This is the Padua podcast network It’s just attitude and What I’m excited about is the future and things that are going to happen and things that I’ll be involved in and will be involved in. You know, I think our future has potential to be even bigger than our past. And when you get into the 60s, it’s hard to do that, but it is possible. And it really, it’s all about attitude.

Welcome to Running a Fever. I’m Michael Davis. I’m Tom Rohrer. And this is a show about fitness, diet and medicine.

Goal is to live a long, healthy, happy, active life right up to the very end. And we’re out there doing that today. That’s right. It’s a beautiful day at Lake Fayetteville.

I think my car said 62 degrees and tomorrow is the first day of winter. Wow. Bring winter on if it’s gonna be like that. Yeah, we probably could have wore short sleeves out here in shorts Well, I have that in there somewhere.

Yeah, I know it’s comfortable so welcome back Tom Rohr CEO of Padua media and the Padua podcast network Well, thank you for having having me back. It’s been a little while. So a few things have happened since then a few things Yeah, I’d say episode 38 I believe it was January or February of 2018, so almost eight years. Wow.

It’s been that long since we did a podcast together? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, you were 59 and today I’m 59.

Oh, okay. Well, today I’m 67, so let’s not wait until you’re 67 to do the next one. Yeah, maybe next year we’ll do one. Yeah.

Looking back at that, you know, I did listen to it, but at that time, what sort of hopes did you have for yourself and life, and how much of that has happened or Yeah. Well, you know, when you get close to 60, that’s a big number. That’s not, you know, not even middle-aged anymore. That’s, you know, your third or fourth quarter by then.

So I think the biggest thing that I’m most proud of is, you know, I’m 67. I have a sister who just turned 70, which caught my attention but it’s just attitude and what I’m excited about is the future and things that are going to happen and things that I’ll be involved in and will be involved in. You know, I think our future has potential to be even bigger than our past. And when you get into the 60s, it’s hard to do that, but it is possible.

And it really, it’s all about attitude. Well, that’s good because I’m getting in there next year, man. A couple of months won’t be too long. Hey, we’re in a new age where, you know, 60 will be the new 40.

So that’s right. You’re just you’re just getting going. You know, you were just talking about things getting bigger in the future, and I know we both hope for that. And, you know, we talk a lot about the goal of having Catholic radio throughout Arkansas.

And I know you have no intention of retiring and I have no intention of retiring either. My, by the way, working to an older age. Yeah. Is one of the things that leads to longer life.

Yeah. No, I think I think that’s right. I think that’s right. You you’ve got to have things that you’re excited about and looking forward to.

I am excited about transitioning, not retiring, but transitioning to be in a full time employee of Padua Media. Yeah. producing podcasts, hopefully some radio content too. So, I don’t know, what has to happen for that to happen?

Well, you know, I think there have been things happening along the way. This past June, so part of our inspiration here or part of Padua Media’s beginning was we had a Catholic radio station in Rogers. And they were just building their content at that. And so I’m talking 2005.

Right. And 10 years ago, 20 years ago. And anyway, they had a couple hours a week for local programming. And Michael was our producer and front person in developing local local content and Marvin Fairchild God rest his soul was our first personality and he was a great personality he he loved the clergy and He created shows where he interviewed local clergy He would interview other people too,

but but mostly clergy so fast forward We’ve been on the air for about 20 years. Well, not about 20 years, over 20 years now, 20 years in June. And we’re a part of Relevant Radio. And Relevant Radio has actually been on the air for 25.

So we were one of the first affiliates, probably in their top, 25 from a number point of view so They’ve been really good and their programming continues to get better all the time And I’ll give you some examples say they well one of the things that’s really nice is most of the shows are live so I would say from six in the morning till seven o’clock at night, all the shows are live. And what’s nice is our listeners can participate in the show. So typically they’re talking about the faith, maybe the season that we’re in, or a lot of times they’ll talk about current topics with a Catholic perspective.

So it’s super interesting. And so, anyway, when they expanded and they no longer had local programming, that’s when we started our podcast network. And so, podcasting has gotten even more popular over the years. You know, we are talking about, and to answer your question that you asked a long time ago, we’d love to have multiple podcasts that are local in nature or seasonal in nature.

I mean, there’s a whole variety of things that we could do and we want to use that as a supplement to our radio base. And, you know, Northwest Arkansas, our KDUA station is going to be kind of our test model. But as this grows and becomes more popular, being in the radio business, it’s actually easier and easier because You know people are listening to podcasts or or other social media and radio not as much mostly just drive time. But what’s cool with Relevant Radio is they have a wonderful app and the app makes all their shows a podcast.

So, in essence, you can listen to what you want to listen to or re-listen to it any time that you want. And they usually hold the content for about 90 days. And they do other things, too. They have some art shows where, you know, they have theater actors living out the lives of saints and the stories of saints.

And during Christmas time, They actually have two different feeds of Christmas music. So I find, you know, at least a couple times a day, I’ll play a little relevant radio Christmas and I can take it with me. So we are going to add those stations. We think that probably four or five stations should cover the state.

If you look what’s going on around the country, Catholic radio has really grown. And I would say at least 70% of people in the country, because all the big cities have stations, have access to Catholic radio. That’s great. But one of the places that just doesn’t have the coverage that it really needs and deserves is Arkansas.

So, we do have our little station here in Northwest Arkansas, but we certainly would be interested in Fort Smith, Little Rock, probably something around Jonesboro, maybe Texarkana. And those stations I think will be available, and again, To really make them a modern option for listeners, we would incorporate the relevant radio app. And then we want to do a podcast network that focuses on the same kind of things, but really has much more of a local flavor. That was a long answer, wasn’t it?

Yeah, it was a long answer, man. I am definitely looking forward to that. You’re going to get tired just thinking about that. Yeah.

Yeah. It’s a lot going on right now. You were talking about growing the network and we have been talking to a few people about doing new podcasts. And you want to talk a little bit about that?

We’re looking for additional content on our network. Yeah. Well, you know, as you know, It’s a lot of work to do a podcast. How many podcast shows do you have?

440 maybe. Depends on what’s already published. Right. But it takes you how long to do each one on average?

It takes hours. Yeah. So it’s a commitment. And so what we want to do is we want to talk to people who would be interested in doing that.

We’re interested in ideas. We already have the network set up, and we certainly can help with equipment and things like that. And it’s easier and easier to do that. I’m talking to the guy who’s holding the phone with his hands, so maybe that’s not quite so easy, but all I’m doing is walking.

But it is much easier, and the quality is better. You know overall so yeah, it does does take a commitment, but I think it’s I think it’s worth it Yeah, and we’re really open to a whole variety of different kind of shows. We’re not looking for Sunday morning homilies because the world has lots of those and they’re wonderful. But we’re looking for things that are interesting to whoever’s putting the podcast together.

I mean, they clearly could have guests or it could be a topical thing. I’ll give you an example. I love during Advent or Lent to spend a little time on a little bit longer program. In the past, it was not unusual for parishes to have a three or four day Advent program or a three or four day Lenten program.

And, you know, what we would love to do is to plug those in, you know, new and fresh into our liturgical year in a timely way. So people who are our fans and our listeners would always have inspiration relative to the liturgical year. Sounds good. You know, I think we’ve had six different podcasts in our history.

I’m sure we had four at one time and we were able to do that with everybody working part-time. It’s a nice side hustle. The radio has never been my full-time job but you know I have have run a station for over 20 years and you know that includes a couple of studio total updates and things like this so it’s it is a very doable and a very rewarding ministry for sure. Well speaking of full-time jobs One big thing that’s happened since last time is you are now an owner of a going business.

Yes. How’s that going? And you know, tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, well, so, you know, I think eight years ago, I may have just begun.

But yes, Therese, my wife and I started at the end of 2017, a company called Food Loops. And we’re a sustainability company, or we’ve become a sustainability company, and what we do is we help businesses be more sustainable. So, what does that mean? Well, today, about 80% of all waste ends up in the landfill.

And our goal with all our customers is to recycle at least 90% of that waste. Wow. So the hard thing is the food waste, and we replace one-use disposables that that they use with compostable products. And if you’re not aware of those, those are basically one use disposable products that are made out of food.

So they can be paper plates and straws and cutlery, take out containers. And so, in essence, what it allows us to do is to control what goes into a business or an event so we can collect what comes out. And in the cases where we’re working with a customer that’s really aligned, we’ll get a 90% diversion from the landfill. That’s great.

Yeah, it’s a huge savings right there. Yeah. Well, and it’s I think one of the things that’s happening right now is in the United States, there’s going to be more and more demand for energy. And one of the things that you can capture from organic waste is methane, which can be turned into gas, which can easily be converted into electricity.

So It’s exciting. We have some good partners in that area right now and things are going to start happening really quick at a large scale. That’s great. So this keeps you pretty busy I imagine.

Oh yeah. And it’s, you know, and it’s not, it’s not an eight to five job. We, like I mentioned, we do a lot of events. So Saturday is usually one of my busier days, but you know, what I found is, you know, sometimes Tuesday at two o’clock, I don’t have anything going on.

So I can read a book or go watch a movie or spend some quality time with Therese. So that’s really nice. Yeah, one of the other things you could do is work out. And I know last time, you know, you just ran my legs off last time.

So what’s your fitness program these days? Well, hey, Michael, you motivate me very much in that area. You know, you’re always making me think of new and better ways to to stay healthy and This year I’m very proud of myself. We’re we’re getting to the end of the year and one of the bucket list things that Teresa and I have had for a long time was we wanted to walk a Camino in Spain and Anyway, in May of this year, we had a chance to do the Portuguese

Camino, and we walked about 109 miles in nine days. Wow. It’s like a military operation right there. I will tell you, in that part of Spain, there’s not a flat spot, so it was definitely physically challenging, but you know, it really got me focused on getting my steps in.

And I was telling Mike a little bit earlier, one of the things I’m proud of this year is I’m actually, I’ve actually got in four million steps this year. So, you know, keeping, keeping your legs and your balance as you get older, that’s that’s what keeps you going. So, yeah, we’ve we’ve talked a lot about strength and balance and flexibility and all the things you need to maintain. It just takes a lot of work to keep doing that.

Yeah. Well, you know, and I think that there’s, there’s just more focus on, you know, staying healthy and not, not getting disease in the first place to, you know, live a life that’s more preventative in the first place. So, so far, thank you God for being healthy all these years, but you know, I want to do what I can to participate in keeping it that way. Well, that’s great.

Sounds like you’re better than ever in your fitness department. Yeah, well, I don’t know about that, but not bad for a 67 year old. Well, I got to tell you, I’m trying to be better with my exercising and I think this is third time I’ve walked this week, which is good. Yeah.

My diet is terrible. Yeah. What’s your diet like? It’s, well, I wouldn’t say that it’s, I wouldn’t say that it’s great.

One thing, you know, I’m always trying new things. And again, you’re influencing me to do those kind of things. And I’m someone who really craves bread. And one of my end-of-the-year presents this year has been a a Grain grinder and I I have just made my first loaf and it wasn’t great but you know looking at taking, you know, hard weed or soft weed and making my own baked goods and Anyway, I hope

that that makes a difference We’ll see, you know, but I’m like you, you know, I keep trying things and you know the The answer for you is different than the answer for me, but, you know, I think we have to just keep looking to see what works. Yeah, I always say be an expert at your own health. Right. Which is, you know, it’s a process of trial and error.

Yeah. And I have done a lot of that. Yeah, and you know, and every day you hear someone talking about, you know, this is the answer or that is the answer. And, you know, and oftentimes they kind of contradict each other.

So, you know, I just, I think he’s just, God made us all unique. And, you know, from a, from a healthy eating point of view, we just have to find out what works best for us. Yeah, I’ve kind of found that, you know, you can find a study to support just about anything. Yeah.

If you want to. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and again, that’s, you know, that’s that’s part of that’s part of just our path is to discover those kind of things about ourselves.

Yeah. Well, you and I are both Catholic and we talked about getting Catholic radio all over Arkansas, but you have been You know, always from the beginning, you said that our podcasts don’t need to be religious or Catholic or anything like that. What do you say is a criteria for a podcast on a network? Yeah, well, I mean, I think that I think that there are some guardrails and, you know, we try not to put up any fences.

But, you know, we’re we’re not trying to be controversial. You know, we’re trying to be interesting. You know, I think one of the things that you do very well, Michael, is you look back in history and, you know, I think it’s, you know, today it’s very easy to think that, you know, history is not relevant or not interesting, but it is, you know. Again, we’re open to all kinds of things, but there would be some limits.

Again, we’re not looking to create any chaos in any way. But there’s just so many interesting things, and I think something we talked about this morning was There’s just so many trends and transactions, and one of the trends and transactions right now is there are a lot of younger people, particularly young men, who are interested in religion, and we see them all the time. And, you know, I think, you know, having a little local voice where we can talk directly to them and, you know, feed them in their journey.

I think podcasts that do that make a lot of sense. You know, we talked about health. I mean, you really kind of focused on health. We certainly can talk about, you know, missions or pilgrimages or, you know, there’s nothing wrong with content that has a beginning and an end.

So, again, I would love folks to reach out to us with their ideas and I’m always, when that happens, I’m always surprised with the creativity that you see. Well, I’m feeling pretty hot right now. I don’t know about you, but for a December day. It’s really warming up here.

There’s a nice breeze coming through there. Yeah. Well, it’s always a little warmer going up those hills too. Yeah.

Seems to me like I’ve been at an incline the whole time. That’s what it’s feeling like. Well, that’s that heavy phone that you’re carrying. I guess, yeah.

You’re always, you know, bringing up every time I talk to you, it’s like there’s a new podcast or YouTuber that you’re talking about. You listen to a lot of podcasts now. What do you think? is a really good podcast.

Oh, gosh. I mean, what makes a good podcast? Oh, well, that’s a little bit easier question. You know, because sometimes I listen to podcasts that are very different from what I’ve heard before.

And the way I kind of search for new podcasts to listen to, I start with podcasts that are popular in the moment. to kind of see, you know, is their message, you know, something new and affirming? What are people listening to? Yeah.

But I also, you know, I’ve always been kind of a know junkie for listening to self-improvement kind of things in my business and you know i am a salesperson so uh you know it’s you have to have you have to have that smooth technique and you have to be a good listener and uh you know so people who uh you know, tell stories about that or highlight people who are doing things, you know, is always very interesting to me. You know, and it’s funny, we were talking this morning about, you know, some of the things that I’m seeing on podcasts or, you know, people are interjecting music in podcasts or that, you know, in addition to their guests, they’re, you know, they’re getting feedback from their audience. One of the ones that was just real fun for me was I listened to a little bit older podcaster who’s in the TV world but has launched a really successful podcast and he was complaining about how his Apple phone got updated overnight while he was sleeping and he

wasn’t very happy about it, you know, and, you know, who’s Apple to do that? And, you know, I know we’ve all felt that way from time to time, you know, because, you know, as much as life is about change, change is hard sometimes. And, you know, when we’re facing change, You know, sometimes, you know, I know I ask, well, you know, why did it have to change? Well, that’s just that’s just the nature of life.

But I think for me, you know, podcasts, podcasts are important because it’s it’s not an interpretation. You know, like back in the day, we might read a newspaper or magazine and get somebody’s interpretation of situation what I love about podcasts is I can find somebody that has a podcast that I like to listen to or I can find somebody that I want to listen to and just catch them on a random podcast and I hear it straight from them and to me that’s that’s very powerful you know just like our conversation today we’re we’re just kind of talking about you know what what’s what’s happened in the last eight years so yeah Podcast can be unfiltered.

Yeah. For me, you know, just a little thing that I think about it again, this is just this is just my thought. But, you know, our new pope is Pope Leo. And the last Pope Leo was the pope in that time where we were going from an agricultural culture to a industrial culture.

And, you know, there’s a lot of challenges with that. I think this Pope Leo is, he’s reigning in that time now where we’re going from an industrial culture to a information culture. So, you know, that gives me some specific things to pray for him about. But, you know, I think it’s an exciting time and, you know, there’s, you know, and I want to be a participant in just how things roll out.

I mean, you know, the world of podcasting is changing as well and who knows what’s next, right? Yeah. Well, you know, and there’s just so much volume out there and, you know, and you have AI that’s listening probably the best, right? And keeping track of everything.

So, uh, you know, I, I think that there’s great benefits of that. I mean, I can, I can see a day down the road where, you know if you if you’re a person and you put enough media out there uh you know you could you could create a a version of yourself that’s online and have a conversation with yourself just based on what you’ve said in the past so who knows where that’s going to lead that’s right yeah it’s coming I’ve thought about trying to make that work. Well, you know, you probably could do it because you’ve got all those shows.

And I know I’ve done a couple of chat GPT searches on you and chat chat knows you pretty well. You talked a little bit about, you know, expanding podcast network, getting more podcasts and type that we’ll have. Where do you see the podcast network, say, five, ten years down the road? Yeah.

Well, you know, that’s a question I ask you all the time is, you know, what what has to be true for for us to feel successful, you know, down the road. So, what when I do, I’ll do three months and then I’ll do, let’s say a year. So, I think in three months, I know I, in the past, I’ve had a podcast called Wonderful Life. It was a good one too.

Yes, and just talking to people who were like George Bailey and made a big difference. You know, so I would say in three months, I would love to have 20 interviews done. I think as far as the network goes, it would be great for us. You know, we’re going to kind of focus on the many deacons that we have in our deanery here.

And, you know, so part of the interviewing process will be you know, we’ll offer a situation where we can ask them to, you know, maybe do, you know, maybe make a commitment to add content for us. So why don’t we say in three months that we have, let’s say seven is a good godly number, seven participants. And then I would say by the end of the year, we have as many downloads on our content as we’ve had to date. How’s that sound?

That is pretty aggressive, Tom. And I don’t even know what that number is, but I know it’s a big number. But I think we can do it. It is a lot, because I was just looking at Patty’s Truth of the Spirit just on the YouTube videos, and that was, she’s had over 400,000.

Wow. Look at that one. Yeah, it’s a steep, pretty, Steve go you got there. Yeah, you know shoot for Mars and maybe you get to the moon so You know, I think something else we could do too is is You know, we’re gonna have a just by doing the podcast.

We’re gonna have a presence on YouTube So you know, getting into other social media, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch. And, you know, that can be kind of planned out. So I would say other things that we could do locally is maybe get contacts from all the different parishes around the deanery would be something that would be helpful. I know at St.

Vincent’s where I go, in Rogers, we had a very famous musician there for a program, and there was a little bit of disappointment in that we didn’t have a full house for that. And I think the difference between having Half a house and a full house is really people knowing that it’s going on. So I think we definitely can help in that area. from a relevant radio point of view, I think I’m just so amazed at what Father Rocky has done and how he’s empowered people and the diversity of his shows.

It just gets better and better. When we first got into Catholic radio, one of the questions was, is there enough to talk about every day, all day? And, you know, thank you, God. The answer to that question is absolutely.

So, you know, and they’re continuing to expand their offerings. You know, if you have not looked at the Relevant Radio app, please do. There’s all sorts of content on there, all sorts of prayers. Relevantradio.com, right?

Yes. And anyway, the app is free and it’s just, it’s spectacular. And you know, it’s something that’s a companion for me every day, you know, as I say my prayers and just kind of, you know, go through my time spent in prayer with God. Well, you know, we talked about Relevant Radio, says http://relevantradio.com.

Your business is http://foodloops.net. Right. And, of course, http://paduapodcastnetwork.com. You’ll see, be able to access all of the podcasts that we have and have had in the past.

And you can, of course, always find me on YouTube at http://youtube.com/@runningafever. I’m getting tired, man. Well, at least it’s downhill now. Is it?

Yeah. Well, all right, man. Thanks a lot. OK.

Well, I’ll send that. We bet it on. Yeah. Have a good rest of the day.

I enjoyed it. That was very good. Yeah. Wore me out.

OK. All right. OK.