Transcripts For CSPAN3 West 20240704

Election. Ask ladies and gentlemen think governor of the great state of West Virginia the honorable jim justice. [applause] [applause] [applause] okay, sit down you all look like youre getting tired. [laughter] you have got to clap a lot tonight. I will get to the meat and potatoes in just a Second Period but i want to thank you credit want to thank you from all of us. All of my family in every way for all of the years and all of the time we have spent together. Bickering at times but hopefully loving each other in the end. An absolutely loving West Virginia it that matter what. Now, if i could make some incredible introductions here. It is just this. I would like to introduce my family. Especially kathy he has to put up with me all of the time. And please give it kathy and jill and jay a big round of applause, please. [applause] [applause] okay. The members of my cabinet and i really do not see need going through each secretary but in thinking about it maybe i should. Because of all the great work they do all of the time. We have three new secretaries the secretary of health, the secretary of Human Services and the secretary of health facilities. So if sherry young, cynthia, and mike would stand up maybe you could give them a round of applause. [applause] now we have a new interim secretary of revenue and larry pack and god knows you all know larry, youve known him forever. [applause] are secretary of administration mark scott. Our secretary of Homeland Security marcia. Our secretary of transportation jimmy. Secretary of veterans assistance ted diaz and our secretary of Economic Development ms. Carmichael. Please give them a round of applause, please. [applause] now this man demands uniqueness beyond belief. Our curator randall reed smith. [cheering] [applause] i am going to hustle along here weve got a lot to talk about tonight. Our secretary of tourism chelsea ruby. Our secretary was doing a phenomenal job, harold undersecretary of commerce james bailey please give them a round of applause. [cheering] [applause] our adage into general general bill crane our command sgt major james jones. Our chancellor of the West Virginia Higher Education policy commissioner sarah tucker our commissioner of the bureau of Senior Services denise whirley. Last but not least our director of the Herbert Henderson office of Minority Affairs jill upson please give them a big round of applause. [applause] but dont hit your hand so much their hands get sore you come blame that on meet later on. But think about this just a second please, my staff, my staff has been with me for a long, long time they have done so much good work and they have to put up with me periodically may be a come to jesus meeting or they have to put up with me when i was having a fit whatever it may be and there are times i could be dead wrong but please give them a big round of applause. [applause] now, our supreme court, our chief justice tim armistead. Justice beth walker. Justice john hutchinson. Justice haley bollen and Justice William bill wooton. Please give them a giant round of applause. [applause] thank you. I have to tell you this. John hutchinson looks so innocent, doesnt he . [laughter] now just think about this. We were practicing basketball at Woodrow Wilson in the year i believe i was a sophomore and john was a junior. So john is way, way, way older than me. But in all of that we were at lightning out of the Center Circle the Raleigh County armory jump ball five sophomores on the team we ended up winning the state championship. But with all of that being said those five sophomores one of 15 foreground fodder. Absolutely we got run over every single day. And in this situation i truly did because as the ball was thrown up shawna wheeled around at warp speed hit me right in the nose with his head. My nose broke in three places blood was going everywhere and the coach was screaming justicee get off the court. So anyway brother john i will never forget that. Our constitutional officers from our left. Our attorney general Patrick Morrissey please give him a big round of applause. [applause] our state auditor another round of applause. [applause] our secretary of state. Warner please another round of applause. [applause] our commissioner of agriculture same it. [applause] our state treasurer riley moore. [applause] [cheering] and our state superintendent of schools. [applause] well, it has been easy up until now. But just think about this. Seven years ago in seven years for some i am sure his gun really, really fast. This is my last state of the state. Seven years my gosh it seemed like an eternity when it all started. For a lot it has got really fast and i am sure for several of you it has gone really slow. [laughter] but along the way i have tried to do this, i have tried to give wisdom. Wisdom that i was taught mostly from my dad. Wisdom about dont for confuse wisdom with accomplishment if you cannot get it done 24 hours a day of got to work nights. Dad wouldve said as i stood in front of him and said there was anything i could do and as the desk exploded as he jumped forward and grabbed me as an 18yearold around my shirt and slammed me down on the desk and said darn you, he didnt say darn you he said you best better always remember this there is always something you can do and youd darn well ought to always remember that. That is how i have lived my life. That is all there is to it. I believe that. I believe if you give it a shot of the few your best to give your best like nobodys business good things will happen. Now im going to give you one more bit of advice right now. I gave this same advice for that bunch of young ladies right that is my Basketball Team have fun for kids that are the best of the best i said for them there is no substitute for being there. Absolutely always showing up always given your best and there is no substitute for being there. With all that being said if you could focus for the second im being there im going to tell you something i just came up with this probably yesterday. I looked up the mileage view on my vehicle says four or five vehicles into this. 240,000 miles right now. I total up the vehicle over the last few years that ive been your governor and i am approaching driving a 1 million miles in the state of West Virginia. 1 million miles. I do it on my guys and i do it proudly because i really think im here to serve now just think about what is a million miles . Do you realize that if we left here right this minute we headed to the Pacific Ocean in california i could have done that 500 times. 500 times on the mileage i have spent traveling all across this unbelievable state. Now, if i would absolutely just this, along the way maybe i am different. I am the god crazy about spending our money. Maybe i am the guy whos not crazy about having a party every other night. Maybe i am the guy whos not crazy about flying in your aircraft. Can you imagine ive been your helicopter one time, one time. I am crazy about just this. Im crazy about serving. Our forefathers stepped up and i think it off a lot of you are you exactly the same thing. On the costs right now think away from your families for all practical purposes for 60 days. What you are paid is nothing. Absolutely at the end of the day i cannot thank you enough. Now i will tell you this job at times can be pretty doggone to. There is days is plenty lonely. There are days you are tired and you feel beat up low and behold out of the Clear Blue Sky you know there are more and more days that you see families that are devastated with floods or whatever it may be and theres maybe not anything you can do. You absolutely see our heroes. Our heroes of the first that we all call that maybe we have lost. You sit briefing after briefing after briefing and you read the names of 7000 plus people that we have lost. Now we dont read the names, do we . We read the aged, the sex and the county. It was terrible absolutely terrible. Because i know so well what each and every one of those families were going through. It was really tough. I see the pain at times that my family has. And i would tell you just this. 1000, 1000, 1000 times over i would do it again spent 1000, 1000, 1000 times over they would too. Now, let me just read a couple lines to you. When the first time you saw me i stood before you pledging to fight for the soul of our states. We were staring down a dark tunnel our state was bankrupt. Our jobs and our people were leaving and our spirit was broken. You remember those days . Do you remember what that was like . It was not any fun, was it . Now i would also tell you that often times things calm and odd looking packages and i admit. [laughter] you know youve got a big guy for crying out loud and hes got a bulldog to with all of that being said the big guy brought whiteboards in the beginning sweat was running off of him in every direction was running back and forth to get this written in this writ in this written. The big guy is created and the guy is big, big, big dreams. I do have a taunt of energy god has given me and a lot of enthusiasm. I believe there was real hope and i believe that. I believe first and foremost overwhelmingly that god above was at play in all of our hearts right here with us. Each and every day. It did not matter to me that we were absolutely the benefactors of decade after decade after decade on is going to be 50 if they did not matter to me. I knew, i knew just how good you really are. And i knew it and i believed it. I ask you to close your eyes at that point in time a long way back and think of the place that is within our what rockstar of two thirds of the population is four unbelievable seasons and all these Natural Resources the real treasure is you, you the greatness of the people i will ask you to form done tonight to closure is one more time i came at the first state of the state i said think about just this for a second i said we need to make education our centerpiece. Need to grow tourism would need to diversify our economies lead to never, never never forget our coal miners are gas workers in our fossil fuel. We need to absolutely change our standard of life. We need to pass roads to prosperity and we need to change our image. Nothing changed. Nothing changed. From the first crack outofthebox, nothing changed. Just think about it. We absolutely stepped up to the plate in regards to education we sure got a long ways to go. We have a parents now but can choose where they want to go and what they want to do. Absolutely we have grown tourism up at absolute chart every dad gum dollar you put in tourism you do not put enough, you dont put enough, you dont put enough because every dollar you put in it comes to ripping back to us instantaneously. Absolutely i said diversify the economy. We cannot depend on one industry all the time. My family spent in the coal business forever we could not depend on the one industry all the time but we dont forget, do it . And you know what happened . Spent another stake in the sand sank we are not going to forget our fossil fuels and for those crazies that are out there in la la land that believe we can do without fossil fuels today back to your crazy stuff. To be perfectly honest i do not want to starve to death in the dark. [applause] [applause] were thinking about standard of life you can be thinking about two things. One of the ask how are the schools customer car the roads . How are the schools are the roads cosmic over and over and over and over the same thing. Well think about it. Granted our schools have got a ways to go. Granted we do. But i think you should always all never think just this. Jim is in the school all the time all the time by what i type anything but the truth . I challenge the media every day over and over and over find it something that knowingly i have told you is not true. Politicians do it nonstop. Find something jim justices told you that is not true. You cant do it, you cant do it. Now with all that being said think about the standard of life and think about our schools. Heres the next thing i will absolutely challenge you to do. Pick a school, i dont care at the school is pickup middle school pick in Elementary School, go to the school walk into fourth grade class do this, please do the squawking to the fourth grade class and may beat ms. Lilys class and ask ms. Lily to come out in the hall lever out the hall is second go back and assayed the kids what you think of ms. Lily . I will bet you overwhelmingly they say we love ms. Lily. And then go out and ask ms. Lily what she thanks of her students and you will get the same answer. And then go downtown and say what do you think of Cameron Elementary School . What do you think of a patent city . What do you think . And heres the answer we love our school. We love our school. And it means everything to our community. Weve got stuff to improve but for god sake that kids love the teacher and the teacher loves the kids and they community loves the school we have got a lot not in a good way too. Our roads to prosperity we had to wear that you liked it or didnt like it we had to change our image. Today of all things and if i could say its in slang who could have ever thunk it. Think about it. And world travel magazines, and countries so far away it we we donthave any idea where thee they are saying West Virginia as the place you ought to go. They are saying it all around you. They are saying it everywhere. Absolutely we are in a different place today. With all of that together what happened . Then the rocketship took off, didnt . Now im going to read a couple more lines to you. We climbed that mountain together. We pulled the rope together. Every step of the way and the view from the top is breathtaking. Think about that. If i could just touch on just a couple more. It all started like i said but the roads to prosperity program. Our roads are anything that steel and concrete. The roads are arteries that are pumping life back into our very towns and cities. Every mile we pave as a mile closer to new horizons, two jobs that are coming home. And to families that can stay home. And speaking of families we stepped out. We stepped up for our troopers be stepped up for our teachers. And our public servants. We absolutely stepped up when they were having a tough time. We delivered payraise after payraise. Our schools now have new life. Our streets are safer and our state runs like a well oiled machine at this time pumping out pride and not desperation. Remember the taxes we paid it. The regulations that burdened our businesses. We them together. Together all of us. We cut the red tape and what happened . Businesses are absolutely booming and jobs are multiplying. A West Virginia has become a magnet for dreams not dust. Our revenue surpluses have reached heights nobody could ever have dreamed of it. Thats all there is to it. We are returning those dollars to you. Its not all about dollars and cents is it . It boils right down to it is about the soul of the state. Protected the coal miners, our gun rights and our unborn babies. I could not be more proud. [applause] s. [applause] we fought for our faith, did we not . Our families, our freedoms, we stood tall and West Virginia and West Virginia strong we were through covid, fires, floods, and storms. The world to sing that West Virginia grit that we have got. Now im going to lay aside what we have done. Because my dad will say to me over and over and over, at one time believe it or not i was skinny and had brown hair i was a hottie toddy golfer. I went our state junior abbot are a couple times but all over the place playing in tournament after tournament was sams made, it. He actually thought i was a pretty good player. With all of that being said, my dad said to me 1000, 1000 times son, the only shot in golf that matters is the next shot. Your last shot went dead in the middle of the swamp, what can you do about it . If the last shot was a hole in one, what does it matter . The only shot in life and many situations is the next shot. And so with that being said i would say to you, we are a long way summing done and West Virginia. We have got jobs to create, schools to enhance and schools to lift. Lets make this laster that i have in the decades to come better and better and better and better. Please lets do just that. Imagine the businesses that are calling over and over and over and opportunities for jobs and goodness that other states had that we never had. Its real. Its absolutely real. Numbers since 2017. 591 jobs. We have retained 20,000, 155 jobs and theres 240 companies in the mix somewhere. We do have a seat at the table and in my words, we are the seat. Do you get that . Of all things, West Virginia is the seat. We are competing on the world stage and we are winning. Six new businesses that i will announce and go through them pretty quickly. Fuel sale is coming through the bridge port airport with investment or 64 million and 203 jobs. 40 new jobs and 50 milliondollar investment. We have expansion or retain businesses. 70 million. 500 jobs, g stamp is coming to South Charleston with 70 Million Investment and 401 new jobs. 40 jobs, 100 retained jobs. 23 million in investment and its coming to morgan town. 220 million of investment, 210 retained jobs. Give all these folks an applause. [applause] amazon is coming to West Virginia again but this time amazon is coming with aws. We cant run internet with aws. Its amazing the the partnerships are beginning to happen with our schools. We have two people and i think they are here tonight. Is kim mijares with us . Okay, theres kim. Please give her a big round of applause. [applause] and fasa, there he is. [applause] think about this. You deserve so much credit, tax cuts. Weve cut tax cuts in West Virginia 23 times since i walked in the door. 23 different times and delivered on the biggest tax cut, the biggest tax cut in state history hands down. I will tell you this, the faster we can get on taxes on the individuals, the better we will be. You cant [applause] we cant do it all on day one. Thats all there is to it. It doesnt mean that we dont see the beacon and we dont drive ourselves there as fast and hard as we can go to get there. Tonight im proposing two more. Im proposing the total elimination of Social Security tax on all, on all. [applause] im proposing a child and dependent tax credit to where folks that are struggling with day care, taxes against your revenue. We need this and we need this badly and we need it right now. As far as the budget goes, this for all practical purposes is the is the sixth year where weve absolutely had for all practical purposes a flat budget. You know, i want to say this and i say this pretty profoundly. I dont want the brag and my administration does not believe digging into a rainy day fund. We use surpluses, we use earnings to absolutely make choices, to do projects, to grow this state but we have to do it minding the story that i refer to the all of the time. Tonight i have a few things that i am adding based on earnings and dollars that weve got and these few things are first just this the, we have dr. Eric case with us here. And if you could please stand. [applause] this may surprise you but thats one of a oil in my book and ii absolutely grew up and cut my teeth from a business standpoint running an ag operation and it grew and it grew. We need a state of the art ag lab and i am proposing we put 50 million in new state of the art ag lab and locate it at West Virginia state university. [applause] we need to stand behind our moms, dont we . Im proposing 3 million for crisis pregnancy center. We need to stand beside behind our seniors, absolutely the very people that brung us to the dance. The very people that in oftentimes we run away from and we think, oh theyll be okay no, they wont be okay. 20 million to the our senior centers. 15 million to our state parks. 5 million to absolutely never forget our firemen, our ems and their agency. We need to the fund them with 10 million. [applause] ive seen bad things happen and cost all the money in the world and the folks didnt qualify for fema. You have to sit there and put your arm around them and say theres nothing i could do. I think about dad. Our West Virginia hospitals all across our land step up over and over. I know this is not all the money in the world but i want i want to propose that we spend 100 million, listen to all our hospitals and figure this out because anne can make 3 go from here to texas and back. [applause] where this leads us today with 310 million in the Income Tax Fund and a billion, 200 million in rainy day fund, a billion, 500 million in the state. It still levers us right where i said. Mind the store, mind the store. So i want to put 10 million back into fund because we have now spent 9. 5 million of the 100 million we had last year and in some way somehow all of you have got to the realize and all you have to do is go with Kathy Justice and communities and schools, whatever, all you have to do is go to the school. Go and be with the kids and what youre going to see is youre going to see in a lot of situations that maybe, just maybe, maybe the parents fault but the kids are suffering. The kids are hungry too. Go somewhere to the a senior to see somebody that is having a hard time. They are having a hard time getting to, getting food to. We have got with all our harvest that god above has given, weve got to stop hunger in the state. So i tell you just this, theres a man with us here tonight. His name is larry lester. Larry works this food bank where my uncle, his name was posey perry. He was a coal miner and after he returned from the coal mines for 30 years. He died when he was 94. For 30 years he worked the food bank. 39. Is that larry . Stand up. Please. [applause] larry now has the raping and has been there a long time himself. He knows what hunger really is all about. We have to some it. Im proposing across the board 5 pay raise for the fifth time, for the fifth time to all of our teachers and Service Personnel and all those in government. Hopefully this will more than cover, it will more than cover the pei extra cost and with all of that at the end of the day, what we wanted to do not cover, we want to cover for those folks and put money in their pocket. [applause] think about this. In 2021, it is amazing, amazing. So many West Virginians are now working, emts and we need them and we need them so badly. We have a gentleman with us tonight. I am proposing 10 million where we continue funding this through my [applause] think about nursing. Think about what we are doing. We decide, you know, because we had extra dollars we figured it all out. 48 million in a situation to be able to train and to retain and to track nurses to the state of West Virginia. It worked, didnt it . It worked. I think its lane johnson is with us to want and if you can give her a great big round of applause. Shes a graduate, shes working at medical. And she graduated 5 months early. You know, i cant ever stay i graduated 5 months early. To be perfectly honest, report card a or bs, i was fortunate to make an a or b. Sometimes i wasnt an a or b. Foster care system needs us to continue to step up, doesnt it . Thats all there is to it. The kid need us so badly. We made a move in dividing hhr, we have 3 great, great secretaries now. Theres till tons of work to do. Tons and tons of work to do. We need cps workers, we need more dollars. Theres been real improvement made. Weve gone from vacancy numbers of 33 down to 17. Vacancies to nine. Sounds great, doesnt it but theres so much more to do. At the end of the day, we need to do all we possibly can to help these families and help these kids and we are going to do it. Jobs and hope is the same kind of story. First jims dream, jobs and hope and everything. Theres been 5,024 that have gone through the jobs and hope program and gotten jobs. 1765 have gotten their drivers license back. 1244 arent on snap payments anymore. Theres a fellow with us here tonight, he is his name is james bruswell. James was a graduate. James founded a solar design and installation company. A graduate and and founded a new company in the state and is hired two other additional people. James please stand. [applause] corrections. Corrections were in the papers all of the time. We all know we have work to do there. Lets just call it like it is. What happened absolutely everybody said maybe subconsciously but said, you know, weve got to do this and weve got to do the this and we have got to do this and those folks did bad stuff and really at the end of the rainbow, maybe they were the last who got fed. We got to do stuff. And so we have. We have tried to step up and weve tried to do an amazing amazing work right now. We have recently graduated 227 graduates but can now work in our jails across the state. We are effective as we speak downsizing the National Guard in our facilities and it is my hope beyond belief that by the end of the summer the National Guard will be out of our facilities and we will have solved this problem in many ways. Theres a corporal with us tonight. His name is James Hamilton and absolutely i congratulate him in many, many ways. He worked in mount olive. He was in the National Guard and then decided the pastor is greener somewhere else because theres lots of different factors and all of sudden we had pay raises and pushed the the right buttons here and there and he has come home and so hes doing great work and absolutely hes been honorably discharged from the National Guard and working fulltime at mount olive and is with us tonight. So, james, please stand wherever you are. [applause] do this just while youre standing and everything, i want to hear you at the top of the rims of everything from the standpoint of just showing your appreciation and your love and your thanks for our National Guard. It is unflat believe what they do. [applause] ive told you this many times but ive said it over and over again. We owe every single thing we have, everything we have, first and foremost to god above but secondly to our veterans. We do. Thats all there is to it. But we have two people, jamie and jihan and its springston. They absolutely came back and seeked education and they came back as veterans. Absolutely, these folks came back. I tell you why they picked West Virginia. They picked virginia because theres no personal income tax on their pensions and they absolutely picked West Virginia because they see us on path eradicated the income tax on them. Weve made a big move at 21 and a quarter. We need to continue to make more and more moves. They chose us. They could have gone anywhere. Absolutely as they propagate this message through all the grapevines it brings more and more super qualified people to us, our veterans, so jamie and jihan, wherever you are,less stand. [applause] im going to stick with the veterans. Im going to go quickly. Im going to stick with the veterans for a minute. Im announcing a bill tonight to give free im sorry. To give our all of our veterans nobody is going to pay out of state tuition. We are going to pay instate tuition in the state of West Virginia. In addition to that, two more initiatives, i want to spend 5 million to super charge the Ascend Program in West Virginia and 2. 5 million for joint Initiative Recruitment of our big bases all across the land to bring more veterans to West Virginia. You know, we truly, truly do love and appreciate our vets and absolutely West Virginia has made the contributions and stepped up more than any other per capita state in the land. We absolutely owe them and so please support those initiatives. I want to talk to you just a second about kathy and communities in schools, you know, there wasnt money to do anything. In all honesty, remember just remember when they gave me the books the first goround and we looked and for god sake, we were halfway through the year like youll give a new governor, you know, some time about this time next year. What if that governor got something halfway through the year. Youre going to be 217 million short, what are you going to do . What are you going to do . You have a constitutional amendment to have a balanced budget. What in the world is this about and they say thats not the bad news the. The bad news in your first year we are you deserve so much credit. Thats all there is to it. Theres a wealth of people behind this the but i am telling you, and you can put it in the bank, jim justice if you believe anything he tells you in the world you Better Believe this. I have been in school after school after school and ive seen it work and work and work. Theres a fellow with us tonight name will. He was in Huntington High School not long ago and his dad was a nurse at canal county ems. His dad died and will probably didnt know where to turn. All of a sudden the coordinator at the school and will connected, today will is a marketing major at Marshal University and today hes with us and the other thing that will he has done, he loved photography and went to the Athletic Department and told them that they could take pictures of great athletes and today hes looked on and counted on as one of the shining stars in the Athletic Department. So wherever will is please stand and give him a great big round of applause. Im calling and asking for you to continue to fund this effort. They need 10 million. 10 million is a drop in the bucket for the amount of kids that we have touched in this program. I would like to tell you just one more thing real quick, kathy came up with the idea of bringing therapy dogs to schools. Theres 19 now in the schools and theres call after call after call every day of schools wanting a dog. Absolutely, you may not think its much but it absolutely commits us to nurturing, learning in lots of ways. I can tell you the story real quickly, if this doesnt touch your heart, i dont know what does. Little kid, i think the kid is in elementary. He has real problems, real, real problems and everything. Hes in a wheelchair. He didnt want to come to school. He didnt want to come to school. We were losing him in every way. He got a dog at the school. He got the dog, all of a sudden he started coming to the school and he would read to the dog. This is a kid in Elementary School and then someone came to him and said, he would hardly talk. Someone said to him, how is your day today you know what his words were . The best day ever, doing a lot of good stuff. [applause] our teacher of the year is with us tonight. Sharon cole. Shes a 34year veteran educator and shes teaching the second grade at elementary and its the first time we have a winner from lane county. If sharon cole with stand, please give her a giant round of applause. [applause] our 2024 school Service Personnel of the year winner is with us. His name is gary. Hes from cabolt county. Hes a school bus operator. Im telling you if you dont think for a second that we need all of our school, you know, Service Personnel, youre out in left field. These people are our educators, these people are moms and dads, these people are everything to our kids. Where is gary . [applause] in the gallery we have sponsored, Bluecross Blueshield and toyota are with us and everything tonight. Are yall here anywhere . We are clapping for you anyway. There you are. Okay. Now im moving along and i dont have very far to go. But i just tell you just this, im going to be really serious with you and you know me. I dont know how to tell you this more than any pointblank. High School Sports in the states is really important. Really, really important. It binds communities together. It does all kinds of really good stuff. I know, i know with the transfer of rule and everything that you were trying to do the right thing because we want choice, we want choice for our parents. I get all of that. I get every bit of it but if you wont watch out whats going to happen and you got to listen to a guy now thats the coach. I try to tell you before but absolutely when you got teens that are losing 53 to 7 and 86 to nothing in football its got to stop and we have made this situation where we are going to absolutely if we dont watch out we are going to ruin and i said ruin high School Sports in West Virginia. Its going to really hurt us. And i dont know exactly what the right solution is but im telling you theres some smart people in this room and today i am absolutely pleading with you to figure it out. Get this back on the right kilter. Its really important. You may absolutely not think for a second, well, what in the world, for crying out load, my kids are grown and gone and everything else. Mine are too. But i go and i go to be a coach and the reason i go to be a coach is because you see, before i try to tell you i dont go on vacations. I dont go anywhere because i think we live in the greatest place on the planet. Thats all there is to it. You dont have to send me on trips. I dont need your dollars. I dont need to go anywhere. I love West Virginia and all the greatness that we have all around us. You have to listen to me on this. Some ways some somehow weve got to resolve this and weve got to stop this. The last thing i would tell you is just this, if this isnt enough, i dont know what is. Those kids had to go to school next day. You realize that . You just went on the football field and got beat 93 to 1 and you had to go to school the next day. What do you think those other kids in that school were saying to those kids . Kids can be tough the. They really can. They can be cruel. We have to fix this. [applause] helping kids dual enrollment, 6500 schools have utilized. I am proposed 1. 6 million of additional funding. I commend fairmont state, fairmont state for stepping up and helping with our foster kids giving an ability as a High School Student and everything to come to fairmont state and study and get College Credits and everything over and over so many people are stepping up. Im really, really proud when we signed West Virginia invest to have Free Community college. Since that time, 4,500 students have worked and worked with that grant. Good stuff. Ive talked to you one second about dilapidated structures, you know. We passed senate bill 368. Weve gotten rid of 500 structures that were just eyesores and whatever it may be. Youve helped it but in the total, in total i think the dep is projecting that we will do 1500 or 1500 total, i dont know which exactly it is by the end of the summer of 2025 we have a lot more. Every time we make this the move we make us better. Thats all there is to it. We show ourselves off and make West Virginia shine even more. I have to talk to you just a second about tourism. Tourism, i mean, good gracious i could talk till the cows come home. I said to you earlier, i said any time youre thinking about it, any time you have the opportunity to spend a dollar on tourism especially with the great secretary chelsea ruby at hand, if you could spend a dollar, a dollar on tourism do it. The world has waken, the world is wakened to the all thats going on, i mean, just think when i said close your eyes, one of the things. Close your eyes. Think of the four unbelievable seasons and the fact that twothirds of the population of our country can drive through in a day. Think about the money we spent on our state parks. Did it work, are you kidding me . You cant hardly in our state parks and think about the celebration of a new state park that we have. Absolutely right there in summersfield. So much going on it is unbelievable. In 2017 chelsea told me we had four straight years of tourism spending dropping in West Virginia. So chelsea wherever you are, thank you so much. Keep it up. Weve got 40 more elk on the way to West Virginia. How about that . [applause] now, thats the really good news. Theres bad news with this. And this is not good but one of our folks was down there and they were i dont know exactly what they were doing. I dont know all the details but i wasnt going to bring this up but i have to tell you this and everything, one of the folks down there working the elk and everything, getting ready for transport and had tranquilizer gone and some way, somehow it ended up shooting himself in the leg. [laughter] thats not a good day. The elk is 500pound animal and you just you may weigh 150 pounds. Not a good day at all. We really, really thought we were going to lose him and now i think i can report to you that hes national in the hospital and doing pretty good and i think its going to be okay. Let me go back to just this. I want to talk just a second about rose. You know, again, when i first walked in to the Governors Office and they handed me those folks and they were tough, really tough and i dont know many things in this world but im a business guy and i know when somebody is bankrupt and since we werent bankrupt, i tell you, you were crazy. Literally from that, this is where i truly believe that god always shows up always. You see, it may not be on our timetable but some way somehow god always shows up. Of all thing its not a pretty sight. I was in the shower block it out of your mind. Block it out of your mind. Youre good with that being way out of your mind. [laughter] and i thought what are we going to do . Every breathing West Virginian, if we lead every remote job that we had, if we let them all go tomorrow, what would it cost . Off we went. Absolutely with that, whether itd be the grand street bridge, just getting yourselves to the convenient mark because you couldnt there without tearing your car up before its unbelievable. Think about this number. In five years we have done road work to 485,333 miles of roads. The roads to prosperity program, we have done 1200 projects. Its unbelievable. And before i leave you, i will tell you again absolutely with all in you finish quarter h, we are really close, we just approved another reward today. We are getting really close. Finish it. And absolutely finish the cold field expressways and the king cole highway. Finish them. The coldfield expressway will bring southern West Virginia to the world and corridor h, my gracious, linking that up to dc and all the population and everything will bring us jobs like you cant imagine. Think about this in a second. In 2017, we courageously came up and said we are going to spend a billion dollars. Then in 2020 it plummeted and by the end of 2023 he stood at 11. 5 billion and in 2024 were representing that were going to spend another 2 billion in projects. Now these men and women from our highway department, you know, i had to bring you something out here but they have they have a banner but get this, so in total thats over 13. 4 billion in cumulative Infrastructure Investment in West Virginia during my administration and i want you to look. I want you to look at the number of projects and where they are. Theyre everywhere. Theyre blooming everywhere and these folks are making it happen. Please give them the a monstrous round of applause. [applause] gad, good stuff. Now ive been good up to now. Ive been good up to now except a little kid. Now let me just tell you this now i probably could use your prayer a little bit because this is really tough on me right here. You know, ive got a story to tell you but ive got this to tell you and this is where we end this. You know, im a real believer just like i said that god always shows up. Ive been so blessed. How in the world, how in the world did i come up with the idea of rose to prosperity . How on earth did i come up with it . Do you think that any way that jim justice believes that hes good enough to have come up with that idea . No way. No way. In all honesty, i was given that idea. Absolutely we could have been blessed beyond all good things and we should absolutely always never forget that. Let me tell you a story real quick. My Basketball Team, most of them that are up there, yall stand up. Now just stand there. This is going to be really hard on you but you can make it. Last year we played princeton twice and we are not used to losing but then we played them in the tournament and just so happen that woodrow has number one seat and two and three had to play each other and we played princeton at our place. We were the twoseat. Well, when we played them in our place before we won really big but we played really close game with princeton not long ago and it was at princeton. They came in and they played a really nice game and we lost. Gosh, i was fit to be tied and probably all of them were pretty sad. You know, this is hard to believe but really for the most part when we are on the floor we have one junior, a whole bunch of sophomores and a whole bunch of freshmen and thats what weve got. Now, so last year a lot of them that were sophomores were freshmen then. But anyway, im on the way to charleston the next day and i cant get out of my mind, you know, how it went last night and it went terrible and we were out the whole deal then. We were just gone. It was over. For a lot of the kids they just feel like what in the world just happened . And i walked in my office and remember i said a minute ago, god always shows up. So i walked in my office and rebecca who gives me letter after letter after letter and lots of times its hard to read letter after letter and we try to read everyone we can get. Rebecca said, i dont have any idea who this is but you may want to read this. So income this letter to the honorable jim justice. It says, dear coach, i was recently on a run with my two sons and they started complaining about being tired. When they asked if we could walk instead of run, i told them to keep sawing the wood. After we completed the run they asked me what did that phrase mean, while explaining it meant and this is very small print so its hard for me to see it, but while explaining it meant to persevere through adversity by continuing to make steady prerogatives reminded of when i first heard you use that phrase. While facing a large half time the deficit in the sweet 16 tournament of the aau National Tournament against the team from ohio, you told me and the rest of the West Virginia all stars to keep sawing the wood. We had played very poorly in the first half, in the beginning of your half time was one of only a few times i ever saw you express true disappoint in our effort, however, you reminded us we could come back just as we did if we had just keep sawing the wood, as you already know, we came back and won that game and went onto advance to the quarter finals of the national aau tournament. Then he says although we won this the specific game and many others the life lessons we learned while playing basketball for you were far more important than the outcome of the game. When i was at Army Ranger School or on a military deployment i reminded myself daily to keep sawing the wood. Now i apply it in the Business World and as a father. Thank you for your leadership, you provided during my youth and more broadly for your leadership to the great state of West Virginia. With only a few days or months left remaining as governor, i encourage you to keep sawing the wood. Please send my regards to kathy and jill. Below is my current Contact Information if you would like to contact me note i currently reside in germany. I have with us tonight a real american hero. One of many, many, many west point graduate. Get this. He served as an army officer in the Field Artillery branch. He obtained the rank of captain and he completed 3 combat deployments to iraq and won the bronze star or awarded the bronze star, the combat action badge, the ranger badge, the parachute badge and the air assault badge. Its amazing. I had not heard from matt fitswater in 25 years. It stood for everything that i stand for. You see, i believe that god always shows up and i believe in my life that what we all, every last one of you should be doing is trying to make things better. Trying to make things better in every way you possibly can. You see, if im coaching a Basketball Team and i put my record up against anybody anywhere any time because we want to win just as much as anybody wants to win but im going to tell you right now when those kids leave me, if all i can give them is the ability to be able to dribble the basketball better than i havent done much. You absolutely, can do so much for this great state. Its unbelievable. Some way right here with us is Matt Fitzwater and his family, dona and randy and i want the roof to come but i dont know where you are but wherever you are stand up. [applause] matts team little rag tag bunch of kids from West Virginia, jay one of them, my son right here. Unbelievable experience wasnt it matt . With all that being said, matt was a point guard. With all that being said, i will ask you right now to do what i asked you to do, what i was going to ask you to do. Close your eyes one second, just one second and imagine that place, Natural Resources beyond belief like i said before as close to twothirds of the population of the country, has four unbelievable seasons and the greatest people on the planet but imagine the state thats booming job after job, company after company, hope and belief beyond belief, travel guides that say West Virginia of all places is a place to be. And now open your eyes and know that place is us, its West Virginia. I would say to each and every up one of you keep sawing the wood. Thank