Lucas Shay: "That's a Community I Want to Be Involved With"

Living Unleashed

Alex: Hey, Taylor County. I'm Alex Renneman here with the Living Unleashed podcast for, uh, from Unleashed Tygart, and I'm here with Luke Shay. Luke, thanks for coming on the program.

Lucas: Hey, thanks for having me, Alex.

Alex: Absolutely. Now, we could talk about a lot of things, um, but, well, the reason we brought you on today, and I, and I do want to note, you are remote, so, uh, you're not in Grafton.

You're, you're down in Texas. We'll talk about that in a minute, but you're at an Air Force base, so there may be planes going by, and that's all well and cool, and I want to get into your history. of what took you away from Grafton and I think that pretty much is where we can start. So why don't you tell us, you're a Grafton native, um, you're now in Texas.

Give us a little bit of your backstory. What, what pulled you out of Grafton?

Lucas: Yeah. Okay. So I'll start off for those that don't know me. My name is Luke Shea. I grew up in Grafton on the West side, right next to the National Cemetery. Graduated in Grafton High School in the class of 1999, and I'm currently serving as a Chief Master Sergeant in the United States Air Force as a safety professional stationed in Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

My wife Jennifer, um, Hartwell now Jennifer Shea. Uh, she grew up a good portion of her childhood in Grafton as well. And we have two boys that were born in Germany. Uh, but we still have a lot of our family is still back in Grafton. Um, Alex, as far as what led to my departure, uh, from Grafton, uh, I joined the Air Force in 2004.

Again, I graduated in 99. I joined the Air Force in 2004. Uh, I had some college at that point, but I hadn't graduated. And, uh, I felt like I was kind of floating and I wanted something more. My brother was a Korean linguist in the air force and he was doing really well. And I thought, Hey, let's, let's give this a shot.

This might be good for me. Um, I never intended to do a day over four years in the air force. I thought four years and I'm out. I'm going to learn. Uh, job. I'm going to gain some, some experience, uh, get the GI bill and then punch. Uh, but every decision point, every step along the way, uh, it's just made sense for, for us to stay in.

And it's been, it's been a blessing for my family, uh, to be in the air force for the 19 years and some change now. Yeah, that's great. You know,

Alex: the, the military service, if you haven't experienced it, it is challenging of course, but it can be very rewarding. Um, I was right at. Right at my nine years, do I re up or not?

If I re up, I'm staying in for the long haul and, uh, but, but I was always told go in the Air Force, right? Now I went in the Army and, uh, the Air Force, you know, the accommodations, the food, all of that's much, much better, right?

Lucas: So they say. Yeah, so they say.

Alex: Awesome. Hey, so. What the reason you're on here and I appreciate that intro and I'm sure we'll get into more of that.

And I know lots of folks here in graph to know, you know, your name, see you on, on active on Facebook, and we're going to get into that, but the reason we're here today, it kind of, uh, a couple of reasons. One, uh, I want to, I want to really talk about the, the ornament, the, that, uh, unleashed tiger to selling that.

It's really your brain child, uh, to reboot that, but, but even just, just taking back a little bit again, you're, you're, you're here, you're from Grafton, you've, you've moved away. You've got a great career in the air force. You've, you're growing a beautiful family, you're loving life, but you're still connected to Grafton.

I mean, how, how does that work? I mean, what, what's really kind of kept you coming back? I know you've got family here, but. Lots of people have family here and they just pop in on holidays and roll out. So what, what really pulls you back and keeps you connected here? Right

Lucas: out of the gate, you hit the big one.

Uh, both my family and, and my in laws are still in Grafton and some other family as well. Um, so even though we've lived in Portugal, And Germany and Boston and Mississippi and England and Texas, we always have that centralized hub to come home to, uh, in, in, in, in Grafton, West Virginia. Um, and there's something magical about that.

And I'll probably touch on, on that a little bit more later. Uh, so there's that, that's one aspect and how I stay connected. The other one is, is through, is through social media. And I know a lot of people out there probably, you know, social media, there's pros and there's cons, there's good and there's bad as there is with anything.

Uh, but I feel like Grafton has kind of always had. Always had a pretty strong social media presence, uh, years ago, before, before Facebook was even popular. There was a, um, there was a forum called topics, which is kind of like Reddit. It's kind of like Reddit, but like each small town had a topics for him.

Um, Grafton's was just a cesspool. It was bad. Uh, it was extremely negative complaints. Um, it was, it was, it was not good. Most of the topics would not even be publishable on an Unleashed Tiger podcast for me to talk about. Uh, once Facebook caught on in popularity, they had a few good, uh, social media forums.

And there was one in particular that I, that I, that I would post on whenever I had a topic, something I wanted to share. An idea, a thought, an old picture I came across. There was one I would post on and, uh, I forget what it was. I posted one time I posted something and I noticed, uh, a week had gone by without approval, two weeks had gone by without approval.

So I reached out to the guy that I knew was the moderator and I said, Hey man, um, I don't know if I broke any rules with this, with this post or whatever. I just, just checking in to see. Uh, and he told me he informed me that he was no longer the moderator. He had too many social media forums and he just let it go.

So I was like, okay, so I, I logged into that page and it just, it allowed me to make myself the moderator. It was just kind of living in moderator purgatory. Uh, so I just, I made myself the moderator, um, of that particular, the Grafton, West Virginia, USA, uh, Facebook page. And, uh. Being a moderator for that is in a lot of ways, helped me stay connected to the pulse of a lot of things that are going on in Grafton.

Alex: Yeah, that's awesome. You know, so let's, let's, uh, yeah, boy, I forgot all about topics. That was a, Hey, what do you think about this terrible topic? And then lots of people got in and said terrible things about it. Oh, wow. But it was

Lucas: personal attacks. Yeah.

Alex: But, you know, to your point, social media and I've got my challenges with it as well, but it is a technology that can be used.

I mean, you think about staying connected and all those things, uh, you know, humans, man, we, we learn, we learn fire, we learn, we learn things and then we use them against each other, but we also could still use them to keep warm and safe and all that, you know, social media is no different. Um, it does have its values and I think as a society, we may be learning a little bit and you got AI rolling right around after that.

So. Here it comes, right? Um, Hey, so let's talk about this ornament. So I, if you would have had on your bingo card a couple of years ago that Luke Shay and Alex Tremen will be on a podcast talking about an ornament, a Christmas ornament, that would have been huge because I would not have seen that coming, but here we are.

So let's talk a little about what it is, how we got here and what's next.

Lucas: Okay, so I'll, I'll start the story from the beginning, uh, going back to when I got married, which was May of 2008. Uh, we had a Grafton wedding. We had, we had our wedding in the Mother's Day shrine and we had our reception in, in the, what was then.

The B& O Railroad Heritage Center and the B& O Passenger Station. Uh, and it was beautiful. It was, it was, it was an awesome place to have an event. Uh, but because it was, I believe through Vandalia, they ran the B& O Heritage Railroad Station, which was, um, kind of like a museum, kind of, they had a gift shop in there.

And one of the items they had in that gift shop, uh, was, was, uh, was an ornament of, of the B& O. And it was, I was stunned. At how nice it was. I remember thinking, well, we got to get this to commemorate. We had a wedding reception here. Obviously, this is very important to to us. So, so we purchased this ornament, um, after having our wedding reception there.

And Christmas ornaments kind of became the thing in our military travels. 1 of the things that we collected throughout our travels. The other is. Refrigerator magnets, right? Refrigerator magnets. You walk by that a hundred times a day and you know, you kind of see it there. They make good conversations at dinner parties, but Christmas ornaments are kind of unique in that you almost forget you have them 11 months of the year.

And then when you're getting them out and you put them on the tree, it's like, Oh man, I forgot about, you know, our, our trip to Gibraltar or Gibraltar or our trip to the mystery hole in Anstead, West Virginia, you know, those, those little things, uh, it brings up memories. So it's just, it's always kind of nice way for us to remember.

Um, Those events of our life. Uh, and as I was a moderator on this Facebook page, uh, I was putting it on the tree. It was November 25th. I took notes here. November 25th, 2018. I posted a picture of me putting this ornament on my tree, the B& O ornament on my tree. And there was a lot of comments and, uh, people liked it and they thought it was nice and, uh, I remember, like, in the narrative on, on that post, I wrote something about, hey, this would be cool.

This would be cool if there were a series. Of Grafton themed ornaments, like one every year. Uh, I didn't think I would be the person, you know, kind of heading that up, but I just thought it would be cool. Like they, they would do it like this, that mysterious, that mysterious person that like, why don't they do this?

I thought, you know, they would do that. Um, but yeah, people generally took well to it. Um, in a couple of years, flash forward, uh, a couple of years, I ended up joining the Unleashed Tiger board. Heather, Heather Hudson, uh, had reached out to me about joining the board. They had some big projects coming up.

They were looking to expand the board. And she kind of gave me an outline of, of what the mission was, addressing, uh, high level needs, deficits within the community, looking at categories of economic vitality, community governance, culture, and education, sustainability. And these are all things that really resonated with me.

I thought it was beautiful and I wanted to be a part of that. Uh, so I was very fortunate and I'm very grateful, Alex, uh, to be associated with, with this organization. And I only say that because it's critical as, as we go forward in this ornament story. Uh, December 3rd, I posted the ornament again on the Facebook page, December 3rd, 2022, posted the ornament again.

And, um, I just, I put it on, I, this time I didn't write anything about a series of ornaments. I just wrote putting my favorite ornament on the tree. I think. And, uh, all of a sudden the comments just started flooding in. Uh, where did you get that? Where can I buy one of these? I love this. Where can I get one like this?

I would like a couple. Yep. Gonna need at least two of these as well. So over and over and over, all of these comments were just, they were coming in. We had an Unleashed Tiger chat group where we discussed Grafton things and, and just about anything and really, but, uh, kind of tongue in cheek. I said, Hey, in that chat group, I said, Hey, we should have.

You know, some of these B& O ornaments, we should, you know, produce more and then, uh, and then maybe sell them as an Unleashed Tiger project. Um, and it didn't take long from that tongue in cheek idea to kind of turn into a feasible plan, just kind of thinking about things. Um, so I still had the box from the Railroad Heritage Museum.

I looked on the back, I saw the manufacturer, I looked them up on Google. I, you know, I, I sent him an email. I said, Hey, I've got this ornament. I would love to have more produced. Our town is begging for more. Uh, they said, absolutely, we can do it. And they were even willing to, to change the name. Since the, the, the railroad heritage center is now defunct.

We thought it'd be more appropriate to say, you know, being a passenger station as, as we all know it, we changed the name to that. And we were good to go. Uh, we weren't sure at that point, we knew it could be done, right? We had the manufacturer, they had the template. We, we had the design, but we weren't sure.

It's like, how many of these things can we sell? You know, people on Facebook might say they want this thing, but how many of these things can we genuinely. So at the end of the day, um, at the, we decided, we kind of looked at the numbers and we said, okay, 432. I know it sounds arbitrary, but they, they kind of come in tiers in which you buy them.

And we ended up on 432. It seems like a good economical choice for us and that we would feasibly be able to sell this many ornaments, maybe. Uh, so that's what we purchased. We put them on sale on December 13th. 2022, that's 10 days after I made that post, we put these things on sale, December 13th, 2022, and we sold 126 in the first day.

126 of these things. Like, people were hungry for it. So, I think that was the moment that we realized that maybe, maybe this is a project that's bigger than just this one ornament. Maybe this is something we could do a series of ornaments. Uh, different, uh, landmarks throughout Grafton. Different things throughout Grafton.

Uh, one a year, every year. And, and, and this could be successful and something that people genuinely look forward to and, and want. And the thing about this, this was... This was never like, I mean, it does make some money, but this is not a money, huge money maker, right? This, this is more about, about, uh, community pride.

Um, and it, and it falls right in line with, uh, unleashed Tigard principles of, of community culture and education, which was important to us. Is it? Yeah, it's consistent with our, with, uh, with the pillars of, of our mission. Yeah, I'm glad you

Alex: mentioned that. I mean, I think, you know, earlier, earlier, you know, you mentioned like they, they, they, you know, Unleashed Tiger, we tried to find we are they when it matches right with our principles.

And there's lots of days that just float out there and doesn't get done because of it's just not there's not an organization step up or it doesn't align with the. The, uh, priorities of that organization. And so, yeah, this was a perfect opportunity where, where you and we became they, um, and, and it's fantastic.

And, you know, it's, it's great that, that, that whole start with the, the, the, the train station with the, with the depot. Cause I mean, Grafton at one point, I don't know. I mean, there was a ton of passenger trains rolling through Grafton, maybe around the turn of the century or not. I don't know how many. But there was a bunch.

And I mean, if you're not from Grafton, you know, obviously you will quickly learn there's a lot of railroad history here. Um, you know, we have the spirit of Grafton celebration every year. When I was a kid, it was railroad heritage festival. Um, you know, I don't know when that stuff kind of started it back again.

I mean, that stopped for a while, but, uh, I mean, it's, it's, it's, this is a great place to start, but to your point, you wanted to kind of carry it on. Okay. What's next. Right. And I think that's really an interesting story because the, the, the appetites there, the interest there, and it's been a great, the communities love this.

It's just a fun thing. Right.

Lucas: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, and, and, and the proceeds from this project, they've, they've, they've gone to fund, uh, some pre development for some community projects, uh, such as, as the, the somewhat publicized now, the Hazel Atlas, uh, property, as well as the Manus, the Manus, um, refurbishment projects.

Alex: Two more they projects. They, somebody needs to do this. Two more

Lucas: they, two more they projects that, that we've kind of been able to, to kind of, um, you know, help out, move, move, move the ball a little bit. Thank you.

Alex: Yeah. Awesome. That's great. So what's, what's next in the ornament, uh, the ornament parade, if you will.

Lucas: So, so the, uh, the ornament for this year is the Willard hotel. And, uh, we kind of debated the same unleashed, uh, Tiger chat group. We got to be like, well, what are we doing now? And, you know, there's, there, there's several that we could have chosen from, uh, but coming off of the B& O. Uh, we thought it was appropriate, uh, to do the Willard and you can see I have my Willard, um, to the left of my B& L.

I imagine that's how everyone will put these two ornaments on their Christmas tree is one right next to the other in the, in the prescribed fashion. Uh, yeah, so it made sense. That was, that was the next one we chose. Uh, the, the Willard, uh, those ones are still on [e-mail]. You can, you can still purchase those and I'll put a link, uh, down in the comments.

Uh, but those are still available for purchase, for delivery, uh, the Willard Hotel and the design really turned out beautiful. Um, on, on, on that ornament. Yeah.

Alex: And if you, if you're local at the, uh, cookies new and used at the old tax taxi stand, um, she's got 'em there too, right?

Lucas: Correct. Yeah, the Willard ornaments are available there.

The B& O, we are running low. Last I checked, we were under 25 total available of the 432 that we started out with. So, if you're wanting one of the B& O ornaments, um, head to Cookies. Probably as quickly as possible, scoop one of those up.

Alex: That's awesome. I, you know, this is, there's lots of things I love about this obviously.

Um, but I do love that. It's been a way for folks, you know, I've often said, you know, West Virginia and...