Let’s Talk – with Ted Corcoran

In this engaging episode of the “Let’s Talk” podcast, local champions Schuyler Black, Ted Corcoran, and Bobb Dewrell passionately discuss the value of supporting local businesses and the unique experiences offered by brick-and-mortar stores. Highlighting the nostalgic charm of local Christmas shopping, they promote various local events and initiatives, including a toy drive and Christmas concert. The episode also touches upon the richness of local culture, with an emphasis on neighborhood festivals and seasonal delights like viewing Christmas lights. They also plug the Emerald Coast Connected app, a resource for staying updated on local happenings. This episode serves as a hearty reminder of the importance of community engagement and supporting local businesses, and it’s a must-listen for those eager to contribute to their local economy during the festive season.

Transcript

00:00:09 – 00:00:18
Schuyler Black: Skyler Blank and Bobby Durell on a Friday morning joined by none other than the Chamber Director and CEO himself, Mr. Ted Corcoran

00:00:18 – 00:00:22
Ted Corcoran: Skyler, an honor to be here. Is that your real voice or do you just make that up for the radio?

00:00:22 – 00:00:24
Bobb Dewrell: Oh he totally makes it up for the radio.

00:00:24 – 00:00:40
Ted Corcoran: He does, I was gonna say because I’ve already had a high pitched squeaky voice. I do. Okay yeah I just don’t check. I’ve heard it so many times as I’m tooling on down the road listening to my you know Sweet Emotions by Rao Smith or my favorite Skinner tune yeah and but to see you in person like this I just did not know it.

00:00:40 – 00:00:42
Schuyler Black: Well yeah are you impressed?

00:00:42 – 00:00:43
Ted Corcoran: I am very impressed.

00:00:45 – 00:00:49
Schuyler Black: You don’t have much to be impressed about. You haven’t seen a lot in this world, have you?

00:00:49 – 00:00:55
Ted Corcoran: Well, you know, we’re happy with Bobby with his Emerald Coast Connected, which is a great promotion for our community. So I’ll jump to that. It’s great to see you, Mr. Durrell.

00:00:55 – 00:00:56
Bobb Dewrell: Yeah, it’s good to see

00:00:56 – 00:00:57
Ted Corcoran: you, Ted.

00:00:57 – 00:00:59
Bobb Dewrell: Thank you. Thank you. It’s always good to be seen, too.

00:00:59 – 00:01:10
Ted Corcoran: And we love Omni Broadcasting because you guys are doing a lot of good things. I was talking to Rick Wolf, a lot of great things on promoting the local economy. A lot of folks coming in here. You got the fire department coming in here. You have the park and rec talking about the parade.

00:01:10 – 00:01:16
Ted Corcoran: You have the chief of police coming in. So it’s really good. You’re becoming the local radio station of cool stuff.

00:01:16 – 00:01:54
Schuyler Black: And we actually had a really cool promotion last weekend. So we were the media partner and the official radio station for the Destin History and Fishing Museums holiday on the harbor. Lighted boat parade. And so we set up over at the Edge Seafood Restaurant and we actually did a boat by boat broadcast on our sister station Freedom 94.3 of the of the boat parade and then we did a two-hour pregame remote right here on K-Rock but it was a lot of fun so we’re We’re enjoying delving into these local organizations and these local businesses and really ingratiating ourselves as a part of the local media community.

00:01:54 – 00:02:12
Ted Corcoran: We love it. As a Chamber of Commerce, our job, Bobby, as you well know, promote the community, promote South Okaloosa County, the entire county, to have you folks on property talking about the boat parade is cool, the parade, the various workshops the city is doing. It’s a great way to get the word out because it’s hard to get the word out and everyone listens to KROQ.

00:02:13 – 00:02:18
Schuyler Black: Everyone and I’m glad that mr. Ted Corcoran said that right here on 100.3k.

00:02:19 – 00:02:56
Bobb Dewrell: Yeah, absolutely Well, and you know Ted the the thing is is like Skylar and I talk quite a bit about you know It’s it’s bringing radio back to the community like it’s supposed to be right everybody Everybody got focused for a while on on social media and digital and all those types of avenues which are great avenues but you know you we’ve proven time and time again we’ve got the algorithms that just make you see the same thing over and over again whereas you know the unique thing of broadcast is we are that’s just it it’s a broadcast we go across all those genres across all those things we can talk to people and that’s what we said we wanted to do is we wanted to show up be in the community talk about the community and promote the community.

00:02:56 – 00:03:13
Ted Corcoran: It’s like the only local news story we have in the community right now you know Get to Coast does a great job you know Jerry does a great job promoting stuff, which is really cool. But having it right here in the morning as you’re driving along to work or in the afternoon with Rick and just being able to hear, hey that’s local, that’s in my town. Right. That’s really special.

00:03:13 – 00:03:14
Bobb Dewrell: I can drive to that.

00:03:16 – 00:03:17
Ted Corcoran: Maybe you can drive my car.

00:03:18 – 00:03:36
Schuyler Black: Well Ted, speaking of driving places and as we look at the calendar now we’re 10 days out from Christmas Day. You know we’re kind of getting down to the real nitty gritty end of the Christmas shopping season here And let’s make a big emphasis and a push to shop local here in the last couple of weeks before Christmas.

00:03:36 – 00:04:01
Ted Corcoran: Yeah, you know, everyone nowadays is, especially COVID, they had to, you know, they’re online, they’re online, they’re online. The Big River Agency, the Big River, Bobby, the Big River website does not do anything for our community here. They’re not sponsoring any Little League teams, they’re not sponsoring any dance teams, they’re not sponsoring the Choctaw, Fort Wallen Beach bands, etc. Whereas if you see those banners at those properties at the basketball games, etc. That’s our local community.

00:04:01 – 00:04:04
Ted Corcoran: Those are the ones who you need to spend your money with.

00:04:05 – 00:04:19
Bobb Dewrell: Those are the people that when something happens, you know, when we have 1 of those storms that sometimes happens in the fall and in the spring, those are the guys that show up with water bottles and help and put tarps up and those things. You don’t see that from the Big River Company.

00:04:19 – 00:04:26
Ted Corcoran: You don’t. You don’t at all. And certainly there’s a lot of things on there but there’s a lot of things in the community you just don’t know. Right. So you know, wander through downtown Fort Wallenbeach.

00:04:27 – 00:04:39
Ted Corcoran: Wander through Destin Commons. Wander through Silver Sands. Wander through the Santa Rosa mall right here in your neighborhood and just give them a shot. Just, you know, that’s the way people used to shop and you’d be surprised. You go, oh my gosh, I didn’t realize you worked there.

00:04:39 – 00:05:04
Ted Corcoran: You know, type of thing. A lot of chamber members have retail. They have a lot of gift certificates for attorneys and, you know, banks and all sorts of stuff. So I really I can’t you know shop local is kind of a contrived thought at times You know, you know, you know it but but realistically it’s really fun to come into the station See the 2 of you guys people. I know see Rick Wolf walk into Buccaneer gift shop in downtown See Jeff ring walk into the movie theater and see people you know.

00:05:04 – 00:05:17
Ted Corcoran: I mean these are your neighbors. So again we talk about Omni being the local radio station promoting all the cool stuff happening. Well let’s do the same thing and promote shopping local. Give it a shot at least.

00:05:18 – 00:05:22
Schuyler Black: Absolutely support the local businesses that pay the taxes here just like you do.

00:05:22 – 00:05:52
Bobb Dewrell: Right and and really local right you know I mean because and I say that you know Ted you know that shop local and local businesses is my passion that’s where it always Connected came from and how we started all that. And so because of that, a lot of people are always sending me little things and showing stuff. And you know, this really big box store, right, that exists out there, that I know a lot of people go to, Somebody sent me a picture from it the other day. I had to absolutely cackle. So this big national brand, big box store, right?

00:05:52 – 00:05:55
Bobb Dewrell: Has shirts that they’re selling that say shop local.

00:05:57 – 00:06:14
Ted Corcoran: How we doing? I’m like, really? Well you know and it’s interesting because those stores do hire local people, so it’s kind of a fine line, you know, different than, than, you know, the online folks is that. I know the postman don’t really care for that when they’re delivering stuff on Sunday mornings, etc.

00:06:14 – 00:06:14
Schuyler Black: Right.

00:06:14 – 00:06:40
Ted Corcoran: But, But no, it is, there’s so many stores in our area, many of you that are advertising here on your station, many, we could go through a whole litany of them, but I guess the key thing is, is hey, give it a shot. You know, go to Uptown Station, go to Racetrack, and all these various places, just drive along and just see. Bring the kids, let them see what it’s like to actually walk into a store, right? And shop about and maybe get some ideas for Christmas. Which is

00:06:40 – 00:06:43
Schuyler Black: really fun. That’s nostalgia Christmas shopping right there.

00:06:43 – 00:06:49
Ted Corcoran: It is, you know, in the old days, way back in the day, many of your listeners will remember this, they had the Sears catalog that would

00:06:49 – 00:06:50
Bobb Dewrell: come out. Yeah, I remember that.

00:06:50 – 00:06:59
Ted Corcoran: Right, it would be really thick, about 2 inches, and as a kid you’d look through it and you’d get your ideas. And then your parents would go to Sears and buy it at the store.

00:06:59 – 00:07:07
Schuyler Black: Right, they’d go to the customer service counter at the back of the store. Because I remember looking through the JC Penney catalog. Same concept. And yeah, that’s not really a

00:07:07 – 00:07:11
Bobb Dewrell: thing anymore. And if you’re like my family, it usually meant around October it was put on layaway.

00:07:13 – 00:07:19
Ted Corcoran: Well, that’s true. I mean, you’ve turned out to be an all right kid right so yeah Santa visited you you

00:07:19 – 00:07:21
Schuyler Black: had some good Christmases for yourself.

00:07:22 – 00:07:37
Ted Corcoran: Well yes the other thing is the fact that you know you can drive around town maybe have a nice lunch right and go to some of the things you talked about the boat parade last week the other parade they have everything’s going on all these festivals and things happening here are there any festivals coming up I mean there’s lots of stuff happening.

00:07:37 – 00:08:01
Bobb Dewrell: Oh there’s I mean it seems like there is just everything every every single day I know I know Fort Long Beach High School was doing their Christmas concert tonight I know we’ve got the the toy drive coming up on Saturday. There’s, yeah, I mean, every single day there’s 2 or 3 things going on. And you know, if nothing else, make some hot cocoa, go do some of that shopping. When the sun goes down, drive around and look at all the Christmas lights.

00:08:01 – 00:08:01
Ted Corcoran: Yeah, absolutely.

00:08:01 – 00:08:02
Bobb Dewrell: There you go. Make a whole day

00:08:02 – 00:08:06
Ted Corcoran: out of it. See that? See that? It’s a wonderful life in here, Skyler.

00:08:06 – 00:08:12
Schuyler Black: We got 2 of the biggest community ambassadors in town in the studio this morning. Mr. Ted Corcoran, Merry Christmas.

00:08:12 – 00:08:20
Ted Corcoran: Same to you, my friend. I’m so honored. And again, don’t forget to look at Emerald Coast Connected for all your local events. That’s Bobby’s app. It’s available all over the place.

00:08:20 – 00:08:25
Bobb Dewrell: Pick it up. Just pick it up. Emeraldcoastconnected.com. You can find it in Google, Apple, you name it. It’s a

00:08:25 – 00:08:31
Ted Corcoran: good thing. We’re happy to have you all. And thanks for your membership in the Chamber of Commerce, my friends. And let’s have some fun in 2024, shall we?

00:08:31 – 00:08:46
Schuyler Black: Absolutely. And if you’re interested in learning more about the Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce, fwbchamber.org for all the details there. But Ted Corcoran, CEO of the greater Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce, joining us this morning. [♪ Outro Music ♪ and Thanks

00:08:49 – 00:09:04
Bobb Dewrell: for Watching!

00:09:04 – 00:09:04
Schuyler Black: ♪

 

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