

We share about them.

We share the stories.

So, that's how now guys are, and they see the constant feedback.

You know, we're almost up to 5 million social media followers.

So when we put out a video and they're, they're getting 3 million likes and they're getting all these comments, we're like, oh, it wasn't just cause I hit a double.

It's because I did something really cool that was fun on the baseball field.

<Holly> Right!

Yeah.

The stilts guy makes me a little nervous.

<Jesse>Yes.

<Holly> Has there been a fall?

<Jesse> He has fallen.

Yes, he has, but it was, there's actually a funny story about that.

So, we had practice and he fell and he fell and we were like, like we have a clip.

It's on our Tik Tok.

We're like, and he's like, he's like, "I'm good, I'm good."

and we're like, "How are you?"

He's like, "Last night "I watched a video on YouTube on how to fall on stilts.

"So I knew in case it happened.

"So I just braced and I'm good now."

So like... he's, but yeah, it's...funny.

You never know what's gonna happen every night at the ballpark.

<Holly> That's, that's true.

Okay, so I do wanna attest to something back in, was it 06' whenever all this happened?

The...name?

Was it 06'?

<Jesse> That was 2016.

February, <Holly> 2016.

Okay.

That was my second round.

So I was reporting across the street.

<Jesse> Yep.

>> All right.

At...a commercial TV station at that time, and I remember the moment when the announcement was made and everybody in the newsroom was like, "What?"

You know, just <Jesse> What were they thinking?

<Holly> What were they thinking?

This is embarrassing.

It's like, okay, now, now we know.

It was a great idea and it's a heck of a lot of fun, and people come from all over.

I mean, <Jesse> Unbelievable.

<Holly> I met my cousins there a couple of weeks ago and they drove from Florence and Columbia, South Carolina, but that's nothing compared to, what are some of the stories?

<Jesse>Family... <Holly>People who, yeah.

<Jesse> Family came up to me and said, we drove 40 hours from Utah for this game.

We're driving 40 hours back tomorrow.

<Holly> For the game?

<Jesse> For the game, just for the game.

Every night, it's 30 to 40 states.

We've had up to 15 countries and fans are now paying $300 to $500 a ticket.

So families are spending over $1,100 a ticket on Stub Hub and under secondary markets, which eats me to my core cause of Fans First.

<Holly> Yeah....>>but there's nothing I can do.

<Holly> Yeah.

<Jesse> But you know, it's a, a young man came up to me just last game and was like, "I was watching your TV show on ESPN 2, and then I, "I watched the game and I'm sitting there, I'm like, "this is amazing.

So I gotta get a ticket."

So from Seattle, he booked his flight, bought a ticket for $300 and said it was the best investment he made all year.

So that makes me feel good and it makes me feel like that we're doing something that matters.

But yeah, I think again goes back to what we all, we're all hungry for something new, something unique, something different, and most importantly, something fun.

and if we can keep delivering fun, keep doing things that are new, unique and fresh, I think same thing with the banana there, fresh.

<Holly> Oh, I know.

How many puns do you have?

<Jesse> Yes.

I think it's worth it.

<Holly> Okay.

I know we have to wrap up, but I do wanna ask you, is there another book on the horizon?

>> Yes, there is.

Yes there is.

So fortunately I've been reached out to by a, a very big publisher and a very big author that wants to do a new story, and so that probably within the next 12 months there'll be a new book out.

<Holly> Do you write fast?

This one will be a co-author, co-author.

So these ones I went full in.

<Holly> Yeah, >> This'll be a co-author experience.

<Holly> Sounds good.

Jesse, thanks so much for coming over here to Beaufort and talking to us.

We have to wrap up, but it's, it's really been a pleasure and inspiring too.

Thank you everyone for joining us.

I hope this has been extra special for you too.

I'm Holly Jackson and thank you for joining me By The River.

♪ closing music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Major funding for By The River is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

For more than 40 years, the ETV Endowment of South Carolina has been a partner of South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio.

Additional funding is provided by the USCB Center for the Arts Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USCB and the Pat Conroy Literary Center.

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