Hello, everybody. My name is Shannon Ozerny. I am the head of youth services at the West Vancouver Memorial Library, and it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the 16th annual Booktopia Literary Arts Festival and the first ever virtual Booktopia Festival. We miss you so, so much in the library. We can't wait to see you all again. In the meantime, we are so excited that we can do this remotely and still bring you some awesome Booktopia contents. I do want to start by acknowledging that the library has its home on the unceded and traditional territories of the Coast Salish people, and in particular recognize the Squamish, Slewa-tooth, and Musqueam nations. Booktopia is a very special partnership between the library, the library foundation, and our friends at West Vancouver schools. A huge thank you to Mr. Ian Kennedy, director of instruction for working with us on virtual Booktopia, and our amazing teacher librarians who have really supported us in bringing this virtual presentation to you. A big thank you also to our community newspaper, the North Shore News. They have supported Booktopia every single year when we've been able to meet in person. So our format, I'm going to quickly, very shortly, turn it over to Jennifer. She's going to show you a little bit of behind the scenes stuff and her office. Then we're going to both be on screen together. I am going to pass on some of your questions, and then we will wrap up. So we are so thrilled that Jennifer is joining us today from Utah. Jennifer is the New York Times bestselling author of a host of fantasy and historical fiction books. I know that some of you actually studied A Night Divided, which is the amazing story of a girl named Greta, who has been separated from half her family by the Berlin Wall in 1961. And her latest book, Words on Fire, is set in 1893, and it details what I think is really little known history of Lithuania and focuses on a girl named Audra, who has to unravel some mysteries about her parents before deciding if she actually wants to follow in their very dangerous footsteps. It is an absolutely fantastic read. All Jennifer's books are just immersive and so well researched and taught, and just totally engaging. The perfect thing to read during this time. And I'm so glad that she's with us today. Jennifer, I am going to turn it over to you. All right, thank you very, very much, Shannon, and thank you for all those kind words. Thank you everyone who is joining us and to all those who made this event happen. I'm very grateful to be part of it. I think what I'm going to do is take you on a little tour of my office. As I do, I will show you a little bit about what I do and how I approach my writing, how I approach just my career in general. So I'm going to start by, I'll show you out the window of my office. You live in Vancouver, which is already just extraordinarily beautiful. So you don't need to see any beautiful sight from me, but this will give you kind of an idea of me living in the mountains of Utah. So this is the view out my door. I mean, at my window, just kind of a lot of farmland, a lot of open space, and we are right in the mountains.  And a lot of inspiration for the outdoors. I'm very inspired by that and what it means to live as a part of nature and among that. So that's just very fun for me. Alright, over here. This is my favorite shelf, like my favorite bookshelf. This is like, even if I love you, you don't get these books. These are mine. And you notice there's a Harry Potter missing right here. That's because my son took it to read. And I'm really like urging him to read on because I want the book back because he might destroy it because he's like that. And so I'm very anxious about my missing book. And part of that I want to show you something that's on that show. Sit down again. So I wasn't always a reader. I mean, I was, but I wasn't necessarily all about reading until third grade. In third grade, my teacher was Mrs. B. Hunnan. Mrs. B. Hunnan had a contest for us in third grade where every student got their name on a train car and the tracks went all the way around the entire classroom. And your train car would move forward along the tracks, depending on how many pages you read each day. Okay, I really wasn't the best reader, but I am super competitive. All right. So every day I would go to class and I would look for where my train car was. And if somebody's train car got ahead of mine, I would have to go home and read a book.  The price was like this three inch tall ceramic lion that doesn't have anything to do with trains. I think she just like pulled it out of a drawer or something, bought it at Salvation Army. I don't know why, but this was the price. So it was never about the price. It was always about just being the winner. And I would go and I would read every day. And at the end of the contest, two things happened. Number one, I got the lion. And this, it is on my favorite shelf because it is a reminder of the second thing that happened by the end of the contest. Mrs. B. Hunnan made me a reader. And she made me a reader for life. And so I have a specials shelf and I have a lion to always remind me of what a great teacher she was and what she did for me. So, on with the tour. That made me like weepy.  It's like the third grade ceramic lion and I'm like, oh, I just love Mrs. B. Hunnan. Oh my gosh, she was awesome, though. All right, let me keep going. All right, behind me here, this is my research wall. So a lot of times when I'm researching, and I'll show you a little bit of it, there's so much information, and it just gets packed into paper stacked on each other or it's like loaded those notes on my computer and it's too much. And so a lot of what I do for research, I put it up here as a visual. And because of that, it helps me to have a really clear contact and connection with what I'm researching. This is a timeline I created for the book Resistance. And it's just kind of a color coded World War two timeline. I can get closer to it. It's all color coded because I'm OCD about those things. But then I realized timelines. This is a mistake. All this is is names and dates and places and history isn't names and dates and places. History is people. So I made another poster. This one. These are the faces who actually did what I wrote about in Resistance. This is my way of reminding myself that even though I'm writing a story that has fictional characters that real people lived and breathed and worked and fought and died for what they believed in. And this becomes my grounding in it. Right here. This was research I did. It's part of the research wall for Words on Fire. It's a map of Lithuania. These are just little places. This is where everything happens. That's for me to keep track of the timeline. Like if I say, hey, they've got to get from here to here. Can they actually do that in the time that I allowed for? And I keep track of this and all this way because the level of detail that I go into in researching, it's pretty amazing how much is required for research. Because a lot of times you don't even know what you're looking for until you just need that little piece of information. So like I'm doing a, I'm just finishing up a book called Rescue right now, which is another World War Two novel for that. I had these. All right, just reading, taking notes out of these. But this isn't enough, right? So I did more research. This is just the paper stuff. And I'll show you like how it is. It's like, all right, downloading the maps. And then I'll put in my own notes from the maps. It is creating notes, lots of notes, lots of notes. You know, just papers that I print out and then making notes in the column. This is where I start to do outlines, this sort of thing. And everything I create has just mass amounts of research for it. This is research for resistance. All right, part of resistance takes place in the Warsaw ghetto. All right, these are Nazi aerial maps of the Warsaw ghetto. And what I've done here, this is there so that I know they're sewer lines. And I'm tracing sewer lines so that I know if I say you can escape the ghetto, if you enter a manhole here and follow the sewer line, you can get out of the ghetto. Well, I can't say that in the novel if it's not true. And that's why research becomes so important. Now, Shannon mentioned Night Divided. A lot of research for Night Divided, honestly, was YouTube. All right, because in YouTube there are tons of interviews with people who actually lived in East Germany. So rather than me reading a third person narrative, here's somebody saying this happened to me. All right, for example, I watched a video with a man, he's an older man now, but he had come back to East Germany to do this interview. He had escaped. His method of escape was with a tunnel. And he's standing on a road in East Berlin. Now the road should be like this, right, just a flat road, but not the road he's standing on. This road was like this. And he said, we are right now standing over the exact place where my tunnel began to collapse. He said, if the Stasi had driven over this road while I was tunneling out, I'd be a dead man now. And so I take and I listen to this first person narratives and learned more about East Germany than I ever would have learned just in books. YouTube was amazing for that. All right, let's continue on the office tour. All right, we have up here. These are books that I have written right here. No, these are books that I have written that have been published. All right, and this is important to note. So when I was on the road to publication, I, I wrote one of the, I wrote four manuscripts, they were all terrible, really, really bad, they're going to be buried with me, because nobody needs to see them ever. Finally, I wrote one and I thought this is so good. It was called apprentice to a madman apprentice to a madman. I'm like, every kid on earth is going to buy like 10 copies and I don't know why you'd need 10 copies of the same book. I just thought it was that great. And so I started writing everybody with a pulse and sending in a query letter. So a query letter. It's a one page letter. It says, here's a little bit about me. Here's a little bit about my novel. Now, I sent it in. This is an actual query letter that I wrote. This is the letter. There's the rejection. All right, I didn't even get a rejection letter. I got a rejection scribble. But that's okay. I thought I'll make it a little bit better. I'll try again. This is the query. There's the rejection. I thought, I'll just keep trying. This whole thing is a rejection letter, but at least I got it on their stationery. So I'm moving up in the world, right? But the truth is, on my way to getting my first book published, all of these, every letter there, that is the trying and failing and trying and failing and trying again and again and again to get published. This is part of the process because it's how we learn to become better writers. It's how every time I would fail at this, I would say, okay, I've got to become a better writer. How do I do that? And I would work toward that. But with apprentice to a mad man, one day I thought, okay, I know this publisher. It's publisher X. And they pretty much take everybody. So I thought, well, it's not the way I wanted to break into the business, but at least I would break in and I sent off my query letter to publisher X. Now fast forward about three months. And it's my birthday. On the morning of my birthday, I got a call from my cousin on her very first manuscript and her very first query letter, she sent it to publisher X. And publisher X, who accepts nearly everybody, of course, sent her an acceptance letter. And she writes me to say, isn't this awesome? We are going to have an author in the family. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's, that's great. And I just really hate you. All right, because I wanted to be the author in the family and I had done all of this. And on one manuscript and one query letter, she was the author in the family. And I thought, okay, all right, this is not the way I wanted to have this go but at least I know publisher X is sending out their acceptance letters. So I went out to the mailbox and sure enough, there was mine. And I opened it up and I thought, okay, at least we can be the two authors in the family and I opened it up and the publisher who takes nearly everybody sent me a rejection on my birthday. And that was a bad day. There's not enough ice cream in the world to make that better. I know for a fact I tried to drown myself in it. And I went in the house, and I thought, all right, for me, there's only going to be one of two possibilities. Either I will admit, I'm never going to become an author that I'm not good enough that I don't have the talent I don't have what it takes and I'll just walk away from this, or option two, I will never fail at this again. And so I took a really hard look at my writing and I said, what am I doing wrong? Where is it that I am falling short? And I thought, I think I know what it is. And so I'm going to write one more manuscript and we'll just see. That became my first published novel. Show it to you. And so that one was Elliot and the Goblin War. This is what got me my agent. It's what got me first published. This was a small series, maybe only four people in the country heard of it, and three of them were my mom. All right, but this is how I broke in. What I learned I was doing wrong is I was writing for somebody else. I was writing for a publisher. I was writing for kids. I was writing for the reader. I wasn't writing for me. And as soon as I said, okay, I don't care about the rules. I don't care. I'm just going to write something that I love. That's when I finally began to get success. But I never take it for granted now because my road to get to where I am. It was rough. And I wouldn't trade a minute of it. Because if not for those rejection letters, if not for all that, I never would have reached the point to say, okay, what am I doing wrong? And how can I fix it? And it taught me you can get to the very, very bottom of anything you were trying to do and still reach your dream. All right, it is always possible. There is never a point when you say goodbye to that. So these are the books here that I have published. Very happy with them. I've got up here just things have given me a German mark. This would have been East German money. This is a little tiny piece of the wall, which I kind of like. This is a little character that could have been in that Elliott and Goblin War debut. So just kind of fun. All right, this shelf is one of my favorites. This is like my general just writers reference books. And I use these actually quite a bit for just various purposes, but not necessarily the kind of books that most people would have on their shelves. This is my handbook of poisoning. This isn't like, here's some things about poison. This is the actual technical scientific manual, all things poison. And my family is like, Mom, why do you have that? Do you have to cook dinner tonight? And they said it wasn't the handbook alone. It's when they saw the book next to it, which is how to disappear completely and never be found. And they're like, seriously, Mom, why are those books together? And I'm like, well, because obviously you might need one and then the other very, very soon.  This is literally everything that could go wrong just by stepping out your door. So be grateful if you're quarantined because this, I mean, this is serious. It's just an awesome book. And this one, and believe it or not, this is actually a really useful book. It's not just comedy. It's actually a great survivalist manual, the zombie survival guide. And this is like real no kidding tips of survival hints. And I use those things in weird sorts of ways. All right, finally, down here. This is my thinking about like things that I might want in the future. So I've got, you know, some books that might interest me. This is Spies of Mississippi. This is kind of a civil rights United States civil rights sort of book. This is the killing ground. This is the British Army, the Western Front. This is about this is a World War One novel. And then some of you might have said, okay, why do you have two boggle sets? Like what could you possibly have? This is actually for no kidding, like a book I'm working on called Black Ink. All right, so Black Ink is the story of a boy. Well, I should tell you, okay, in my small town, there's this church that this old stone church that used to be the church in town will it burned. And so there's only the frame of it now. And it just makes it kind of creepy, honestly, because it just used to be something and now it's just this brick frame. Anyway, I will drive by or walk by this church. And one day I just thought about a boy who might be living secretly in there. And then I started to ask questions about, okay, who is this boy? Why is he living there? And that was the start of Black Ink. Black Ink is the story of a boy with no memory. He has no idea who he is. He doesn't know anything about himself, but that's okay, because he has a sharpie. And every day he writes on his forearm. Now, if what he writes about himself is true, the ink stays on his forearm, but if it's not true, it soaks in. And every day he writes a different name on his arm. He's trying to figure out his name and still he has not figured that out. But every day he tries a new name. And on weekends, this boy volunteers at the old folks home, because if he plays boggle with the old folks, they will feed him. So boggle, as you saw, it's just a dice game. It has letters on all sides. You shake up the dice, and then the letters fall into a train. You try to find words. And one day this boy shakes up the boggle set. And when the dice fall, he reads out, they know you are here, run. And so it's going to be a story about a boy with no memory, but he's got a magic sharpie and a boggle set that sometimes talks to him. That's why I have boggle. And that's part of, you know, that idea, it just came from me walking by this church and imagining a boy. But ideas, they are everywhere. They are everywhere around us. Like for me right now, this is my works in progress file. Like every one of these represents a different story that I am working on. And everything in just a slightly different place. And so if I get bored with one project or if I get stuck, I just, I just, you know, move on to a new file folder and I go there. But ideas truly the way that I find ideas is as soon as something grabs my attention for any reason like that church, as soon as it grabs my attention, I immediately start to ask questions about it. And the questions I ask lead me to story. And you can do this right where you're at. Like right now, you can start to do this. And so if you just look around your area, just pull something and it doesn't even matter what it is that you pull. So for example, I could say, all right, I got a pen.  Please tell me more about the pen. And it could be as simple as all right, this pen is no ordinary pen. Because if you write something with this pen, what is going to happen? And hopefully immediately, you can start to go, oh my gosh, if you wrote something with this pen, then maybe whatever you draw becomes real. Maybe you can write the future and whatever you write down, that's the way it's going to happen. Maybe you can write yourself into a portal and you just do the paper and the paper that you write with becomes the portal. And all of a sudden, all these possibilities occur. Guys, that's a pen. And if you can create story from a pen, you can create story from anything, just look around you as soon as it grabs your attention. You take it and hold on to it. And then you start to ask those questions and then from that story comes. Now, for me, when I get the idea, I'm going to try to figure out the ending. Okay, but the way I do it, let's take our pen, for example. All right. And so I'll be like, that's my whole idea. A pen. Yay. And I'm going to say, okay, but something about this pen. Now, I'm not going to accept one possible answer. I'm going to make myself come up with five. All right. You can write the future. You can write yourself into a portal. Anything you draw becomes real. And I'm going to get five. And one of those five, I'll be like, oh, that's my story. That's my idea. And I just kind of, I'm like, okay, so now I have point, I have point and where the story is going to end. And I start to think about who uses this pen. Why do they have it? Who wants it? Is this rare or common? Can anyone get one? Is there a competing pen or am I holding the only magical pen in the universe? Well, how did I get this? And I'll ask questions. And then it's just about connecting the gap. How do we get from here to here? And how do I do that in the most interesting way possible? And from there, I start to build an outline. I'm actually working on one right now that I can't find. This is kind of outline, but I've started to write text to it. And I start to create that outline. And then I write a first draft.  And then I rewrite and I rewrite and I rewrite and eventually I don't totally hate it. And then if I keep rewriting, eventually I get something that might be publishable. And if I keep writing, hopefully I write something that ends up in your hands, which is why we are here today. And I'm very glad to be here. So Shannon, I'm going to hand it over to you for any questions that listeners might have. Fantastic. Thank you so much. I'm going to get us both on screen here. I'm glad I was muted because when you held up that lion, I cheered like it was the Superbowl or something like that. No, I'm serious. I love that lion. Like it is so precious to me. I mean, you saw me.  It's amazing that things that mean so, so much. We do something similar at the library where we think, oh, we're just giving away an eraser or a tattoo or something like that. But it represents such a bigger, more life-changing experience. I could not believe you still had the lion. To me, it represents exactly what you say. We don't ever know the influence. Like what is going to be the trigger. Miss Honey did not know that that had such an impact on me until book two of the Mark of the Thief series, which was dedicated to her. And then I found her and sent her a copy of the book and explained to her. This is why and book one and book three of that series were also dedicated to teachers who had no idea that this little thing set me on the course to where I am today. Oh, I love that. I love that. And speaking of teachers and classrooms, we do have some questions. I'm just going to spit them out. This question I love. I always love to hear what authors have to say about this. How do you decide on the names of the characters in your books? Awesome. There are three ways I do names. The first way is summer symbolic. In Words on Fire, Audra gets her name because in Lithuanian it means store. It's actually a Lithuanian word. And the language then would have been banned. And I was so fascinated by that. If her name is a word that's been banned, her name is illegal, which means her existence is illegal. So it was a very symbolic sort of a name to give her. Sometimes names come out of baby books the way a lot of us are named. So for Night Divided, I was looking up, you know, German names from the 1950s when Gerda would have been born, when Fritz would have been born. And then I'm just going and I'm looking for names that aren't like some German names are very complicated and hard to pronounce or remember. So I was looking for ones that aren't too complex, but that had a definite German sound to them. And if they didn't sound too much like other character names. The third way is I just make them up. I just make them up. And so it might be me putting letters together. So all of my fantasies, most of the names in there are just made up names. And I just combine one letter with another. And I'll give a trick for people who want to make up names and just don't know where to start. Just take an actual place name. All right, just take an actual place name. So I live in Utah. All right. And but you can't use that if you're trying to make up a place. So we're just going to change one letter. So how about instead of U-T-A-H, we go to U-T-A-L. Now it's Utah. And let's say, all right, I want to add a letter before that. Let's add, well, let's add a C-H. No, it's Chutol or Chuttle. All right. And just one letter at a time, you just change, you add or delete just one letter at a time. And pretty soon you've got a completely original name. But you started with an actual name. That's a trick that helps a lot of beginners. That's a really, really good one. I love that. Another question about your characters. Do you base your characters on people you know and sort of a follow up to that? This listener is really interested in how you came up with the characters of Audra from Words on Fire and Jaren from the False Prince in particular. So if you can speak to Audra and Jaren's birth stories a little bit. I can. I can. For Audra, a lot of my female characters in historicals, they're naturally these bold sort of girls with these very strong instincts of this is what I want and I'm going for it. And so I really wanted Audra to be different. I really wanted Audra to not know what she's doing and to not be super confident in herself. Because I think that was a reflection more of how most of us feel like we are. And so I think that's part of why Audra is resonated with a lot of readers because they're like, I have no clue what I'm doing either. But I've got to make a decision somehow even though I don't know what's at the other end of this path. I don't know if this is even what I want. And so Audra was designed for me definitely as a character who was just trying to figure out who she is. And I really love her for that and to watch her grow through the book. Alright, Jaren. Okay, I do not base characters on real people because as you know, because of him, I am horrible to my characters. Like I am so cruel to them. If I was basing it or thinking of a real person, I would never be able to be as mean as I want. But there is one aspect of him that is based on a real experience. So I used to be the high school debate coach. One of our debaters was Ken. Ken was brilliant. He's popular. He's a student body officer. He's a great kid, a wonderful debater. But Ken was a thief.  Ken, every time, every week, he'd go up and shake the bus driver's hand. Just, oh, thank you for driving us to the tournament today. And while he is shaking the bus driver's hand, he would steal the watch right off their wrist every time. And he'd take the watch to the back of the bus, hold it for the whole bus ride. And at the end of the bus ride, Ken would come forward with the watch and he would show it to the bus driver and say, hey, I found this at the back of the bus. Is there any chance you dropped it? And the bus driver would be like, oh, it's so good to find honest young men these days. And I'd be like, don't thank him. He stole that from you. And Ken stole from his debate judges. He stole from other competitors. He was so good at it and he returned everything, I think. But he was so good at it when it was ever time to write the thief scenes in The False Prince. I always, always thought about Ken. Oh, I love that. Ken the thief. Ken works for your credit card company now. He literally does. That's his current job. He works for your credit card company. Yeah. Don't give him the handbook on poisoning. That's me. We also have a question too about how kind of the state of things, the state of the world right now is impacting your creative process. All right. Yes and no. Yes and no. It is, it is a crazy time, right? And it's a time when we get like hit with unexpected emotions, you know, where we're like, this is awesome. I don't have to go to school. I could be home all day. And then we do that for a while. We're like, I am home all day and we miss our friends or, or weirdly, we kind of miss the routine of school. Or we just miss being able to just go and just be out in public. And that just messes with us emotionally. My belief is that when a door closes, a window opens. And so it's about keeping our eyes on that window and say, okay, don't think about what it is you can't do. Don't think about what opportunities you are missing. Think about what this has offered you as an incredibly wonderful, unique time. I am home now. That's why I get to work on this. I can never do this with a regular schedule because I'm so busy doing all the things I would normally do. But here I get a chance to just let my imagination wide open because I finally have the time for it. And so yeah, if I focus on the closed door, I get kind of bummed. Well, you had just this presentation. I mean, you were supposed to be in Vancouver tomorrow. We never would have got to see the inside of your office. We never, I don't think you'd be traveling with that lion. No, that's exactly, that's exactly it. But there, there is nothing that is all good or all bad. And so we just stay focused on what is really amazing and what is really great.  You want to get, you know, better at any skill. You want to paint something. You want to write a story. You have been handed the gift of time. And so use it because this may never come around again that you have this concentrated time. It is an opportunity if we take it. Absolutely. I do have to ask because it didn't come up in the tour. And people might be wondering the typewriter behind you. What's the story of that typewriter typewriter? Let me take it over to you. Um, few years ago, my husband gave me this gorgeous typewriter for Christmas. And you notice that there's this paper in it. Let me get really close on it. That is a concarte, which if you were Jewish in Poland, you would have to have those as papers in order to get anywhere around. So I'm going to take it over to you. So I'm going to take these as papers in order to get anywhere around. Um, part of the theme of resistance was, um, using a typewriter just exactly like this one to falsify papers so that you could pass yourself off as a Jewish Christian. I mean, as a Polish Christian and thus be able to move around. So I have that here. Um, this piece that is, um, symbolic for the false Prince series, just the keys. Um, this is also made by my husband because he's awesome. That is, um, the medallion from the cover of Mark of the Thief. It's a 3d printed in metal. And so it is the medallion. Um, one time and they stopped because it's this big metal piece that's going through the metal detector. And they're like, what is that? And I'm like, it's an ancient Roman medallion.  And I'm like, no, but it's very cool that he did that. Is it heavy? What? Is it heavy? Yeah. Yeah, it's heavy. It's, it's got definite weight to it, just like the bowlers would have had back in ancient Rome. Right. So yeah, he did awesome with it. So cool. All right. I got a couple more for you. Um, you talked about how, um, when you were younger and, and you were sort of motivated by the competition of reading, what role did history play when you were growing up? Have you always been fascinated with history or did you get this kind of bug later in life? No, I was, um, I benefited from having really great history teachers, really great history teachers, um, who didn't just teach me names, dates and places that they taught me stories of history and, and just really lit up my imagination with possibilities. Um, I appreciate it even more now. Um, but because I understand that history is, it's not a timeline. It's a cycle. That everything that happens has happened before and I realized that the better I know my history, the better I know the future. It's part of why this pandemic, it doesn't worry me too much because I mean, it's serious, but we've, this has happened before in history and we've come through it. And so I know we're going to come through this again because I know we've come through it before. And so, um, history, um, it, it, I owe that to my teachers, um, but I continue to love it and study it to this day. I think, I think the stories of history are the best stories ever told. Awesome. I love that. You bring so much gratitude just to your work and to writing and, you know, the, the question that, um, that someone asked that I really liked and that I think I went to ask all of our Booktobria presenters, which you've touched on a little bit, but what are you most grateful for, um, right now or in your writing career? Um, God, um, for my writing career, I am grateful it exists. Um, here's the thing. I get to imagine an idea in my head. It's like a little seed that just, a little spark that just starts there and I, and I toy with it and I turn it and eventually I start to put words on paper and eventually those words, um, I can make a living off of what I, I put down on paper and then I can share it and I can be talking to, um, young people in Vancouver about something that just started as a seed in my head. I mean, how could I not think that's amazing and be grateful every day that I get to do that and call that a job? I mean, that's, I don't work, right? I write and it's just an amazing thing. Um, but in terms of what am I grateful for? Um, I'm grateful for my foundation. So when, um, so I had a single mom growing up and we had very little money in eighth grade. I had two pairs of pants. I had a pair of jeans and then I had a pair of pants that she sewed for me. All right. No way. I'm going to school and a pair of home. So there's no chance of that. So I really had this one pair of pants and, uh, and so I didn't have a lot that other kids had. Um, but my, but I had a library card and a mom who would take us anytime we wanted to go and she would let us fill up the back wells of, um, the back seat with books as many as we were allowed to check out. She let me check out that many books and she would bring me and in that way I had every opportunity that anybody else had because I had access to knowledge and it was so simple and easy to get there. And, uh, and I'm so grateful for that foundation because everything I am today, and it doesn't mean everything in my life was easy and most of it wasn't, but because it wasn't easy, because I had to go through a hard times, I am who I am today and I wouldn't trade a bit of it. Um, I think why you, if you see gratitude, it is because, um, I have everything to be grateful for and very little in my life to complain about. I love that. And the coffee mug quote of what you were saying, I don't know if you caught yourself. You said, I don't work. I write. I mean, how gorgeous is that? Oh, I love it. It is, it is being able to do what you love. You know, that's gratitude. Yeah. Well, we are going to end it there because we can't get on a higher note than that. So I'm going to press stop on the recording. I won't disappear from your screen. Uh, I just want to say a huge thank you to everybody for watching. Jennifer, we might just have to bring you back next time when we can in person again, just so we can actually all meet and say hi. I was wrong about that, but I'm so glad I got to be here with all of you today. Thank you very much for tuning in. Thank you. And everybody else, we've got a couple other booktopia videos on the way so you can check those out. In the meantime, thanks so much for tuning in with our very special chat with Jennifer Nielsen. Bye everyone.


The United States Navy puts great resources towards environmental protection and doing what's right out here at sea. It's where we operate, it's where we work and we're passionate about it. So as a member of the environmental team, our goal is to clear a mitigation zone around the actual charge that we're going to be using for this event. The zone is three and a half nautical miles. We start about five hours prior to any event and we're constantly clearing the zone of any marine life. We have nine PSOs, protected species of observers. We use high-powered big eyes that are about 25 times the power of a regular binocular or regular eyesight along with hand-held binoculars that are specialized for the marine environment. We also have environmental aircraft and we have a mark vessel which is short for Marine Animal Response Team. We're looking for splashes, any sort of movement in the water that might be a marine wildlife. We spot what is a sighting. We report that to our protective measures coordinator who tracks it on their computer. I have some marine animal tracking software here that plots the sightings as they come in. Every 15 minutes, rather, updating the position of the charge that our mitigation zone is moving with us. The duration of the event could be hours so we're actually trying to keep that zone clear ahead of the ship and also around the ship. So our plane is actually monitoring 15 miles ahead of the charge and then later as we get closer to detonation, the plane will actually come back and clear the actual mitigation zone that they're going to have not a couple miles. If we even notice a splash beforehand, we notify the PMC right away so that even if it's five minutes before the shot trial, we will shut down and make sure that that is not a marine wildlife that's in the zone and it will keep things on hold until it exits the mitigation zone.


So, I think Steve did a wonderful job covering, as he put it, the responsible path forward and to clinical sequencing. So, I guess that leads me to cover the irresponsible path. And more seriously, I'm actually, I'm grateful to be here. I'm glad that you've invited a patient to comment on the effects of clinical sequencing.  And in fact, I'm actually here to make your life much more difficult. And the reason for that is that I think it's actually somewhat challenging to define complete definition for patient-centered outcome. What exactly does that mean? And I think it's actually really important that we get this right. And because if we don't, it's going to be, we're going to miss a lot of what is happening as a result of sequencing. So, what I really want to do today is present some examples of why it can be very challenging to define what an outcome is in a very systematic fashion. Now, Steve was actually kind enough to give a very broad and somewhat vague definition of whatever is meaningful and important to patients and caregivers. And I think that the challenge here is that, you know, if we work with a broad definition like this, we actually can capture a lot of outcomes. But when you work with a broad definition, measurement is what becomes difficult. So, I think measurement of this definition is actually going to be the most challenging component. And the important thing I like about that definition is that it doesn't strictly rely on a notion of clinical utility. And it sidesteps issues like actionable. Is it an actionable result that you're giving back to a patient? It's really about what matters to the patient directly. I think that's critical going forward. Because I would say, and I hope to convince you of the fact, that from a patient's perspective, any information you can give them that they didn't have before is in some way actionable. And if you work with patients, then there's a lot they can do with the information you return to them. But again, it's going to make measuring these outcomes in a very unifying way somewhat hard to do. And I've actually, I've looked at some of the literature on this. This is part of the work I've done with the End Diagnosis Diseases Network. I've looked at some of the surveys given to patients to try to measure the outcomes of sequencing or genetic counseling or these sorts of things. And I always find them falling somewhat short of what I'm witnessing out there as a patient and in the patient community. So, towards that end, I'll give you six data points from the patient's side of what can happen when you get your genetic data back and what patients can do with that. And I'll start with my own story. And I know a lot of you have seen my story before. So I'll keep it brief. I'll try to summarize seven years of my life in about two minutes. So my son is actually, he ended up being the very first case of an ultra rare genetic disorder. And so I would say our story was more or less standard, at the start at least, beginning on this undiagnosed island where many families who have a rare undiagnosed disease start. And then we had what I would call sort of the standard diagnostic odyssey, which I'll just sort of show you the pictures for right here. And up until we got to sequencing, our journey wasn't all that different. We had seizures, movement disorder, developmental delay. And the one odd thing in our case was a strange inability to cry tears. I think that was what was sort of the standout feature from the phenotype that really distinguished us from a lot of the other disorders. And that was our life for four years, sort of trapped on that island, not knowing what was going on. We got very lucky. We've been working with Duke University and some of the folks who see here on this slide throughout the entire diagnostic odyssey, trying to get answers to what was going on. So when clinical exome sequencing was just becoming a thing that you could think about doing for research, this is back around 2010 or so, they approached us and they said, we think you're a great candidate for this trial. So we signed up. They did trio sequencing. So what they got from that was that my son had actually inherited two novel variants in his anglyone gene, or at least as yet unseen variants in his anglyone gene. And they believe that this was probably the cause of his disorder. But they were careful to tell us that, hey, this is the first, in fact, only time we've ever seen this gene associated with human disease. So we're not really sure. In fact, until this morning, I wasn't quite sure how to call a variant like this, but then I heard this Vax term, a variant of almost known significance. So now I know what it was. That's a great technical term. So I mean, we were pretty sure that this is what it was, but we didn't know exactly if this was truly it. And I think they had to actually modify the IRB protocol or get permission to actually return this to us as a result. But they did. And I'm very glad that they did, because we could do an awful lot with that, despite the fact that it was called not actionable. This really is a brand new disorder. There's not much you can do for it with knowing that. So what I design, actually using some postdocs from folks in the room, we looked at the genomic databases that were out there at the time. I think it was the Washington database. We realized that there should be other patients out there, if this really was the cause. There should be about 500 of them living out there somewhere in the world. So I thought, well, I think there's a way to actually find them. So to find them, what we did, what I did is I wrote a blog post. And I really wanted this blog post to do two things. I wanted it to go viral, and I wanted it to rank very highly on Google. So if there's anybody else out there with this disorder, they would find us. And then we would know for sure. So this is the blog post I wrote. And sure enough, it actually did go viral. Very quickly, in fact, it was seen by several million. And it did, in fact, rank very highly on Google, so that if anybody's out there searching for the same symptoms or the same gene, we would pop up right away. And what this does, when you start to find other patients, is kind of remarkable. I think within two months, we actually ended up with two more patients in Turkey. A couple months later, we had two more in Israel. And then a few months after that, we actually had another patient right here in the US in Palo Alto. And over the past three years, we have had patients popping up all over the world as they encounter the presence we have set up on the web. And what this has done for us, what it means to get a diagnosis like this and to be able to act on it, is that it sort of washes away that dark night of uncertainty and isolation. And you end up with a community and the sunlight of science in its place. So even though it's in some sense not actionable, I think there was an awful lot that we were able to do with that. Because that community, which today stands at 39 patients around the world, has been very active in pushing the science. In fact, NIH itself has been very active in pushing the science on this disorder through the natural history study that's been established on disorders of Lycosylation. So we're a part of that study. We've pushed 13 patients through it thanks to Bill Gall's support. And I've actually been fortunate to visit many of them as they go through, because I spend way too much time in this city. And so it's been a real powerful moment for our community to have that ability to participate in this protocol. And what it's giving us is a tremendous amount of actionable data on the disorder. Lots of biomarkers that are driving the fundamental science and driving our push towards ultimately a treatment. And at the same time as this, of course, we paired up with scientists right off the bat. We want to push the basic science, since we know nobody understands the disorder, let's do that. So we went to Dr. Hud-Freeze, an expert in disorders of Lycosylation, and we said, let's do this. And it's been a while now, but we've made a lot of progress in the basic science. We actually have a pretty good understanding of what's happening with this gene, and most critically, what's happening when this gene isn't there. It causes an accumulation of misfolded glycoproteins in the cytoplasm. And over the past few years, we had a much better understanding of what that accumulation is looking like and what it's causing within the cells. In particular, it's causing a deficit in one particular metabolite represented by this little blue square right here. And it turned out this little blue square is actually available on the internet for about 25 cents a day. So I bought it. And after a particularly nasty bout in the hospital for my son, I actually decided it was time to try it out and to give it to him. And the amazing thing is, after about three days on the substance, of course, I tested it on myself first, I should say. He actually cried his very first tear. So this clearly was actually involved in the pathology of this disorder. And so it may have been one small tear for him. And in fact, he's cried many tears since. But it really was sort of an ocean of science for the disorder. And of course, when he cried that tear, I collected it, packed it on dry ice, and shipped it to a lab in California for analysis, which is more or less what any parent would do in that situation. And I myself, I'm actually a computer scientist, but I've been shifting a lot of my research into the intersection of biology and medicine and to the extent that computation intersects that as well. And in fact, I even over the summer got my first grant proposal funded in biology. And we're actually building a planarian-based drug screening platform for Anglia I back at the University of Utah. So we made a lot of progress. And I would ask you all, does that constitute action? Because I certainly think the answer is yes. And I was asked to comment on the economic effects. And so I can tell you that just getting a diagnosis alone will drop the medical bill substantially. Because there's all sorts of stuff you stop doing. I think our medical bill is dropped by a factor of 10 after getting a diagnosis. Because we just stopped doing a lot of stuff that we knew wasn't actually going to work. I actually think that the net economic impact, though, was roughly zero. Because everything we were spending on medicine was now going into postdocs, which insurance does not cover. So the question is, can other people do this? Is this replicable? And the answer is actually yes. Other people can do this. And I'll share with you some very quickly some examples of other people that actually have. So after we found patients on the unit, other patients have been reaching out to me and asking, hey, can you help us do the same thing? So a few years ago, Milo's family reached out. I helped them put this website together. And in 29 days, they found a matching patient. And the mother is now a co-author on the resulting paper. And about a year after that, another mom said, hey, I want to find patients on the unit, too. And so she put up her own blog post. And in two weeks, ended up finding other patients out there with the exact same disorder. Again, another novel disorder discovered by moms. And then just a couple of weeks ago, there was yet another case of this where I helped a family put together a website. And they put this together out there to find patients. And they shattered, I think, the world record for patient matching. They found seven more patients in 12 hours for a totally novel disorder. The reason they found them is that the researchers working in the disorder hadn't yet published their results. So the researchers knew about the pathogenicity of this gene, but it wasn't available in ClinVar or any of the other databases. Just about the only way to figure this out was to go to the internet and ask people what this meant. So over time, my experience in working with patients is that it's taking less and less time to get a variant interpretation done by the internet. Down to the point now where we're at around 12 hours of fully utilized things like social media. And what this means is that the internet itself is becoming this database of variants. Because patients are posting them on Twitter, on Instagram, on their blogs. You name it. But the good news is you can search that with Google. So you can actually query this patient-generated variant database with Google queries. So another story which I think is very interesting is Tracy's story. So Tracy, seen here with her daughter, is, I think, really amazing for what she's done. So her daughter, who's now 19, started having seizures about 17 years ago. And in her daughter's case, or in this case, what's really amazing is her mom only had a high school diploma. But she was just fascinated with what was going on with her daughter and really wanted to help her. And so she ended up getting an associate's degree, then a bachelor's degree, then a master's degree, then a PhD in neurogenetics, and finally became a postdoc doing variant analysis for exomes, all motivated by wanting to help her daughter. So of course, she gets to this point and they actually run her daughter's exo. And well, they actually find something. They find multiple variants of uncertain significance and L-type calcium channel genes. So then the question becomes, well, what does this mean? And I should also point out that Tracy has an amazing YouTube video online. I highly encourage you to actually watch to hear the full story of how this unfolded. And the question became, well, what is this doing to the ion channel in this case? Is it causing a gain of function, or is it in some way causing a loss of function? And she knew from observing her daughter's history over time that it was in fact, most likely, a gain of function in L-type calcium channels. So then what she did is she checked for medications that could actually interact with these channels, and she found a drug for arrhythmias that was actually capable of acting as a blocker for this channel. Working with her clinician, they actually tried it out, and it worked. So the number of seizures per month went from hundreds before down to maybe a couple dozen afterwards. So this is a dramatic improvement in the quality of her daughter's life as a result of sequencing. She'd like to point out that we need to focus, not just on the variance of uncertain significance, and we actually should not be afraid to return these to patients either. I will skip over Sonia and Eric's story, he's right of time, their story is also online, I highly recommend you read it. The short version is she ended up getting, she's now a PhD student researching her own disease. So this sort of stuff is certainly happening over and over again. So if there's anything we should do, it should be to erase the words not actionable from our clinical vocabulary. Thanks.


in this new offense, even though pretty much nothing has gone according to the Ravens' plan.  They haven't had Odell or Ronnie Stanley. They haven't had them for weeks. They missed Senor Tyler Linderbaum for two games. Mark Andrews missed time, Rashad Bateman is hurt again. It's like the same old violin, right? Thing like, oh, this is what's gonna sink the Ravens this year. No, usually it's disastrous. And this all could be that, but it is not. Yet Lamar, Lamar, Lamar, he's keeping this team at three and one. They haven't hit the ice fork. He's on pace to have a career year as a passer after tearing up the Browns' number one ranked defense on Sunday. Nobody could get through the Browns. Nobody could do it. So the volume in the passing game hasn't quite exploded the way it was advertised when Monk and was hired. And they aren't exactly airing it out. It's kind of what we thought was gonna happen. We talked about a lot here on Up and Adams, but look at the efficiency. It's a chef's kiss, baby. Lamar's completion percentage is 10 points higher than his career average. He's posted his best passer rating since his MVP year in 2019. And though he's been running less, he's being used as more of a goal line weapon this year. Lamar already has four rushing touchdowns. His career high in a single season is seven. So he's already what, more than halfway there? That's boy math, girl math. I love that math. I love that for him, okay?


Hi everyone, my name is Sheila Andre, I'm part of East Mozambique as formerly called South Indigenous. My name is Alfredo Nushanga, I'm also part of the South Indigenous team. Okay, so here we are going to talk about the Bazzara App, which is one of our projects that is related to farmers. When this project started, there were farmers that were producing a lot of crops and they didn't have customers or people to buy them. There were people buying crops from other countries, example, South Africa, and the local farmers were producing a lot of crops, in this case was potatoes, and they had the necessity to sell these potatoes. Then a local NGO contacted us to work on this platform, which we call it a marketplace, which would allow the local farmers that produce a lot of potatoes to have a platform which enabled them to show the products that they were selling. So we saw the opportunity to use DHIS as a platform that will build this marketplace. So we look at this opportunity, it has a great way to use DHIS tool for a domain beyond the health, and on this case in particular we analyzed the DHIS tool and we designed a system that is possible to be used by the farmers, the producers, and also by the consumers. So basically what we did is to create different tools, different apps, one mobile app that is possible to install for both the farmers and the consumer, and we also have a web portal where they can access to these tools and the farmers can publish the products and the consumer can go there and request, and when they request the farmer receives a notification and the follow-up is done within the application. So basically we gained a lot of adventures with that, and one of them is that we already used the existing DHIS tool background and backend so we didn't have a lot of work developing the app, and we also used the analytics part of DHIS tool to make some good statistics in order to analyze data and use this data for some benefits to the society in Mozambique. So far we have done a lot of work mapping a lot of farmers. In the system we have almost 3,000 farmers registered, which one was based on this work that we've done with this local organization. The other approach we did to gain new farmers into the system, that is this annual kind of conference that we have with local NGOs that go and present the work they do. So in this particular conference there are also people that work with farmers, so we created a kind of binary like this to explain them how Bazzara or this marketplace works and we were incentivated other local farmers to be part of this platform. So we also gained a lot of farmers that were not working directly on this local organization that we start working with. Our main approach was to have the farmers using their own apps but when we went to the field we found out that that was not the reality. So what we did is to use these local organizations, they have some local committees that are used to facilitate this process of reporting the data. And that's something that we also learned from other projects that are related with agriculture that we use at local organizations and like institutions like Radios and other things. So one of the biggest benefits that we had with this platform was to make the farmers more motivated to produce more crops because they were dismotivated because they have been cultivating a lot of crops and no one to sell. With this specific project it also incentivated them to produce more because they had more customers to sell.


Right now, this is the City of Columbia's Veterans Day Recognition Ceremony, in lieu of the annual parade that they normally do each and every year. Due to the pandemic, we're hosting it here and also virtually as well. So we welcome those who are watching from their homes or wherever the place they may be. Thank you so much for tuning in and joining us for the City of Columbia Veterans Day Recognition Ceremony. Right now, I'd like to ask that each and every one of us please stand for the presentation of the colors from the City of Columbia Honor Guard and please remain standing for the playing of the National Anthem by the Army, 282nd Band. Present, Detail, Order, Homes. Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated. We want to welcome out our veterans, those of course who are present, who are serving, pass, who have served, and of course to those that we remember, those who gave their lives defending our country and our freedoms today. We say thank you. We want to welcome out special guests, our elected officials, members of the clergy, family and friends who are in attendance, as well as our vote counters. They're working real hard right now. Right now, I've got to let you know that I served my country. By the way, I'm Curtis Wilson, ABC Columbia Channel 25, as well as Big D.M. and also work with Richland County and other entities. City of Columbia, can't leave them out, my boss is here. Served in the military, 82 to 85. Second Chemical Battalion, 181st Chemical Company, 13th Subcom. Love doing what I did as a 54 Echo Nuclear Biological Chemical Specialist. Then I became a DJ. Ladies and gentlemen, it is now time for our invocation. For that, I bring forth our councilman, Ed McDowell. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for all who have served this country. For those who have fought for freedom. For those who laid down their lives for others. For those who have born suffering of mind and of body. For those who have brought their best gifts in the times of need. On our behalf, we celebrate their lives today. For in the midst of danger, you brought integrity and peace. You endured separation from those that they loved. You labored long hours and brought a real sense of tranquility to this nation of ours.   We remember their families today. Give to us your people grateful hearts and unite us with a sense of purpose. Allowing men and women who laid down their lives and who stand in integrity this morning since in a real true level of peace and understanding. Lord, we ask it. We claim it in your name and every heart said. Amen. And next I bring forth a man who needs no introduction. You've seen him here locally doing great things for the city of Columbia nationally as well and of course true Columbia native doing what he does best. And that's being the mayor of the city of Columbia. Please welcome the honorable Stephen K. Benjamin. And someday I'm going to have as many jobs as Curtis has. Let's see how that works out. Good morning everyone. I want to give my most sincere thanks. It's amazing obviously while the pandemic would not allow us to have the parade that the men and women who serve this country so deserve in the weather would not let us have an outdoor celebration that we deserve. We I think it shows the true resilience and commitment of the men and women of the city that we're going to today, wherever we're going to do it, we're going to celebrate those who have defended the flag and the sovereign nation that we all love and see as the greatest and best hope of freedom across the world. It's my honor to be here on behalf of my friend, the good Reverend and Councilman Ed McDowell, our friend Councilman Howard Duvall, the veteran himself, Councilman Sam Davis, Councilman Will Brennan and all the rest of City Council. I want to thank our friends from Senator Graham's office, from Congressman Wilson's office. Larry, thank you so much. I'm always representing the majority of the club and friends from the chamber. And Colonel Swayta, a friend of Columbia in so many different capacities. Thank you for being here. To the incredible men and women that we celebrate here, it's an honor to be here with each and every one of you. I want to give our most sincere thanks to our incredible staff who have proven themselves to be quite flexible in making sure that this would happen. So thank you to the whole team. Kim Carey, the whole team. This is an opportunity to do what we do best, which is I think express the two most powerful words in the English language. And those are simply thank you. Thank you to each and every one of our veterans. We know that the tradition that we now honor as Veterans Day came about as a recognition of peace first observing the truth ending World War I on November 11th, 1918. The first Armistice Day was held one year later in 1954, President Eisenhower officially named November 11th as Veterans Day, a holiday to honor all who have served our country through military duty, whether in times of war or peace. We dedicate this day to remembering, to thanking and honoring all who have gone before in service to our country and all who currently defend our sacred freedoms and preserve our American way of life and liberty. Throughout America's history, our armed forces and veterans have proven our country's endurance, resilience, and the ability to meet all challenges and overcome all adversely. As mayor of this incredible city, it's humbling to be here. I always love to recognize the unique bond that we have with our nation's armed forces through the close relationship we've held with Fort Jackson for over a century to my friend, Brigadier General Milford Beagle Jr. Fort Jackson's 51st Commander to all the dedicated officers and the listed men and women who serve at the nation's largest basic training facility. I would thank you for your service to our country and thank you for being a valuable member of our Columbia community. No one knows the level of service and determination of our past and current listed men and women more than those who serve themselves and lead in our armed forces. So it's my esteemed privilege to take this moment to... First, I'm humbled to be here. We've been... so many of us have been indoors for the last several months. I asked my colleagues, I don't think there's been a formal event where we've seen the presentation of the colors, where we've seen the presentation of the colors with our new city flag also included in the equation. And while we often think of governments and political subdivisions as different entities, this flag that speaks to the strength and inclusion and the importance of this capital city, seeing us all come together, recognizes that this flag and this flag would not be possible without this flag.  So it's my honor to invite my friend, Brigadier General Beagle, to the podium to share his perspectives on what this day means. General Beagle. Thank you, Mayor. Well, good morning to everyone that's physically present today and to all of those that are joining us virtually from across our city and across our great state. And I would like to make a special acknowledgement to Secretary Grimsley, Joe McCarty, Arnold Kevin Suedo, all of our elected officials that are here and as well as our veterans, definitely appreciate you. Thank you for your sacrifices. A lot of people say thank you for your service, but they forget the other half of that statement, which is thank you for your sacrifices. And I'll talk a little bit about that. I'd like to thank Mayor Benjamin, you in the city of Columbia for pressing forward and finding a way to recognize our veterans despite COVID-19. As I told the mayor before I got up here, COVID-19 has changed how we do things, but COVID-19 won't change what we do. And this is a demonstration of what we do despite COVID-19. So, Mayor, thank you so much for doing this despite COVID-19. Now, I'm always told that I can speak as long as I want to when I get behind the microphone and the podium, but this morning I was told I had five minutes to speak as long as I wanted to speak. So I will use my five minutes wisely. And as the mayor said, everybody loves a parade, so the same goes. So it's sad that we won't celebrate this Veterans Day the same way we have in the past, but our purpose, regardless of venue, regardless of type of an event, remains the same. To recognize those that have served, those that are currently serving, and those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the defense of our nation and our freedoms. For over a century, as you've heard, on 11 November, we pause and recognize our veterans, the brave men and women who served our great country and continue to serve this great nation with honor and with distinction. And furthermore, it is equally as important to keep the fallen, the missing, and those currently serving in harm's way in our thoughts and prayers during this Veterans Day commemoration. If we have any Gold Star mothers, if we have any Blue Star families, thank them for their service and their sacrifice as well. I also want to thank all of our military spouses and children who often have to endure career interruptions, separations, missed birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, and so on. The list is very long. Their sacrifices are equally as important and all too often are not appropriately recognized. We must remember that honoring those who have served isn't just about what we say or do today. It's about how we support our veterans every day of the year. It's about remembering and remaining committed to them and their families in every possible way. Do you stop to think of veteran on any given day? Or do you simply lower your head, walk or turn the other way? And you have to know or understand. Many veterans return to war every night in their dreams. Many have faded away, but it is up to us not to let them fade out. So the next time you see a veteran, don't turn and walk away. Thank them for the freedoms that we enjoy today directly. This is very hard to see. But to that veteran, given all they have, he or she, has seen or sacrificed a leg, an arm, an eye, their dreams, they know exactly the price that has to be paid to be free. Commitment to our veterans and their families is a sacred trust between America and all who defend this ideals. Over time, every military enlistment or commission comes to an end. However, a veteran's service has no expiration date. And once you earn the title of soldier, sailor, airman, marine, coast guardsman, or even a merchant marine, you've earned that title for life, all around our country. Veterans become teachers, doctors, community leaders, first responders, and elected officials. They continue serving our communities by making positive contributions and inspiring future generations of Americans. President Harry S. Truman once said, our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices. We must ensure that the service and sacrifice of our veterans is never overlooked or forgotten. Thank you to our great partners here in Columbia, to our local community, for taking some of your valuable time to recognize our veterans and their families.  Thank you so much. Out next for remarks, please welcome Major General Roy Van McCarty, South Carolina National Guard. Good morning. On behalf of all the soldiers, airmen, and employees of the South Carolina Military Department, I welcome you here today to Columbia Veterans Day celebration. For those who are here in attendance, thank you for taking time out of your day to brave a little bit of the elements to come out here today and honor our veterans. For those who are with us virtually, thank you also for taking time to be a part of this celebration. Veterans Day, certainly an important day in the history of this great nation. General Wiggle gave a quick overview of the history of it, as did the mayor. But that history is impacted and is evident by our veterans that are here today, those who have served before and those who are currently serving now. We thank them for their service. We thank them for their sacrifice. We thank them for ensuring that the freedoms that we as Americans that we have and exercise and enjoy and I hope appreciate each and every day are made possible by their service and their sacrifice. When we look at a veteran regardless of branch of service they have served in, we have to look beyond just the soldier, the sailor, airman or marine, and marine happy belated birthday to the United States Marine Corps. We have to look though to the families that support them. To those mothers, those fathers, to those spouses, to those children. Whether it's service during peace time or in war there is tremendous sacrifice to be paid by all. The last decade and a half though has seen the longest period of time this nation has been at war. And we have seen those families be called upon time and time again to make that sacrifice in support of their loved ones who leave to go and do this nation's business. I look at those individuals as heroes in my eyes. They have taken on the tough task of keeping the home fires burning. So in addition to our service men and women I want to reach out and certainly including that team all of those family members.  The gold star mothers that I know tell me this that if their son or daughter could turn back the hands of time to the moments up to their sacrifice to this great nation they wouldn't change a thing. They loved service to this country. They loved serving with their fellow soldier, sailor, airman or marine. They would not exchange their life for another. They were proud of who they are and who the legacy that they leave for us. And the other thing that those gold star mothers would say this is we cannot forget them. We must continue to tell the story. So a special thanks today. I know that the pandemic has caused us to vary our lifestyles in many ways. And evident by today we have to adjust but also evident by today in our schools the challenges that we have there. But I want to thank all of our educators. I want to thank all of our public health officials. Many of those wore the colors of this nation also. But they're on the front line of the fight today again helping us get through challenging times of this great nation. But a special thanks to South Carolina Department of Education, Secretary of Education, Miss Molly Mitchell Spearman and educators around the state that each and every year calls to recognize the young men and women who are going to join our services, who are going to attend one of our military academies and put a cord of honor around their neck and a celebration to thank them for being willing to pay that price going forward for the next generation of Americans. Certainly the success of this nation and the future of our nation is rooted in our veterans but our future is with our young people. And I would like to know that they have an understanding of what it takes to allow us to have that freedom and I am confident that this generation of young Americans will take up that mantle, will go forth and honor those who are currently serving who have served so that this nation can continue to be a beacon of light to the rest of the world and one that others can look at and say it must be great to be an American. Thank you for all those who have made this event possible here today. I want to say thank you to the City of Columbia for making this effort and to all of our veterans, all their families. May God bless you. May God bless the state of South Carolina and these great United States of America. Thank you. Thank you, Major General, appreciate that. Right now, Secretary, South Carolina Department of Veteran Affairs wants to welcome Major General William Grinsley, retired. Well, good morning, Mayor Benjamin, city leaders, fellow service members, and most importantly, our veterans of South Carolina. Thank you very much for this opportunity. You've heard my friends and fellow general officers here talk, so I won't go over as much of that other than continue to thank the veterans, those past, those currently serving who are going to be our future veterans and your families for everything you do every day. All those who have worn the uniforms of the United States in the past, those who are wearing them today and those who will come in the future represent a relatively small part of our population. We may be small in number, but we're mighty in power. And so for those of us who have done that thing while raising our right hand and choosing to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, I have a very simple message like everybody else. Thank you. Thank you for who you are. Thank you for the commitment you made. Thank you for the service and sacrifice you performed on behalf of us all. And we should remind ourselves that our ability to come here in the midst of a pandemic in somewhat inclement weather, but that's going to make the grass grow greener for a little bit longer in the fall. But more importantly, we're able to do this here in Columbia. We're able to do this across the United States and in many of our friends and partners across the world who celebrate their version of Veterans Day, Remembrance Day. We're only able to do this because as we sit here this morning in Columbia, there are literally thousands of Americans forward deployed on land, on and under the seas of the world and in the air above us and even in space looking out for us right now, making sure we are allowed to enjoy the freedoms of the United States, making sure we are allowed to celebrate those freedoms every day of the year throughout our lives. And so, you know, I am extraordinarily proud to have had the opportunity to serve in formations around the world doing that. And now I have an equally high privilege to be able to serve as the first Secretary of Veterans Affairs for the great state of South Carolina. And because of that, I will take a little bit of opportunity to extend my thanks Mayor and the city leaders of Columbia for putting this on. But that's on behalf of the over 405,000 veterans that are across the great state of South Carolina. We represent almost 10% of the population of this great state. And so, everything that we do in this state, everything we do in this nation to support veterans, we've earned that. We're entitled to it and we think we ought to get it. And so, that's our job in this department with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, our great state, county, local community, civic, nonprofit leaders around the state to make sure we do that. And so, you have my pledge that we'll continue to do that but I'd ask you to think about the narrative, changing the narrative a little bit and especially for those people out in the virtual land always go up and think of veterans as Beak said. You know, that's extraordinarily important. Yeah, we've done a lot. Yes, we have sacrificed. And many of us deserve extraordinarily more services than others. And so, we need to make sure and ensure that we do that every day. But I'd ask you to think about changing the narrative a little bit and don't just think about what it is we need to do for our veterans. Think about what your veterans can do for you. You know, we're pretty good people. We're fit, motivated, proficient, we're well educated, we're well trained. We know how to do a lot of things. We know how to come together and form teams. We know how to be in charge. If you're looking for a frontline leader who knows how to do something, go find a sergeant or a petty officer. They know how to do things. And so, when you're looking business people, when you're looking elected officials, when you're looking community leaders and nonprofits, when you're looking for somebody to hire to bring on to your organization to make this nation, this city, this state ever stronger, go find a veteran because they're the ones who know how to show up in the morning. They're the ones who know how to take charge. They know how to solve problems. So let's get after the South Carolina. Let's continue to bring our veterans back home when they go to serve. For those who are currently serving here at our eight active duty installations in our great national garden across the reserve components. When it's time for them to take off the uniform, don't just let them take off the uniform, put on a new uniform and stay to work in South Carolina. We have a real opportunity here to grow this state ever bigger, ever better as the most military, veteran-friendly state union, all of us in South Carolina today. I want to say thank you as well. Thank you for your service, fellow veterans. Thank you for your service and sacrifice. And our future veterans, there's no better recruiter in the world for the nation, for the United States and the uniforms of the United States than those who have served and are currently serving. So thank you. Happy Veterans Day, everybody. Happy Birthday Marines. And look forward to much, much more. God bless America. Thank you. On behalf of everyone here in the city of Columbia, I want to express our deepest appreciation to General Beagle, General McCarty, and General Grimsley for drawing on their years of service to share their insights with us this morning. It's amazing. No matter how old you get, you can always learn something more every single day. And I believe you have your observations. I found them profound. I found myself taking notes as if I was back in school again. So thank you so much for speaking with us this morning. Before we finish our ceremony this morning, I'd dislike, again, to observe that our United States veterans have earned, as General McCarty just said, earned the respect, admiration, and appreciation of not just those of us on our shores, but of nations around the world. We've been celebrating them for over a century now in this format. But our men and women in service to this country have a proud history of rising to the challenge again and again to end tyranny around the world and bring peace globally. And we're so thankful for that. So today, I urge all Colombians, everyone, within the sound of my voice, taking advantage of all the incredible technology we have available to us to spend some time thinking about ways in which we can uniquely serve and thank all the men and women who have served this country and continue to do so in honoring the spirit of the city of this great state and of this great country. Thank you all for not thinking at robbery to spend some time with us this morning to celebrate these amazing men and women. God bless you, God bless the state of Columbia, God bless the state of South Carolina, and God bless this incredible United States of America. Thank you. Thank you to all of these great leaders right here. Please give them a rising round of applause as well. Thank you. He was right. He said we're fit even after the military. Also too, I want to say thank you to Beegs as well.  Because we're friends now. I feel like we're tight, you know, we're close. He invited me to come work out and do fitness with the troops, and I did it. It was a lot of fun and we're going to run with him as well. And then being back on post like that took me back to seven and eight mile road march days with the rucksack, you know. The endless PT tests, the goals and the no-goes, you remember that? Of course, learning how to low crawl in the mud. Nobody's with me on that one. Eating sea rations, you know, or getting the bivouacs or the pup tents. Do they still do the little pup tents where each person had a half, a shelter half? Well, okay, I was a way back then. Also too, digging the trenches with the tiny little shovels or, of course, doing the muster, standing at attention for hours on end. Okay, I missed those days. It was fun. Shaped me to be the person I am today. Doing all the stuff that I do. Military. All right, there we go. Ladies and gentlemen, right now, I got to ask this, any council members who would like to come forth and say a few remarks? Any council members? All right. All right. Then if all hearts and minds are clear, this is what we will do. We will ask all ladies and gentlemen right now in presence, if you can, to please stand for the playing of the service medley. And then please remain standing for the retiring of the colors.