WEBVTT 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:07.240 Today's December 4, 2012. We're conducting an interview for the Arizona 00:00:10.750 --> 00:00:16.686 State University retirees Association video history project and today 00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:21.986 we're at the CSU Community Services building. I'm Ed Sylvester at 00:00:22.019 --> 00:00:27.157 professor in the walter Cronkite school Technical support staff today 00:00:27.190 --> 00:00:33.406 include Roger corridor who was operating the camera and audio dave Schatz 00:00:33.439 --> 00:00:40.406 lee the director and linda Vance Coy, who's chair of this history project. 00:00:40.439 --> 00:00:45.057 So Conrad, I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself but once you've 00:00:45.090 --> 00:00:50.256 done that, I'd like to ask you a few questions. Alright, happy to do it. I 00:00:50.289 --> 00:00:55.766 am Conrad store ad and Worked here at Arizona State University for a 00:00:55.799 --> 00:01:00.576 little more than 24 years. Actually this week on thursday it'll be three 00:01:00.609 --> 00:01:06.897 years since I tendered my retirement papers. So happy to be back on campus 00:01:06.930 --> 00:01:14.930 and talking about my time at the university. 00:01:16.140 --> 00:01:22.706 Well let's go back to the beginning Uh in the fall of 1982 I was a new 00:01:22.739 --> 00:01:27.156 assistant professor and very excited to hear that we were starting a 00:01:27.189 --> 00:01:31.926 master's program and we would actually have these people called Graduate 00:01:31.959 --> 00:01:37.727 Assistance, which I had heard of. And one of them in particular was a 00:01:37.760 --> 00:01:43.397 young man from Barberton Ohio who worked for the weekly newspaper there 00:01:43.430 --> 00:01:50.736 and most interestingly had a dual degree from the university in journalism 00:01:50.769 --> 00:01:55.656 and Biology and I've never really heard of anybody doing that. And even 00:01:55.689 --> 00:02:03.689 more interestingly he liked science writing, which was my special area. Um 00:02:04.739 --> 00:02:08.816 why don't you take us back to Barberton and tell us a bit about where you 00:02:08.849 --> 00:02:13.666 came from and then how you got to a S. U. From there, back to Barbara in 00:02:13.699 --> 00:02:19.677 Ohio, my hometown, Right next to akron Ohio 30 miles south of Cleveland. 00:02:19.710 --> 00:02:25.636 The factory town with lots of rubber plant, retire plants and babcock and 00:02:25.669 --> 00:02:32.747 Wilcox plant. It's his the builders of the boilers at three Mile Island. I 00:02:32.780 --> 00:02:36.506 don't know if they like that, but we had some of our history there in our 00:02:36.539 --> 00:02:44.207 town, but I was a University of Akron graduate and my degrees were in mass 00:02:44.240 --> 00:02:49.656 media communication with the emphasis in environmental sciences. And so of 00:02:49.689 --> 00:02:52.876 course I went to work for the newspaper. I was a newspaper reporter, 00:02:52.909 --> 00:02:57.696 sports editor and eventually became the general manager and editor of the 00:02:57.729 --> 00:03:02.006 newspaper At age 23. I was the youngest person there and I was the boss 00:03:02.039 --> 00:03:07.087 and that was a learning experience too and dealing with people. But this 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:13.096 is 1980 81. Ronald Reagan is president. We have a big recession, plants 00:03:13.129 --> 00:03:16.827 are closing, people are losing their jobs, stores are closing. Advertising 00:03:16.860 --> 00:03:20.767 revenue goes down, our newspaper's in trouble. We've got this 23 year old 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:24.967 kid running the thing and they say we got to get rid of him. He's the he's 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:29.617 at fault. Well we ended up getting bought out and everybody was let go. So 00:03:29.650 --> 00:03:34.436 what do you do? I want to go work at the daily newspaper Cleveland Press 00:03:34.469 --> 00:03:38.277 dies. Now there's 300 seasoned reporters out there, competing for a few 00:03:38.310 --> 00:03:43.027 jobs. So it's time to go to graduate school and I was kind of bitter about 00:03:43.060 --> 00:03:46.376 what had happened because I love my job and I was working hard and so I 00:03:46.409 --> 00:03:50.057 wanted to get as far from Ohio as I could. I looked at a map, there was 00:03:50.090 --> 00:03:56.707 Arizona, here's Ohio, that's pretty far. I'm gonna go there. Well, I I did 00:03:56.740 --> 00:04:01.136 my research. It turns out that a issue was starting a brand new graduate 00:04:01.169 --> 00:04:05.666 program in journalism and it was designed for people who had actually 00:04:05.699 --> 00:04:10.307 worked in the media and who wanted to come back to further their education. 00:04:10.340 --> 00:04:14.406 So it looked like it was the perfect fit for me. Doug Anderson was 00:04:14.439 --> 00:04:18.637 directing the program eventually became director of the Cronkite school 00:04:18.670 --> 00:04:21.937 and when it became the walter Cronkite school. Well, he was calling me all 00:04:21.970 --> 00:04:26.587 the time because he wanted me to be part of this new program and he said 00:04:26.620 --> 00:04:30.087 you're the perfect fit for what we're looking for and we want you to be a 00:04:30.120 --> 00:04:35.416 teaching assistant and that will help pay for your school. And so that's 00:04:35.449 --> 00:04:40.286 how I ended up in Arizona. Yeah, we talked about seminal moments in your 00:04:40.319 --> 00:04:46.517 life and one was the day I met you, I was assigned to be Ed Sylvester's 00:04:46.550 --> 00:04:51.317 assistant as a teaching teaching assistant journalism school and what I 00:04:51.350 --> 00:04:57.317 remember Computers were just coming in. So it's 1982, fall semester, 1982 00:04:57.350 --> 00:05:03.976 , the reporting labs are switching over from typewriters, two computers. I 00:05:04.009 --> 00:05:08.567 think they were IBM 80 S. Or X. T. S. Whatever the first generation were. 00:05:08.600 --> 00:05:13.476 And always remember on the box that said 240 K. Memory more than you'll 00:05:13.509 --> 00:05:16.906 ever need in a lifetime. 00:05:16.939 --> 00:05:22.137 But of course there was no such thing as I. T. And they told you Ed you're 00:05:22.170 --> 00:05:25.806 in charge of the computer 00:05:25.839 --> 00:05:29.476 plugged into the wall. So I was your assistant, you're my assistant. So we 00:05:29.509 --> 00:05:33.806 were always a couple steps ahead of the students to learn the computers. 00:05:33.839 --> 00:05:39.187 But that's how I got to Arizona State University. It was part of the first 00:05:39.220 --> 00:05:43.697 group of masters degree students in the journalism school ended up being 00:05:43.730 --> 00:05:47.507 one of the first three graduates of the program. That's right now. The 00:05:47.540 --> 00:05:52.257 interesting thing here is that I thought all grad assistants were like 00:05:52.290 --> 00:05:59.507 Conrad. I was immediately ruined for the rest of my career. But by the end 00:05:59.540 --> 00:06:06.866 of 1983 you became one of the first three of our Master's graduates and 00:06:06.899 --> 00:06:11.897 immediately went off to a very prestigious fellowship right in the area 00:06:11.930 --> 00:06:17.767 you were interested in. And where was December 1983 graduated, but I had 00:06:17.800 --> 00:06:22.166 the fellowship at the National Cancer Institute in Washington in Bethesda 00:06:22.199 --> 00:06:27.817 Maryland at the National Institutes of Health. So I had an internship as a 00:06:27.850 --> 00:06:32.486 science medical writer, which is what my whole degree program was geared 00:06:32.519 --> 00:06:36.976 towards Science journalism. And so I got to spend almost a year in 00:06:37.009 --> 00:06:41.187 Bethesda working for the federal government and learning that this is not 00:06:41.220 --> 00:06:45.127 what I want to do for the rest of my life, it was a very interesting place 00:06:45.160 --> 00:06:52.986 to be And I happen to be there through the beginning of 1984 when the AIDS 00:06:53.019 --> 00:06:57.606 virus was discovered was identified. And it was the National Cancer 00:06:57.639 --> 00:07:02.147 Institute scientist that actually made that discovery. So I was part of 00:07:02.180 --> 00:07:05.866 the office of Cancer Communications and was part of the teams that had to 00:07:05.899 --> 00:07:09.616 write press releases about. We know what this this disease is now, what's 00:07:09.649 --> 00:07:15.306 causing it. And that was just a really interesting place to be and to see 00:07:15.339 --> 00:07:22.416 the media circus that ensued from that and to deal with gigantic egos and 00:07:22.449 --> 00:07:28.366 all of this things which all you know, is part of your education and 00:07:28.399 --> 00:07:31.996 you're gonna put this to use later in your career. And it did, it happened. 00:07:32.029 --> 00:07:35.996 And you had a particularly interesting exchange with a nobel laureate, 00:07:36.029 --> 00:07:43.207 didn't you? You on a bench? Well, I happen to be working there and I was 00:07:43.240 --> 00:07:50.096 26 years old, so a lot of the other interns were freshly graduated 00:07:50.129 --> 00:07:53.106 graduated students just with undergrad degrees and had never worked in 00:07:53.139 --> 00:07:55.596 their life anywhere. And I had already, I've been working for a newspaper 00:07:55.629 --> 00:08:01.187 , running a small company, now had my master's degree. And and so I get my 00:08:01.220 --> 00:08:05.067 assignments and I'd get them done the same day, well that's not how it 00:08:05.100 --> 00:08:09.906 works in the federal government. And I said, well I turned in my my 00:08:09.939 --> 00:08:13.517 assignment and I said, well what is this? So what's the story you wanted? 00:08:13.550 --> 00:08:16.897 I interviewed and got the story done. Well, that was supposed to last you 00:08:16.930 --> 00:08:22.777 all week. So I had a lot of downtime while I was there. So I got to know 00:08:22.810 --> 00:08:26.527 the National Institutes of Health and I'd walk around and and visit the 00:08:26.560 --> 00:08:32.606 clinical center and it just happened at that time. Albert Saban was there. 00:08:32.639 --> 00:08:40.496 Albert Saban who had discovered the um oral polio vaccine. He was in his 00:08:40.529 --> 00:08:46.067 80s then and he had been working on a aerosol vaccine for measles. And 00:08:46.100 --> 00:08:49.907 there had been a little lab accident and he had inhaled some of this. And 00:08:49.940 --> 00:08:53.516 Ironically he was paralyzed from the waist down. Here's a man who had 00:08:53.549 --> 00:08:58.317 helped so many people avoid paralysis through polio and here he is. In his 00:08:58.350 --> 00:09:01.937 80's. He's paralyzed. Well, he eventually recovered and he was actually 00:09:01.970 --> 00:09:07.797 there doing his recovery and the park area outside NIH has never been 00:09:07.830 --> 00:09:13.307 there. Beautiful campus wooded area. And so he was sitting on a park bench 00:09:13.340 --> 00:09:16.787 outside the clinical center. I was walking with a friend of mine who 00:09:16.820 --> 00:09:20.506 worked at the cancer institute had cerebral palsy. So he had a withered 00:09:20.539 --> 00:09:24.537 arm and withered leg and he points out to me, so you see that guy over on 00:09:24.570 --> 00:09:29.537 the on the bench and I said yeah because that's Albert Saban. I said no. 00:09:29.570 --> 00:09:33.256 He said, yeah. I said Albert Saban polio vaccine. Albert saving because 00:09:33.289 --> 00:09:38.907 yeah Nobel laureate. Albert Sabban says yeah because let's go talk to him. 00:09:38.940 --> 00:09:43.006 He said we can't go talk to Albert Saban can we? Yeah let's go talk to 00:09:43.039 --> 00:09:47.717 him. So we walked over and he saw my friend and he said oh are you one of 00:09:47.750 --> 00:09:52.496 my Children thinking that he had been a polio victim? He said no no I. C. 00:09:52.529 --> 00:09:56.177 P. And what do you what do you guys do? What? Sit down with me, sit down 00:09:56.210 --> 00:09:59.907 with me and we explained what we did and that we were science writers. And 00:09:59.940 --> 00:10:03.427 and he asked me and I was on a fellowship and he was really interested. 00:10:03.460 --> 00:10:06.577 And he wanted to know how do you like working with some of the scientists 00:10:06.610 --> 00:10:11.067 here and my age? I said well you know it's interesting but there's a lot 00:10:11.100 --> 00:10:15.596 of big egos here and a lot of them are not very helpful for me to do my 00:10:15.629 --> 00:10:20.087 job. And he said Con Conrad And he was calling me Conrad right away. He 00:10:20.120 --> 00:10:23.327 said Conrad let me give you some advice. And I'm thinking okay Albert 00:10:23.360 --> 00:10:28.856 Saban's going to give me some advice. He said if everyone who was writing 00:10:28.889 --> 00:10:33.726 about science had to have a PhD in science there would not be very much 00:10:33.759 --> 00:10:39.006 science writing done now would there. So yeah. And he said let me tell you 00:10:39.039 --> 00:10:43.707 this when you're working with a scientist or a researcher if they cannot 00:10:43.740 --> 00:10:48.146 explain to you in words, you can understand what it is they're doing. They 00:10:48.179 --> 00:10:52.606 don't know what the hell they're doing. I've never forgotten that. It was 00:10:52.639 --> 00:10:56.817 a great mantra to have in the back of my hand back of my head when 00:10:56.850 --> 00:11:00.447 interviewing scientists. And you're not putting people up on a pedestal, 00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:03.886 you're trying to get information because you're trying to tell a story to 00:11:03.919 --> 00:11:08.346 a lay audience in words they can understand. So, doing your job as a 00:11:08.379 --> 00:11:12.146 translator in a in a way, but always had that in the back of my head, you 00:11:12.179 --> 00:11:15.827 know, they don't know what the hell they're talking about. If they can't 00:11:15.860 --> 00:11:19.756 explain what they're doing in words you can understand. So that kind of 00:11:19.789 --> 00:11:27.606 became my base point to go on to my job. And also fortuitous for me. 00:11:27.639 --> 00:11:32.187 Conrad was still there when I was passing through the National Cancer 00:11:32.220 --> 00:11:39.337 Institute Working on my 2nd book and he was there to introduce me and set 00:11:39.370 --> 00:11:44.407 up interviews with the leading cancer researchers that I needed to talk to. 00:11:44.440 --> 00:11:49.187 And from there when you were done with the federal government, remember 00:11:49.220 --> 00:11:53.896 we said I was 00:11:53.929 --> 00:11:58.907 that's how we referred to. Yeah, that's right. And a very good mole work. 00:11:58.940 --> 00:12:03.516 Um And you moved on then from there to Kent state. Isn't that right? Right 00:12:03.549 --> 00:12:09.587 , I finished up the internship in. I was not enamored of Washington. A lot 00:12:09.620 --> 00:12:13.636 of people say you get potomac fever, I did not get potomac fever and I 00:12:13.669 --> 00:12:17.567 didn't want to continue that job, but I wanted to do what I had trained to 00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:22.756 do to write about science in a venue with a vehicle to get the message out 00:12:22.789 --> 00:12:27.636 to people and not just be a news release that sort of set on a shelf. And 00:12:27.669 --> 00:12:31.976 so I was looking for a job I missed Arizona tremendously, but my money was 00:12:32.009 --> 00:12:37.717 gone and circumstances were okay. I have to go back to Barberton. I mean 00:12:37.750 --> 00:12:42.606 looking for jobs at the same time I interviewed for a job at World Book 00:12:42.639 --> 00:12:47.136 encyclopedia in Chicago. And that had actually been a little dream of mine 00:12:47.169 --> 00:12:51.496 to work for Science year, the sci annual, that World book put out. So they 00:12:51.529 --> 00:12:57.807 flew me to Chicago and I had to do all these tests. Was there at 00:12:57.840 --> 00:13:01.896 marketplace in downtown Chicago, They have several floors in that building 00:13:01.929 --> 00:13:06.087 was pretty impressive. And at the end of the day, I'm meeting with the 00:13:06.120 --> 00:13:09.616 vice president, he says, well you've done really well. Conrad. We want, we 00:13:09.649 --> 00:13:15.307 haven't talked money, We can pay you $16,000 A year to be an editor while 00:13:15.340 --> 00:13:20.837 I've been making $17,000 as a weekly newspaper editor two years ago and 00:13:20.870 --> 00:13:25.006 had gone and got my master's degree is like, no, I'm gonna live in Chicago. 00:13:25.039 --> 00:13:28.787 So thank you very much for the interview, went back to Barbara and ended 00:13:28.820 --> 00:13:32.626 up getting a job at Kent state University as their science editor and 00:13:32.659 --> 00:13:39.707 feature writer in their communication services office. But I was home. But 00:13:39.740 --> 00:13:44.346 Arizona still was tugging at me and really missed it. I didn't realize how 00:13:44.379 --> 00:13:49.047 bad I had fallen in love with the Sonoran desert and with Arizona and 00:13:49.080 --> 00:13:53.537 about two years went by. I got a telephone call from a friend of mine I 00:13:53.570 --> 00:13:58.567 refine who was assistant business editor at the Arizona Republic. He was 00:13:58.600 --> 00:14:04.657 one of my graduate student colleagues in the program. And we stayed in 00:14:04.690 --> 00:14:08.366 touch and he had given me a call. He said Conrad Arizona State University 00:14:08.399 --> 00:14:13.307 wants to start the science magazine. It looks like the perfect job for you. 00:14:13.340 --> 00:14:18.986 You should apply. So I looked into it like okay, I'll apply. And it turns 00:14:19.019 --> 00:14:23.707 out that of course they did not want to hire someone from outside or pay 00:14:23.740 --> 00:14:27.726 money to bring somebody in from out of state to interview. But as we all 00:14:27.759 --> 00:14:31.276 learned it's all about who, you know, the connections you've made. It 00:14:31.309 --> 00:14:35.516 turns out that members of the higher committee were people that had gone 00:14:35.549 --> 00:14:38.917 to graduate school with. And so they put in a good word for me and they 00:14:38.950 --> 00:14:42.106 said you really should at least talk to this guy. So I did get an 00:14:42.139 --> 00:14:50.139 interview as you flew me out. I ended up getting the job. 00:14:51.039 --> 00:14:58.317 I was hired To do two jobs. I was hired 50% time as the science editor for 00:14:58.350 --> 00:15:03.907 the issue News Bureau and that was working underneath Brown at that time. 00:15:03.940 --> 00:15:08.547 And the other 50% was to start this magazine and they didn't know what 00:15:08.580 --> 00:15:11.537 they wanted to call it. And that was going to be under Henry Reeves who 00:15:11.570 --> 00:15:16.016 was the first vice president for research at Arizona State University and 00:15:16.049 --> 00:15:21.797 that was, he'd only been there a year as as VP. And so I'm going to have 00:15:21.830 --> 00:15:26.957 two jobs. It's like okay let's see how that works like that. Well we can 00:15:26.990 --> 00:15:31.187 talk about that. Yeah we can talk about that. But when I heard Conrad was 00:15:31.220 --> 00:15:35.307 coming on board as newsletter editor I knew what newsletters look like. We 00:15:35.340 --> 00:15:40.557 all do. We taught students to make them, you know they're tri fold the 00:15:40.590 --> 00:15:44.407 print on them and their trade 00:15:44.440 --> 00:15:50.967 vehicles where you tell what's going on to other people. And lo and behold 00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:55.726 after a very short period of time do you have an example of what popped 00:15:55.759 --> 00:16:01.006 out of the hopper there? I'll show you how it started. There was a 00:16:01.039 --> 00:16:04.707 newsletter that originally had started in the graduate school called A. S 00:16:04.740 --> 00:16:11.476 . U. Research News and it had been in existence for 20 years black and 00:16:11.509 --> 00:16:16.037 white newsletter. And this was moving over to the VP for research office 00:16:16.070 --> 00:16:21.626 now. And I remember when I was interviewing With Brent Brown uh it was 00:16:21.659 --> 00:16:28.037 1980 was the centennial for a issue And they had done a four color version 00:16:28.070 --> 00:16:33.126 of this newsletter. So it's essentially a bunch of stories done in color 00:16:33.159 --> 00:16:38.386 and just put together with a cover and they were very proud of it as they 00:16:38.419 --> 00:16:41.646 should have been compared to what it had been. And Brent brown showing 00:16:41.679 --> 00:16:45.807 this thing to me. He says, well, young man, can you do something like this 00:16:45.840 --> 00:16:50.866 ? And I said, oh I can do a lot better than that. And I think he's 00:16:50.899 --> 00:16:54.827 thinking what kind of arrogant cusses this? You know, I just spoke my mind 00:16:54.860 --> 00:17:01.596 said, well that's pretty nice, but it's not a magazine. So of The idea was 00:17:01.629 --> 00:17:08.526 to create a four colour magazine. That would be the grandson of research 00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:13.976 news. So that was one of my charges. But and to be done 50% time because 00:17:14.009 --> 00:17:18.566 remember you're still doing this other job another time. So that lasted 00:17:18.599 --> 00:17:23.657 for about two years. Uh Actually I brought with me, I couldn't find the 00:17:23.690 --> 00:17:28.036 first copy we did, but this was actually the the second edition of issue 00:17:28.069 --> 00:17:32.806 Research magazine. And we called it that they said, I said, well what do 00:17:32.839 --> 00:17:37.236 you want to call us magazine? And they said research. Well, we should call 00:17:37.269 --> 00:17:41.306 it something other than that. That that word has connotations that 00:17:41.339 --> 00:17:44.967 whenever I give talks around the state around the country. I said, what 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:48.046 what's the first thing that pops into your mind when you hear the word 00:17:48.079 --> 00:17:54.316 research and and what what do you think of science? Science? Okay, what 00:17:54.349 --> 00:18:00.746 else? Not exciting? And what do you think of boring? It's usually the 00:18:00.779 --> 00:18:07.607 second answer we win. Yes, you win a prize boring. And of course we know 00:18:07.640 --> 00:18:11.447 that research is the exact opposite of boring. It's about furthering human 00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:15.316 knowledge, it's about discovery, it's about you know learning new things. 00:18:15.349 --> 00:18:18.917 Of course there's a lot of tedium and a lot of hard work involved to get 00:18:18.950 --> 00:18:23.336 to that point, but it's the exact opposite of blurring. But that's what 00:18:23.369 --> 00:18:29.457 most people think. So I'm thinking if we call our magazine research we're 00:18:29.490 --> 00:18:34.357 gonna have a hard time getting people past the cover. But I had no no sway 00:18:34.390 --> 00:18:39.367 at that time. So it was called research and And it lasted that way for 24 00:18:39.400 --> 00:18:43.217 years but this was the second issue we did and we tried to come up with 00:18:43.250 --> 00:18:50.687 themes and so this was Phil Christensen who's still here at the university 00:18:50.720 --> 00:18:55.726 and Ron Greeley, good friend who just passed away last year I believe it 00:18:55.759 --> 00:19:00.927 was. And you know one of the original scientists involved with all the 00:19:00.960 --> 00:19:05.586 National Nasa missions to MArs. So I can remember this interview ed with 00:19:05.619 --> 00:19:11.887 Phil Christensen, he was a new assistant professor in geology and he had a 00:19:11.920 --> 00:19:15.306 little cubicle and I went to interview him because I was interviewing 00:19:15.339 --> 00:19:20.086 anybody involved with MArs related research for this story. So I met Phil 00:19:20.119 --> 00:19:25.546 and he had a mock up of this device on his desk and I said Professor 00:19:25.579 --> 00:19:30.907 Christensen. Well what is this? That is a thermal emission spectrometer. 00:19:30.940 --> 00:19:34.526 We are going to build this Conrad, we're going to put it on a satellite 00:19:34.559 --> 00:19:38.296 then we're going to send it to MArs and it's going to go around mars and 00:19:38.329 --> 00:19:40.986 it's gonna tell us what mars is made of. Eventually we're gonna put it 00:19:41.019 --> 00:19:46.056 onto some kind of vehicle that we land on MArs and it's gonna drive around 00:19:46.089 --> 00:19:49.576 , it's gonna tell us all kinds of things and I'm writing this down in the 00:19:49.609 --> 00:19:53.907 back of my head, I'm going, yeah, right buddy, sure you are, of course we 00:19:53.940 --> 00:19:58.447 know the end of that story, Phil Christensen is now one of the most famous 00:19:58.480 --> 00:20:02.967 mars related scientists in the world. He has an entire building for his 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:09.367 team, the old more building and 30 or 30 or 40 grand students famous. He's 00:20:09.400 --> 00:20:13.516 built several of these devices and devices that are on the rovers that are 00:20:13.549 --> 00:20:18.726 driving around mars and satellites that are still going around mars and 00:20:18.759 --> 00:20:22.157 just amazing. But I will never forget that being in that cubicle thinking 00:20:22.190 --> 00:20:26.796 , yeah, right buddy, you're going to do this and he he surely did. So this 00:20:26.829 --> 00:20:32.697 was one of the first issues we did. Yeah. Now and one of the things that I 00:20:32.730 --> 00:20:38.796 think led to the major success, obviously your own ability to spot a good 00:20:38.829 --> 00:20:43.816 science story. But you also teamed up with a very brilliant graphic artist 00:20:43.849 --> 00:20:49.226 named Mike Hagel Berg and tell tell us about how that happened, How you 00:20:49.259 --> 00:20:54.276 ran into each other. So we're continuing the story of doing these dual 00:20:54.309 --> 00:20:59.256 jobs. Well, we've done a couple of magazines and they of course, first 00:20:59.289 --> 00:21:02.677 they wanted this to be quarterly. Well, there's no way to do four 00:21:02.710 --> 00:21:07.056 magazines a year by yourself because I had no staff and I was working 50% 00:21:07.089 --> 00:21:12.947 time. So if we were doing three in the beginning and I was assigned, I 00:21:12.980 --> 00:21:18.207 said, who's going to design this? So at that time the university had the 00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:23.597 um university public publication design center and it was part of the news 00:21:23.630 --> 00:21:28.506 bureau. And so I was assigned to this young designer. His name was Michael 00:21:28.539 --> 00:21:31.556 Hagel Berg. He said, well, Mike likes science, you know, he should work on 00:21:31.589 --> 00:21:35.986 this project. Little did I know that Michael Hagel. Berg's probably one of 00:21:36.019 --> 00:21:42.836 the most brilliant illustrators in America, incredible designer and his 00:21:42.869 --> 00:21:45.897 background was in physics. He could talk to the scientists better than I 00:21:45.930 --> 00:21:50.736 could, but then he had the ability to take that information and make it 00:21:50.769 --> 00:21:55.677 visual. I was the word guy. He was the image guy. So, again, another 00:21:55.710 --> 00:21:59.816 seminal moment. It's a, you know, meant to be and we ended up working 00:21:59.849 --> 00:22:06.766 together for 24 years. But it took two years. I finally, I told the vice 00:22:06.799 --> 00:22:09.796 president's that if you really want this magazine done right, it needs to 00:22:09.829 --> 00:22:14.887 be my full time job. I can't just be doing the science editing job and the 00:22:14.920 --> 00:22:18.996 magazine as well, especially if you want to do it right? And of course I 00:22:19.029 --> 00:22:23.647 was being evaluated by two vice presidents and so I never get a raise as 00:22:23.680 --> 00:22:27.066 much as anybody else because they said, well we can't evaluate on that and 00:22:27.099 --> 00:22:30.816 we can't evaluate that on that. So I was always losing out. So I had 00:22:30.849 --> 00:22:35.967 learned to open my mouth and wrote a memo to Henry Reeves and said, you 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:40.556 know, I think this magazine needs to be my full time position and we 00:22:40.589 --> 00:22:45.207 should form an office that's under you. And and that's what we'll do. And 00:22:45.240 --> 00:22:48.556 so he called me into his office and he said I like what you wrote here. 00:22:48.589 --> 00:22:53.226 Conrad. He says what should we call the office? I said, how about 00:22:53.259 --> 00:22:58.796 research publications and what would you like your position to be? I 00:22:58.829 --> 00:23:04.167 hadn't thought that far us about director. Sounds good. Mhm. So I've 00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:08.016 learned open your mouth and ask for things. Sometimes you get it. So that 00:23:08.049 --> 00:23:13.167 was 1988 uh finally had a chance to do the magazine full time and we were 00:23:13.200 --> 00:23:17.657 off and running and started, you know, doing a little bit more doing a 00:23:17.690 --> 00:23:21.657 little bit more because in the early days of course they wanted to 00:23:21.690 --> 00:23:26.677 highlight the big money projects, which makes sense. And the issue was 00:23:26.710 --> 00:23:31.387 brand new in the research game in terms of a national level. I mean 00:23:31.420 --> 00:23:34.476 there's always been research here, but you know, to really get some of 00:23:34.509 --> 00:23:37.036 these big projects, some things were starting to come in and that's what 00:23:37.069 --> 00:23:42.576 they wanted to highlight. But with my background as a journalist knowing 00:23:42.609 --> 00:23:47.467 that that's not necessarily the best stories and you know, you can write 00:23:47.500 --> 00:23:51.407 about particle physics and you can write about space, but most people 00:23:51.440 --> 00:23:55.986 don't have an idea what that is or quantum chemistry, wow, you're really 00:23:56.019 --> 00:24:01.407 having to do a lot of translation. But when my idea was, let's take that 00:24:01.440 --> 00:24:07.117 word research and stretch it to its broadest definition. And what does it 00:24:07.150 --> 00:24:11.296 really mean? It means discovery. It means exploring for new knowledge. And 00:24:11.329 --> 00:24:15.556 so what does a history professor do they? Right. That's their research. 00:24:15.589 --> 00:24:19.597 What does someone in architecture do? That's research. What does someone 00:24:19.630 --> 00:24:23.796 in art do? Okay, not you might not, you're thinking science right away, 00:24:23.829 --> 00:24:29.026 but more research is done in art or dance or music. So we started to slip 00:24:29.059 --> 00:24:33.887 stories into the magazine in some of the social sciences and and uh the 00:24:33.920 --> 00:24:37.117 humanities, we didn't want to go too far because we don't want to get our 00:24:37.150 --> 00:24:41.756 hands slapped. We're still doing the big money pieces that we had 00:24:41.789 --> 00:24:47.907 engineering in the hard sciences. But our idea was to create a magazine 00:24:47.940 --> 00:24:53.187 that was of newsstand quality. My we were stuck with that name. Research. 00:24:53.220 --> 00:24:56.566 We were not going to get away with that. But what we had wanted, what we 00:24:56.599 --> 00:25:01.097 wanted to create was discover magazine that you would buy on the newsstand 00:25:01.130 --> 00:25:05.407 and it would be open to anyone who picked it up, it would be willing to 00:25:05.440 --> 00:25:09.236 pay money for this even though we weren't going to charge money for it. We 00:25:09.269 --> 00:25:13.776 wanted to do a real piece of science journalism and so we do little things 00:25:13.809 --> 00:25:19.157 and wait to see if we were gonna get smacked down and we never were. So we 00:25:19.190 --> 00:25:21.486 pulled a little more on the rope and we did a little more and we did a 00:25:21.519 --> 00:25:26.826 little more and we built this thing. I can jump ahead all the way to the 00:25:26.859 --> 00:25:34.447 end at the end of the magazines life, we we're read by More than 150,000 00:25:34.480 --> 00:25:39.907 readers In all 50 states and 49 countries. And that was just the print 00:25:39.940 --> 00:25:45.627 piece. And in addition, there is now a University Research magazine 00:25:45.660 --> 00:25:51.917 Association, Irma, which did not exist before. Conrad started as you 00:25:51.950 --> 00:25:57.847 research and everybody there, whom I've met says, well, there he is. I 00:25:57.880 --> 00:26:03.296 mean, there's the guy that started it all. So it had quite a quite, quite 00:26:03.329 --> 00:26:08.367 an impact as it went along. But one other thing that's sort of a harbinger 00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:14.907 of the future is that you also made interesting contact with teachers of 00:26:14.940 --> 00:26:20.717 science in Arizona and wound up creating a whole special magazine just for 00:26:20.750 --> 00:26:23.107 them 00:26:23.140 --> 00:26:28.467 things. Days go on. Years ago by, we're doing these publications were 00:26:28.500 --> 00:26:32.357 looking for other outlets to get the message because that was my charge 00:26:32.390 --> 00:26:36.476 from the VP Tell the world what's going on at Arizona State University in 00:26:36.509 --> 00:26:40.276 terms in terms of research and scholarship. And so we had this magazine 00:26:40.309 --> 00:26:45.907 and you're you're limited by the budget you have of how many you can do. 00:26:45.940 --> 00:26:50.147 The Internet was just coming into play in the 90s. So we created one of 00:26:50.180 --> 00:26:55.976 the very first websites that issues. We had a web outlet version of the 00:26:56.009 --> 00:27:01.197 print magazine. We also work with Channel eight to do, we wanted to do a 00:27:01.230 --> 00:27:06.157 tv magazine and that ended up being called A S. U. Research Review. 00:27:06.190 --> 00:27:11.677 Another not overwhelming name But it it aired three times a year for 00:27:11.710 --> 00:27:16.957 almost 12 years and got good Nielsen ratings. But it was you know, it was 00:27:16.990 --> 00:27:20.526 a television version of the magazine. We we pick out the stories that we 00:27:20.559 --> 00:27:27.006 thought would translate best to video and it won lots of awards. So we had 00:27:27.039 --> 00:27:30.236 we were the envy of a lot of universities around the country in terms of 00:27:30.269 --> 00:27:35.697 our uh research communications operation because we had the trio, we had 00:27:35.730 --> 00:27:43.296 print, we had television and we had the internet. What we were missing was 00:27:43.329 --> 00:27:48.496 something for kids in my mind because down the line I I'm a Children's 00:27:48.529 --> 00:27:52.097 author and I was writing Children's books and I was visiting lots of 00:27:52.130 --> 00:27:56.707 schools around the state and I would get feedback from the teachers, they 00:27:56.740 --> 00:28:01.187 knew what I did with the magazine and it was greater good for older kids 00:28:01.220 --> 00:28:05.937 because we wrote the magazine at about 8th, 9th grade level, maybe a 00:28:05.970 --> 00:28:10.607 little bit higher, but they wanted something for the elementary students 00:28:10.640 --> 00:28:15.816 and they said, and I had the idea what if we did a magazine for kids, 00:28:15.849 --> 00:28:19.306 would this be something you could put to use? And they said, oh my gosh, 00:28:19.339 --> 00:28:22.486 anything you could get us? You know, budgets are being hammered, we have 00:28:22.519 --> 00:28:27.806 resources, we teachers are totally innovative and come up with ways to 00:28:27.839 --> 00:28:34.016 stretch a nickel and and whatever you can get us, we can use. So we came 00:28:34.049 --> 00:28:39.226 up with the idea to do chain reaction magazine. And so I got finally got 00:28:39.259 --> 00:28:43.736 to come up with a cool name and something that would be engaging. We 00:28:43.769 --> 00:28:48.576 wanted an active, active name and we tried a lot of different things and 00:28:48.609 --> 00:28:53.756 had a lot of feedback and chain reaction is what it became. And this is 00:28:53.789 --> 00:28:58.996 one of the very first, this was actually the second chain reaction here. 00:28:59.029 --> 00:29:05.226 So what was really interesting, I think that we did with chain reaction, 00:29:05.259 --> 00:29:09.377 we didn't want to be one of the ideas was to call it Research Junior or 00:29:09.410 --> 00:29:14.336 Research Light. No, we didn't want to do that. Um and of course research 00:29:14.369 --> 00:29:18.957 magazine was a compendium of stories across disciplines. It wasn't 00:29:18.990 --> 00:29:22.836 thematic what the teachers told us, they said if you could do a 00:29:22.869 --> 00:29:27.467 publication that fits our curriculum, what we have to teach that would 00:29:27.500 --> 00:29:31.516 really be useful. So we spent time when we looked at the Arizona science 00:29:31.549 --> 00:29:35.447 standards for elementary schools and we saw there were certain themes that 00:29:35.480 --> 00:29:38.996 are taught at certain grade levels. And so with each issue of chain 00:29:39.029 --> 00:29:44.996 reaction, we made it a thematic issue. So this one happens to be Sonoran 00:29:45.029 --> 00:29:50.197 desert biology, basically. And in fourth grade in Arizona, they teach the 00:29:50.230 --> 00:29:54.897 Sonoran desert. So all these stories are related to something about 00:29:54.930 --> 00:30:00.266 biology of Arizona. But of course it's all stories originating at Arizona 00:30:00.299 --> 00:30:07.086 State University. So people would, I like to call me a pr guy and I'm 00:30:07.119 --> 00:30:11.516 anathema to that. It's like, I'm not public relations, I'm a journalist. I 00:30:11.549 --> 00:30:14.907 just happened to be writing all my stories about Arizona State University. 00:30:14.940 --> 00:30:19.006 So we wouldn't, we didn't want to do the hard sell with this. So the 00:30:19.039 --> 00:30:23.187 other idea was, here's this publication we're going to produce. And of 00:30:23.220 --> 00:30:29.637 course we're, we were funded by um, A fraction of 1% of all the grants and 00:30:29.670 --> 00:30:33.157 contracts that come into the university for research. That was my office. 00:30:33.190 --> 00:30:38.397 And the charge again to tell the story as wide as you can. So we had 00:30:38.430 --> 00:30:42.197 minimal dollars and we wanted to stretch them as far as possible. So we 00:30:42.230 --> 00:30:46.157 did these thematic issues that met the science standards. We printed these 00:30:46.190 --> 00:30:51.306 magazines And we bundled them in packets of 30 and we would give them to 00:30:51.339 --> 00:30:59.339 teachers. So they have a classroom set and we ended up eventually printing 00:31:00.039 --> 00:31:05.637 Almost 180,000 copies and it would only be about once a year. We didn't 00:31:05.670 --> 00:31:10.207 have money. We never did get to the point where I wanted it to be ah 00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:16.407 180,000 copies. Mostly distributed in Arizona. But I had Teachers in 44 00:31:16.440 --> 00:31:21.536 states Canada and several european countries who are using it in their 00:31:21.569 --> 00:31:26.667 classrooms. So then thinking about the marketing aspects and the pr 00:31:26.700 --> 00:31:32.046 aspects, think about it. Here's a publication going into an elementary 00:31:32.079 --> 00:31:37.476 school and if you're a student child interested in science and we try to 00:31:37.509 --> 00:31:40.796 make it as interesting as possible, eventually you're going to want to go 00:31:40.829 --> 00:31:45.107 to college, where are you going to go? I've been reading about this 00:31:45.140 --> 00:31:48.726 Arizona State University place, there's all these cool guys and these cool 00:31:48.759 --> 00:31:52.556 projects there, that's where I want to go. Of course I was never able to 00:31:52.589 --> 00:31:58.907 put a monetary figure on our impact, which was to my demise because I 00:31:58.940 --> 00:32:03.806 couldn't quantify it of what we were doing. Although I had all the other 00:32:03.839 --> 00:32:09.207 anecdotal evidence and testimonials and teachers begging for more. We 00:32:09.240 --> 00:32:12.667 couldn't do it enough. And we actually were the only university in the 00:32:12.700 --> 00:32:19.046 United States that did a magazine for kids. We also did a website and this 00:32:19.079 --> 00:32:24.097 was early days of websites again because this was Just after 2000, I think 00:32:24.130 --> 00:32:30.256 that we began this and we needed needed more help to do animations and do 00:32:30.289 --> 00:32:34.937 games and those kind of things that everybody is so used to now. But we, 00:32:34.970 --> 00:32:39.627 we never could get the support to make this thing. We had to scrape scrape 00:32:39.660 --> 00:32:43.347 my budget to find enough money to do this over the years. So we only did 00:32:43.380 --> 00:32:47.877 seven in all those years. It's whenever I could save enough money and hide 00:32:47.910 --> 00:32:52.917 money and not tell the bosses that I got this over here and and but I did 00:32:52.950 --> 00:32:57.117 have vice presidents who were really supportive this. I'm excited to talk 00:32:57.150 --> 00:33:01.086 about that. I've worked for some of the find people here at the university. 00:33:01.119 --> 00:33:05.496 Henry Reeves was one of the men that hired me, robert Barnhill was my 00:33:05.529 --> 00:33:12.006 boss for about 10 years and then john fink, john Fink expert in volcano 00:33:12.039 --> 00:33:16.627 volcanic science geologist. He was my boss too. And they were always 00:33:16.660 --> 00:33:20.907 totally supportive of what we were doing. They knew they understood that 00:33:20.940 --> 00:33:24.526 we're getting that message out there, even though there's if we can find a 00:33:24.559 --> 00:33:29.687 way to quantify it in terms of dollars, we would have still been alive 00:33:29.720 --> 00:33:35.806 anyway, so that's, that's how it started. This was the last one, All about 00:33:35.839 --> 00:33:41.496 weather. We actually did two of these and these were just, I go to 00:33:41.529 --> 00:33:44.776 classrooms, still two elementary schools around the state and teachers 00:33:44.809 --> 00:33:48.937 have these eight years old. They have them on their shelves and they're 00:33:48.970 --> 00:33:52.697 beat up and when is that gonna come out again. It's like, I'm sorry, I'm 00:33:52.730 --> 00:33:56.917 not there anymore and they don't do it anymore. It's only online. But of 00:33:56.950 --> 00:34:01.976 course, there's never been the support to keep it going to do new. It 00:34:02.009 --> 00:34:06.016 still exists online. And every once in a while there's a new story. So, I 00:34:06.049 --> 00:34:08.606 mean, that's probably one of my biggest regrets that this thing hasn't 00:34:08.639 --> 00:34:13.026 been supported the way it should have been, but we have to convert it to a 00:34:13.059 --> 00:34:19.827 pdf and leave it online. But uh, you are so good. We have all original 00:34:19.860 --> 00:34:24.097 stories or PDFs. Teachers can download them if it's still I don't know if 00:34:24.130 --> 00:34:28.526 those sites still exist. You know, all of our libraries were wiped out. 00:34:28.559 --> 00:34:36.106 And I don't know what happened to any of this stuff 00:34:36.139 --> 00:34:43.316 now. This leads into our very interesting conclusion, the the future of 00:34:43.349 --> 00:34:48.697 the Future Life of Conrad's Store ad because you mentioned you had been 00:34:48.730 --> 00:34:54.026 writing about science for Children for many years already and you took 00:34:54.059 --> 00:34:57.566 that to a fare thee Well, when you retired, why don't you tell us a bit 00:34:57.599 --> 00:35:03.646 about what you do now and how busy you are now this week, it's three years 00:35:03.679 --> 00:35:07.247 since I've retired and the last three years, I've been busier than I've 00:35:07.280 --> 00:35:12.577 ever been in my life, but smiling every day. Uh but I've been writing 00:35:12.610 --> 00:35:17.166 children's books for about 20 years. And so I finally, now I have full 00:35:17.199 --> 00:35:21.686 time devoted to what I found out was my passion and you learn about things 00:35:21.719 --> 00:35:26.106 as you grow and I love my job. I loved working here. I love what I did. 00:35:26.139 --> 00:35:31.827 But I really found that what I really did best or like the most was 00:35:31.860 --> 00:35:39.307 communicating science to kids, not only in magazine articles, but in books 00:35:39.340 --> 00:35:42.916 and people say, well, how did that happen? Well, I was asked, it wasn't 00:35:42.949 --> 00:35:46.706 something I pursued. It's one of those instances where a door opens and 00:35:46.739 --> 00:35:51.537 opportunity is there, You're either gonna walk through the door or pass it 00:35:51.570 --> 00:35:57.356 by. I walked through the door, 1991 wrote a book about Saguaro Cactus. 00:35:57.389 --> 00:36:01.767 It's a little science book for fourth graders. I was hooked. I started 00:36:01.800 --> 00:36:07.197 getting assignments and eventually moved into picture books and I've 00:36:07.230 --> 00:36:11.767 enjoyed a great amount of success with my books over the years. Um, I 00:36:11.800 --> 00:36:17.376 brought some, let's, let's take a look here. A lot of people will 00:36:17.409 --> 00:36:22.256 recognize this book, don't call me pig javelina story. It's probably my 00:36:22.289 --> 00:36:26.986 most famous book gets sold More than three quarters of a million copies 00:36:27.019 --> 00:36:33.796 now since 1999. And it's a little story, it's about have Alina's with 00:36:33.829 --> 00:36:37.186 which are not pigs. And of course no one knows that they think they're 00:36:37.219 --> 00:36:42.327 wild pigs. They're here in the desert. And I was working with this company 00:36:42.360 --> 00:36:46.356 was a toy company and he was making stuffed animals and he was selling 00:36:46.389 --> 00:36:51.497 tens of thousands of his have Alina toys. He wanted to do a javelina book 00:36:51.530 --> 00:36:55.577 even though he'd never been a publisher before. See, and I had worked for 00:36:55.610 --> 00:36:59.046 him on the side doing some other little projects. He said, Conrad could 00:36:59.079 --> 00:37:02.967 you write a book about have Alina's? And I said sure I can do that. I had 00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:06.637 written books about scorpions and tarantulas, little science books for 00:37:06.670 --> 00:37:11.387 libraries. So that's what I thought I was gonna do. But as I started this 00:37:11.420 --> 00:37:15.776 project I realized this is gonna be for kids. And I was doing my research 00:37:15.809 --> 00:37:18.307 about what have Alina's are and everybody thinks they're pigs and of 00:37:18.340 --> 00:37:23.557 course they're not something we don't call them pigs. I had my title, it 00:37:23.590 --> 00:37:27.657 was in my head kind of chuckled don't call me pig. And I thought about 00:37:27.690 --> 00:37:32.227 kids playing on the playground calling each other names. We didn't like 00:37:32.260 --> 00:37:35.497 somebody to call you a name, you wouldn't want someone to call you a pig, 00:37:35.530 --> 00:37:38.776 here's this animal in the desert and everybody's calling it a pig, it's 00:37:38.809 --> 00:37:44.396 not a pig, Don't call me pig. And so I started playing around with rhyme 00:37:44.429 --> 00:37:47.967 and then I couldn't stop. It was in my head and I couldn't stop until I 00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:53.247 was done and we found illustrators don rance and beth neely were from 00:37:53.280 --> 00:37:57.967 Prescott, they were agent professors at N. A. U. Of art, they had never 00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:01.506 illustrated a book. The publisher was a toy company who had never 00:38:01.539 --> 00:38:06.336 published a book. I had never done a picture book. We all came together. 00:38:06.369 --> 00:38:10.697 It was meant to be that wins Arizona Children's book of the year it comes 00:38:10.730 --> 00:38:14.086 wins the silver medal in the Benjamin franklin awards as the best 00:38:14.119 --> 00:38:20.017 Children's picture book in America and we're off and running Later on in 00:38:20.050 --> 00:38:22.166 2006. 00:38:22.199 --> 00:38:27.736 Well, this was 1999 in 2006. Janet Napolitano was governor of Arizona and 00:38:27.769 --> 00:38:32.677 each year during her terms as governor, she would select a book. She had a 00:38:32.710 --> 00:38:37.157 literacy program and it was underwritten by Phelps, dodge corporation and 00:38:37.190 --> 00:38:43.117 Southwest Gas. She would select a book. Every first grader in Arizona 00:38:43.150 --> 00:38:47.736 would receive a copy of that book from the governor. In 2006. She picked 00:38:47.769 --> 00:38:52.566 this book. So 93001st 00:38:52.599 --> 00:38:56.177 graders got a special edition copy of this book from the governor. And it 00:38:56.210 --> 00:39:01.816 was a very good day for me. Yeah, I have to tell you a quick story. So I 00:39:01.849 --> 00:39:05.697 got to meet the governor. We were at Galveston's elementary school in 00:39:05.730 --> 00:39:08.887 Chandler where they're going to make the announcement that this is the 00:39:08.920 --> 00:39:14.106 governor's book for 2006. They had 100 and 51st graders sitting on the 00:39:14.139 --> 00:39:17.727 floor in the library waiting for the governor. My wife's there. The media 00:39:17.760 --> 00:39:21.727 is, they're super. The school boards there and you're gonna meet the 00:39:21.760 --> 00:39:27.677 governor. The governors Going to arrive at 9:00, Her motorcade shows up. 00:39:27.710 --> 00:39:31.956 My wife whispers to me, are you nervous? Here's my old, hard boiled 00:39:31.989 --> 00:39:37.057 editors. Ah, I've met these politicians before. It's like no big deal. 00:39:37.090 --> 00:39:42.727 It's nice, but Hannah, Janet napolitano walks in the door. My brain turns 00:39:42.760 --> 00:39:47.137 to oatmeal. She had an aura about her. She comes up, she strides right up 00:39:47.170 --> 00:39:50.717 to me, she grabs my hand, she says, konrad good to meet you, Janet 00:39:50.750 --> 00:39:58.186 napolitano and I'm going right, I know 00:39:58.219 --> 00:40:03.347 she talked to the kids, She sat down, criss cross applesauce on the floor 00:40:03.380 --> 00:40:07.977 with the first graders and she's reading my book to the kids. Well, I have 00:40:08.010 --> 00:40:12.126 puppets that I use with my books and I have Julio the javelina and he has 00:40:12.159 --> 00:40:15.776 his little no pig shirt and I have the puppet dancing around by the 00:40:15.809 --> 00:40:19.566 Governor's head as she's reading the story. And this book has been out for 00:40:19.599 --> 00:40:22.606 a while and a lot of kids around the state know this story. There's a 00:40:22.639 --> 00:40:27.967 refrain where I usually have the kids yell as loud as they can, don't call 00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:33.956 me pig and they get into that through the rest of the story. Well, we get 00:40:33.989 --> 00:40:39.677 to that refrain and 151st graders shout at the top of their lungs, don't 00:40:39.710 --> 00:40:45.597 call me pig. The Governor jumps back and she's looking at me with this 00:40:45.630 --> 00:40:51.407 quizzical look and I said, Governor, they know the story you chose. Well, 00:40:51.440 --> 00:40:56.497 she was into it after that. And so she had them all screaming, end of the 00:40:56.530 --> 00:41:00.657 story. Governor is getting ready to leave her security deals, hustling are 00:41:00.690 --> 00:41:05.037 out of there. My wife is four ft 10. You got to get the picture here. 00:41:05.070 --> 00:41:09.747 Laurie is four ft 10 and I need a picture of you with the governor. She 00:41:09.780 --> 00:41:13.597 steps in front of the security details. Just stop. I need a picture of my 00:41:13.630 --> 00:41:17.767 husband with the governor and this big guy is looking at her like get out 00:41:17.800 --> 00:41:23.057 of the way lady and governor says, no, it's okay. Conrad come here and so 00:41:23.090 --> 00:41:27.097 we're standing together and my wife's taking pictures and jen napolitano 00:41:27.130 --> 00:41:31.307 leans to me and she says Conrad, if you ever decide to write a sequel to 00:41:31.340 --> 00:41:37.376 this book, maybe you could call it, don't call me republican. 00:41:37.409 --> 00:41:41.617 And so I always send her copies of my books when they come out now. So 00:41:41.650 --> 00:41:48.566 that was the first picture book maybe to wrap up if you, I hope you, you 00:41:48.599 --> 00:41:54.077 and your grandkids and kids get around the state and get a chance to 00:41:54.110 --> 00:42:00.807 actually see a performance by Conrad um displaying one of his books with 00:42:00.840 --> 00:42:06.506 his little creatures and especially to meet his interesting assistant who 00:42:06.539 --> 00:42:13.166 plays various roles. Who is that again? Conrad, 00:42:13.199 --> 00:42:17.416 The newest book. This is the official centennial book for Arizona students 00:42:17.449 --> 00:42:20.057 in 2012 00:42:20.090 --> 00:42:24.767 and it's called Arizona way out west and wacky. It's not about politics. 00:42:24.800 --> 00:42:28.336 It's in Arizona history book, a coloring book activity book. And of 00:42:28.369 --> 00:42:32.836 course the cover here is the official state mammal of Arizona and you know 00:42:32.869 --> 00:42:38.356 what it is. I know, does anybody else know what this animal is. It's our 00:42:38.389 --> 00:42:41.166 official statement. 00:42:41.199 --> 00:42:47.436 Yeah, most paris zonas don't know. It's called a ringtail cousin to a 00:42:47.469 --> 00:42:52.916 raccoon and there's a big history behind it, but we actually have a full 00:42:52.949 --> 00:42:58.387 body costume and this is jane Ringo and her brother johnny Ringo are kind 00:42:58.420 --> 00:43:03.367 of the stars that narrators the book. And so even though this is on tape, 00:43:03.400 --> 00:43:08.776 my wife please jane Ringo and she has garnered tens of thousands of hugs 00:43:08.809 --> 00:43:15.827 already. But I have, I found my niche and it's like you come to a point in 00:43:15.860 --> 00:43:20.267 your life, everything was meant to happen. That's happened. Everything I 00:43:20.300 --> 00:43:23.956 had here at the university has brought me to where I am today. I just 00:43:23.989 --> 00:43:31.989 passed 1025 schools elementary schools that I visited In 17 years in 13 00:43:32.090 --> 00:43:37.947 states. I just passed 900,000 kids that I've read too. So my goal is to 00:43:37.980 --> 00:43:42.097 read to one million kids. I'm getting there getting close. That's 00:43:42.130 --> 00:43:46.117 fantastic. And lots more projects coming out. So that's really fantastic. 00:43:46.150 --> 00:43:49.486 All meant to be. And it all started right here with you and I want to 00:43:49.519 --> 00:43:52.827 shake your hand. I'm happy to have a role in that. I'll tell you that's 00:43:52.860 --> 00:43:57.577 that's part of some of the best news I could have. Uh and also obviously 00:43:57.610 --> 00:44:02.796 one of the great examples of there's nothing better than to have the pupil 00:44:02.829 --> 00:44:07.276 surpass the master and we have a great, 00:44:07.309 --> 00:44:11.327 well, thanks very much Conrad. It was really interesting to talk to you 00:44:11.360 --> 00:44:14.750 today. Thank you very much.