Boarding for Change: Jared Lee's Skating and Snowboarding Journey from Passion to Community Impact

Ever wondered how a single passion can ignite change in United Community? Jared Lee's story is one that exemplifies this phenomenon, painting a vivid picture of his profound connection with the great outdoors and his transformative impact on his hometown through his love for board sports. As a child, gifted with a lifetime hunting and fishing license, he was destined to intertwine his life with nature. His zeal for skateboarding and snowboarding reveals just how finding one's true path can lead to advocacy. Jared's tale is a testament to the power of community and perseverance. From advocating for a skate park at town hall meetings as a youngster to seeing the fruits of his labor in the form of a steady-the-art skate facility, his journey underscores the significance of mentorship and communal effort. His influence extends beyond the skate park. It's felt in the passion he instills in others and in the way he champions environmental protection. It's a narrative that celebrates the collaborative spirit, how a United Community can shape thriving environments for youth to chase their athletic dreams. In this heartfelt discussion, we don't just walk through Jared's personal milestone. We also examine the broader implications of outdoor activities and community engagement in enriching lives. We delve into the creation of memorable events, like the cat classic and the Wayne Town throwdown, that bring people together over shared passions. Moreover, jared's entrepreneurial spirit shines through as he balances his love for board sports with running a business, all while contributing to the stoke of his community. Prepare to be moved by stories of transformation, the importance of fostering a balance between the digital and physical worlds, and the undeniable impact that comes from nurturing the athletic and environmental interest of the young and old alike.

I'll see you on the other side. Music. You're listening to Exploration Local, a podcast designed to explore and celebrate the people and places that make the Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachian Mountains special and unique. My name is Mike Andrus, the host of Exploration Local. Join us on our journey to explore these mountains and discover how they fuel a spirit of adventure. We encourage you to wander far, but explore local. Let's go. This is going to be a really fun episode. Jared, I appreciate you making the drive over to the studio. Man. Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Good to be here. I'm a big fan listening in a long time. Cool to be here.

That's awesome, man, so good to have you here. People are going to find out, probably within the first 30 seconds, your passion for the outdoors here, but we're going to talk about the community activating and some of the things that you've done. You've made a major impact in the outdoor life and you I know you and I have talked and you probably don't think that, but Steve Reinhold, he talked to me several weeks ago and said that you were one of the biggest influences on his life when he was growing up, getting him into the board sports, the skateboarding, the snowboarding, just outdoor activities in general, and he said you were the original stoke maker for him. So, dude, I can't wait to unpack this. I love the big grin on your face. I love it right now, which people can see.

We should maybe we should probably video these things. But anyway, jared, you have going all the way back to like before your first birthday or maybe on your first birthday you got a really amazing gift. So let's kind of set up you being from here and your passion for the outdoors, and then we'll start to get into some of the board sport stuff.

I feel like I was introduced to the outdoors for a very early age. My first birthday, my parents gifted me with a lifetime hunting and fishing license to North Carolina, obviously with no clue if I would ever use that or it would be worth the investment. Interesting fun fact $100 back then. I don't even know what a lifetime fishing license would cost now, but you can think about what a blessing is in my life to go fishing and I never think about purchasing a license in North Carolina or knowing the price of it. Yes, my parents got their monies worth out of it. Now, as a 40 year old person who every single year spends time in the outdoors, it's definitely shaped me, it fulfills me. There's something magical and mysterious about being in the outside and broader spaces. And then, of course, you find something you like and that is powerful in your life and I feel like you want to share that with others and obviously you want to protect that.

Yeah, so the skateboarding is one of the things that you migrated to at an early age as well, and it's something that really just made an impact on your life. And did you start skating? Is snowboarding kind of at the same time, or did one proceed the other?

Pretty close back to back. I had started skating when I was like 13. I had grown up playing sports. My parents introduced me to about every sport Let me pick and choose which ones I wanted to play and I loved it. I had a lot of fun with it. And then, I think, sometime during middle school, you know, you start going through maybe your rebellious phase of where you want to be your own person or do something different. And I would walk up to the library every day to get picked up by my parents from school and the first Methodist Church parking lot in Waynesville. They would let kids skate there and there would be a congregation. The middle school kids would walk up there, the high school kids would drive there and they'd let them set up ramps and that was all there was. But I saw freedom.

I was so used to telling me this is when and this is how, and this is your team. And I think at that point, just seeing that freedom that these guys had was very alluring to me. And yeah, and parents got me aboard and I just started at home and once I felt confident, like skating around our little colder sack, you know, I made my way to the first Methodist Church parking lot and I guess that's where the journey really just really started from there.

That's cool. Did you say that was FUMC Waynesville? No way, good people, by the way.

The most community activated church people I know. We're doing skate lessons with them here. Next month they're bringing their youth group down to the skate park for doing a lesson. I'm a big supporter.

That's cool, alright, so you get into skating, you get into snowboarding. At what point did you start pulling other people along into the sport? Or did you just kind of find there's a community here and they're skating and I just kind of joined in, or how did you get involved in all that?

My friends who skateboarded pulled me into snowboarding because we skated together and they was like you have to try snowboarding. Went once with them and I got hooked. But then I was in the dilemma of, like, this is pricey, this is not as accessible as having a skate deck and some shoes and going out into a parking lot and roaming around town. So then it became this conundrum of like alright, how do I afford to be a part of something that is kind of out of my price range to do on the regular? And I got a job at a local ski shop so I could get a pass, get a discount. I'm still there because I fell in love with the atmosphere of being in a shop.

I really think there's something very sacred and special about ski and snowboard shops, bike shops. I think that space and I think if that space is utilized right, the change that can come out of those spaces to affect a community is really powerful and it's going to be different than a space coming out of even a wreck department. So that's for one reason why I've stayed in that space for so long. But it originally just started so that I could go snowboarding at Kataluchi.

Okay, okay, yeah, well, I get it. You and I met this winter. I was first time mountain host and you do it. Obviously, it's a nice perk to get the ski for free, but, yeah, it's a way to give back and be able to enjoy the sport that you love at the same time.

Yes, and then, following what you're saying, I guess you could almost say maybe you do it with your friends, but obviously skateboarding, snowboarding, is a solo thing, and so there's a lot of maybe you could call it selfishness I don't know if that's the right word for it you are, it is something that you're solo doing, but you do it with other people at times and I do think just years later in life it just became more apparent to me. It's like this has affected my life and this has been very powerful in my life. And this is a very simple thing. I don't know if this is true or not, but I think there's a, I believe there's a scripture. It talks about, you know, using the simple things of this world to shame the wise or the high powered things.

And I'm not saying this is truth or not, but I do think there's something almost similar to that in skiing and snowboarding, that it is so simple and basic and uncomplex that it makes it a very good place for clarity and maybe finding yourself. And so once I you know, my passion grew with all these things, you get to a point where you're like and you just realize you're getting older in these sports. I mean, I look at the average. You know pro skateboarder now and it's like 16. So I'm at that age where it's like let me use the knowledge that I have and start trying to figure out how to give back and give somebody.

Maybe what I wish somebody else could have given me when I was at age and I was given a lot. But let's give the next kid more. You know a better opportunity.

Yeah Well, that goes back to some of the earlier comments. We kind of started where Steve and Reinhold said kind of some of the very same things and I think for him that's what you gave him. You sort of started him on that journey and we know where the Appalachian adventure company is today and you know, at some level we have to believe that some of the influences from people like you, you know, who got him stoked on sharing the stoke of the great outdoors, I just feel like it probably had something to do with that. And I've had the, the pleasure I'll call it the good pleasure to have talked with you a few times and kind of meeting you and you know in person before you are very much a person who's passionate about bringing other people along to the sport that you love, getting them involved, and that's great If it's like a group of people that you're getting ready to go, you know, take on a or, you know, to meet at the park or to go on a snowboarding trip or do whatever.

But you've kind of taken this to the different level. You've gotten involved in the government side the man or excuse, not the management, but the the town hall side meeting with local government to really kind of make resources available for people to enjoy At least the skateboarding part, and there's kind of two events that we'll talk about later and they both speak to just that. But I love to talk about how you've saw your sport, your interest in the sport and what was missing in the sport, and then how you went out and started making Efforts and contacts with the local government to to really make change, to be a change agent for your community.

It started with my mom. You know it's really young skating around the streets of Waynesville getting caught in trouble. Nobody wanted you there. You were a liability. You didn't make the business look good if you're, you know, tick-tacking around in front of their business. And you know I, my mom, just you know, was trying to be encouragement of anything I wanted to do that was active, that seemed positive. I got very fortunate. From a young age. I had an older skate mentor who you know, took me on the road, took me on skate trips, and really was a positive influence. I mean, I think, every single aspect of life, you know, you have your maybe more negative influences and you have your more positive ones. And it skateboarding, obviously, you know, with its background, you know maybe rough around the edges, but I got really fortunate with the older guy who took me under his wing and, like, took me to other towns to go skating. And I think that still, as you know, we're just like each one teach one.

You know he did that for me and I was like I want to share that the kids because it was. It was awesome. I got to go to all these other cities and skate their parks and but my mom, you know she, she would get calls late at night from the cops me like we saw caught your kid skating around town, you know, and she would. She was awesome. She would say, the second you catch him doing something he really shouldn't be doing. You call me, but if he's just, if that's the worst he's doing is pushing around town at night, don't bought, don't wake me up. But she told me she's like the only way you change this is you start going to town meetings.

Really.

Yeah, so I mean, at like 14 I started going and using my two minutes at the beginning of a public town meetings to express the need for a skate park in Waynesville and she told me she's like, all right, you've gone to one, you'll, if you want it, you keep going, and that persistence will be what.

What this will be if you want to see it through wow, what an amazing parenting job and shepherding you as a young person. That's amazing man.

Yeah, very grateful. Yeah yeah, still to this day. I mean she's.

Well, our moms are yeah, yeah, good, good that you recognize that, yeah, so you continue to go, you continue to be a part of these.

Um, yeah, there was. There's some big gaps and a lot of other cool things that happened in between that. I started that. My boss at Ski's and tees, you know we started selling skateboarders there because I skateboarded. He did really well with that. He started that. He opened a skate shop in Asheville. He had one in the Biltmore Mall. I mean, it grew for him and it was cool. He didn't skate, but he could. He liked us and he could see that there was a business there.

He have then opened a skate park in bossam, between Waynesville and Silva, and it was there for like seven years and it ended up closing down in the 08 recession. It was just like we just felt the hit as soon as it came that you know. So we had a private park. So while we had the private park, there was no need to go to town meetings. We had an indoor place. We had a key to it. You know we were doing lock-ins, we were doing contests, like we had this whole little atmosphere as these young group of guys. It was amazing. Well, you really couldn't ask for anything better.

When OA happened, the park closed. The positive thing was, instead of just me going to the meetings, we had all these guys who were used to having a place to skate and now I don't know, they had to place a skate, but we had a group of people. So it was like what do we do? We rally, you know. So we would go to these meetings and there'd be 20 of us. You show up with 20 people to like a few times. Towns kind of have to start to listen right.

And I hate to be like the rude disruptor because I feel like a lot of people abuse that privilege. Yeah, but it it works.

Well, you know, as you're saying that, my mind immediately went back to your mom at 14. This isn't a new. This isn't a new rodeo for you. You've been here before and you knew how to act and respond and do this well. And that's exactly where my mind went, like I can see how that can happen. And it does happen.

These, these loud disruptors Doesn't change anybody's mind, it just doesn't yeah you know you can scream and fuss all you want, but you're not gonna change somebody's mind. You figured out how to do this, the right way.

Yeah, we, you know, we had a group of people and we would consistently keep showing up. And then Alderman Gary he was Alderman, he's the mayor now of Waynesville. He was the Alderman at the time and he came to us and he's like I'm gonna see you through, I'm gonna see you guys through on this project. He would travel with my mom to other towns to look at skate parks, get other towns to send her blueprints, talk about legal stuff. And he was true by his word. I mean he saw us all the way through to it to the day of the ribbon cutting. He's been the mayor. You know this is his second term as mayor and for me I saw government work as at a young age. So of course I was like, okay, this, it can work. It's just painful sometimes.

And it's slow and it's annoying, yeah, but yeah, there's always that, but right yeah but great stuff can come from it, you know, and sometimes you just run into dead ends. But if, if you're not your voice, you're asking somebody else to be the voice, and that's always sometimes that's not gonna work, because then nobody's gonna be the voice.

Wow good words you know.

So I just learned that that is like you know, If my, your intentions are pure and you feel like you're pushing something that's not skewed but it is pure and it's gonna be a benefit to the community and the people who live in the community, Then somebody needs to speak up good for you.

Yeah, and you did, and you have yeah, and then you know, since I saw it work, I've continued to be like I want to. I want to do. You know, you want to help shape your community and be the to the Raddish place it could possibly be. I mean, I'm choosing to live here. Why wouldn't I want to live in the Raddish place? So let me help shape that, instead of just sitting around with my friends at dinner and complaining about it, because enough, that's what it is, that's all it's ever gonna be is you and your friends and you can have great points.

You got it. Some point. You got to go do that dirty work, whether it's DIY grassroots yourself or going the government route, you know.

So let's talk about the fruits of that then. So you travel, you're involved, you're hearing 20 people show up Consistently.

It obviously led to some fruits of that labor eventually, you know we gained momentum and Next thing, you know, we're ribbon cutting out there with the mayor and other town leaders on a piece of ground that used to be an old horse track that wasn't used anymore in Waynesville.

And there's these plans and designs for this. What, for a small town at the time, was a state of the art skate park like a big deal Cool, and still it was like we did it right. You know, they talked to us skaters all the way through. They asked for our advice on design, how it should be ran in management, and there was a guy from Charleston there earlier this week and he's like this is the best skate park in North Carolina. Wow, we're not the biggest Right and I don't even know that we're the best, but people like it. It's laid out well, the vibe feels very good, it's still to this day, it is a positive and for kids from 10 years down the road it'll still be a positive because it's good. But I really think so much of that is because the government and the skaters we listened to each other.

Good, good, good it wasn't just them taking the reins and saying, all right, this is how it's going to be. It's like if you really want to be good, you need to work with the people who are actually using it.

Good, good, and you have and you've worked with them, and then now you have created these amazing events and we're talking about events and just kind of your overall thought about what events do but all of this has kind of led to the first ever.

The Wayne Town. Throwdown the Wayne Town.

Throwdown. That's right, and this is so. Is this the inaugural, or is this First one? First, one.

The skaters have done grassroots stuff there, like little events and stuff, but we always had to do it under the radar of the town because we were technically illegally using this space for an event. When you needed all this extra insurance, you need to be paying these fees. I didn't care For me. It was like if you want to come after me, I'd rather be doing good than us not doing anything. You have this awesome facility that people use. Nurture it Just because you built it. Don't just let it sit here If it already works and people will tell you Wayne's. Well, this is the most consistently used facility. I mean, if it's dry, there's normally somebody out there.

Wow, that's great.

Yeah, so that's a testament. So I'm like to me, I'm like you already have something that works. Build on that, Because you've done the hard part. And I just felt like the town had built it and they walked away. So I you know my engagement for last year, since that was constantly going through, with them being like, hey, like we got this good facility, what if we did an event? What if we did you know just something, and same thing as the skate park. It took a long time, but here we are, you know, finally I found the right people in town who, you know, heard the call and was like this is cool, this is cool, let's do something down there, Like let's figure out how to get through all the red tape and having a bit down here, Cause it could be really cool.

Cool, all right, and so it has grown from that concept to now. You're talking about bringing people in from outside, coming in local people too. You're talking about giveaways, and you know all this Talk about how this is affecting the skate community here and also I don't know if it's safe to say regionally, or where do you, where do you anticipate people coming from?

Well, hopefully, you know, georgia, South Carolina, tennessee, obviously North Carolina, the skate community is pretty close. We've done events in Cherokee. We've done multiple events in Cherokee. We've done stuff for street festivals in silver, you know. We've done video premieres at local breweries and pizza spots in Wayne'sville and stuff. So we've done a lot of events and we've that's the thing about doing all these events is our network is big because we've done these events. So it's like I feel like now when we reach out and say hey, we got this going on, it's easy for us to get ears and people to pay attention. I think people have also seen that's like all right, these guys really genuinely try to make it fun. They're all the same ick of us. You know they are. You know it's not just some government people trying to do an event, it's like it's actually done by this skate community. So I think we got a broad network of people and I think our community is so hungry for events.

You have to think about, like you know, a soccer team. You play a game every Saturday. If you're on a sports team, you play, at least you practice, but you play once a week. You know, and I kept using this as an example to when I would talk to town people. I was like, imagine if you played a team sport. You go to practice Tuesday and Thursday, never a game.

It's not that the sport's not awesome, but you need something that holds that retention, that gets you excited, that makes you want to put your best foot forward every day that you step out there. That's motivating and that's good and I think that's healthy. And I was like the skate park's cool. We all use it, what it? But kids need something to be working for. Now that there's a contest coming up, I know kids are gonna be at the skate park even more because they know that that day is coming and it's not about the competitive side, but the fact that it motivates you and that you're gonna maybe spend more time there than maybe sitting on your couch you know, yeah, we're doing whatever else.

Yeah, you know and you know we I had started doing skate lessons in town.

Well, after the skate park had been there, I'd never grown up using lessons. Skateboarding was always just go out and try 1,000 tries, like there's no easy button to this. But I just kept seeing parents who had come out to the skate park and be like gosh, like I can shoot a basketball, I can throw a baseball, but I cannot physically help my kid when he is interested in this activity. And for me I was just like I just heard that call for a need, so much that I was like I will do this and I think we were also finally getting well, not finally, it was a bad thing, but I think we were getting into an era where parents were for the first time and maybe our lifetime, where they were dealing with the dilemma of kids of like how do I get them off a screen? You know, like we have had TV and stuff, but it was the first time that really started where parents are like this is an issue and how do we combat this?

You know.

So I was like all right, yeah, I believe being outside and being with other people and applying yourself to something, even if it's challenging, even if it's gonna hurt you sometimes, but everybody respects you out here because you're trying something hard and we know that. Because I'm out here trying something hard, like I've been there, if I see a kid trying a trick, even if I'm way better than him, I was like I've been there. I know frustration and to get to that point to learning it that everybody's very supportive of each other.

Yeah, that's good, and you've always talked about that. When we talked about some of the events of just that's the whole community building and people rallying around each other, and it wasn't just the competitiveness of that particular event, like you're saying. It was pulling everybody together, giving them something to shoot for. You're speaking in common language. People are finding community, whatever that means to them. They're finding it in that kind of space. So that's cool.

I mean, I love the fact that you're kind of facilitating all of that. So tell me some of the stories, then, that have come out of not just this event that's coming up in a couple of months or so, but just in general, leading into this the community that it's built, the differences that it's made in people's lives, and you just talked about the parents saying it's screen time, screen time, and this is definitely a positive alternative to just sitting in front of your screen. But I don't know if any, as we're kind of talking any names or just images come into your mind about conversations with parents or kids or connections you've made along the way.

There's a lot. I'll give you the most recent one. We just did our snowboard video contest and had our premiere of it. One of the kids I think he got third place. I saw his mom a couple of days later and she was like my kid was so good that next day he helped around with chores around the house. His spirit was high, he was cheerful and it was almost like she had seen a side of her kid that she maybe don't get to see all the time and it's like, yeah, if I could get the gas a kid up and get a kid excited, I'm cool with that. Like, get excited. I want people to be excited because I feel like if you're excited, you're engaged and you're more likely to invoke some change because it overflows you and you want to pour that out. Yeah, so that's just one of the most recent ones.

But it's like just doing these events, like I would encourage everybody, like, in your own way, try to get more involved. Like I like the events now because it broadens who all I'm meeting you know I'm meeting so many new people. Like I announced an event. I'll get a message from a band in Knoxville. I'll be like can I come play at your event, or can I bring this thing, or can I come do this? And every time we do an event there's different people who reach out and you just broaden your network of people who can help you and bring them into your community. Cool, and that's fun.

Yeah, that's real fun. Well, you mentioned it. So let's kind of segue into this first annual cat classic. This is really cool. This is like out of the box thinking and I love. I know there's a backstory and you'll kind of set it up, but yeah, I love to kind of you're on your first thoughts to how this could be, to the things you went through, to what it ultimately ended up being. Let's hear about the first annual cat classic that was just had this past weekend.

Yeah yeah, the cat classic. This was brand new to us but we wanted to try, put our best foot forward and try something new and just see if it went somewhere or not. But to try was the most important part. Growing up at Cattalucci, I remember younger years. There would be rail jams, there would be big air contest and stuff like that and I loved it. I thought it was so fun and it made, towards the end of the season, so exciting to have these things coming up and they've gone away for a lot of years and I feel I just felt really bad for kids who are growing up at Cattalucci.

I was like, if you've started snowboarding at Cattalucci at the last I don't know at least seven years, you've never seen an event, but you've watched Zeb Powell get two medals in the X games. But if you want to go to an event you got to go to Boone and a lot of kids that's like that's a tough reach. Just to ask right now get your parents to drive you to Boone to go to this event. That can be very intimidating, cause those people are riding that stuff every day of the year. They're riding jumps and rails and you know from being at Cattalucci. It's limited and that's okay, and part of that's the fact of where it's located, but it also doesn't take a lot to do something to stoke people out and just to stir excitement. So we had heard all through the years about that. We couldn't do stuff at Cattalucci because of liability. I get so tired of that word, I feel like it's such a roadblock of a word. I was like I get liability but let's find, if there's a will, there's a way. If there can find somebody within a corporation or a group that's willing to have a conversation to look into another alternate way. I was like there's a way. We just especially if all these other mountains are having events, there's no reason why we couldn't find an avenue to have an event.

So what we did and this is going back to a testament of being in a shop atmosphere is you sit around with other guys of like-mindedness and you think about what can we do to give something back to our scene. So we came up with this idea. I was like, well, if we can't do a contest on snow at physically there, let's do a video contest where we create an email on the Instagram page, we let kids film for a certain amount of time and then they turn their one minute of edited footage. You can put music to it, you could clip it up, you could do one run top to bottom. There was really no rules. It was like just participate and submit it. We opened up filming for two months and then they submitted footage. The idea was to edit it all and put it all into one video where everybody played and we put everybody's names and like Instagram handles at the bottom of the videos, have a premiere and set it up at a place where all these people could come together and really just get to know other people who are into the same passions they are.

Cause I had told you in other earlier conversations, I was like I was so used to the skate park atmosphere where, if somebody shows up a few times, you talk to these people. You're in this little kind of boxed in area. Nobody's wearing ski mask or goggles. You're not on this like different time wave because people on a chair lift and you're on the snow, but you could see people by their gear. You're like you're fanatic about this, you're really into this, but I don't. It's hard to just break that ice sometimes, but at the skate park it was so easy and I was just got so frustrated. I was like I feel like there's so many passionate people in this area, but I feel like I know so we're not unified by any way. And so I was like let's do something and at least we'll get people together and people start knowing who each other are and hopefully will grow our community.

So I was able to see on Instagram just some of the clips of some of the videos. I guess there maybe the compilation of the video that you all put together, which was really really kind of unique and it's just kind of cool. But it's totally different than anything, because you're just using the, basically like if elements were set up, you can write those manmade elements, but it was also natural elements too that people were using trees, you know, drops, I mean, and that's a cool thing about some of those upper snowbird, lower snowbird, when there's when it's full, there's a lot of variety there and I didn't realize that until this year.

Kelly's terrain is incredible.

It is. It is actually.

Yeah, I mean the natural terrain of it. When it has snow on all those walls, I was like it's a playground. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I always wonder, look around at snowboarders and like where are they? Man? I know they're right in the trees, you know I mean the lifts, but you know they'd be ripping down alley cat or maybe sometimes on upper Omegosh. But you go to the lower snowbird and upper snowbird man, on good days and it was just, I mean, I would sit there and just watch, literally I mean, even though I was a mountain host I would just kind of post up and just I'm there to kind of watch people.

But the snowboarders were kind of fascinating and I remember going, I mean, and we're sitting at one fence and this right at the intersection of alley cat, where lower snowbird comes into upper, comes into lower, and you can sort of make that left and there was a drop big snow. It was one of the best days I've had out there. And all of a sudden this guy just drops over the alleged and I probably shouldn't say this out loud, but ski patrol and I looked at each other and were like, well, you know, probably should say something. But that's pretty rad, man, I probably would have done the same thing if I was 18 years old. But anyway, not to take away from the story, but amazing terrain, which led to amazing videos too.

Yeah, I mean, people are surfing the white winter wave up there, that's for sure, and it's a blast. And you could I mean there's so many people that you can just tell like share that same joy and passion. I think if you're blessed and you're fortunate enough to be able to get up there and experience skiing and snowboarding, you know that you're like this is special, like this is a really cool feeling to be able to slide down a mountain at the speeds that you can and the turns that you can make. But not everybody gets experienced that and I think that's a part of our goal too is just like how do we make this thing that more accessible to more people? Because it is awesome and it is really it's.

I think it's, I think it's healthy for folks, yeah, to be in outside the mountains and, you know, being able to express your own creativity and individuality. And that's what's cool about the video contest is like you know there's no rule, there was no rules. You know there's no sidelines that you can't go out of. It's like you, you make creative.

Yeah, and you make your video. We just wanted to open that up to people but we had no idea up until you know, a couple of days before the deadline, if people were going to be into it or not into it. All like it was a roll of a dice. People would ask me all the way through, like are people doing it? I don't know. I don't know, but we're having I mean, we're having fun setting this up. I know, like the guy who would do all our IT work like if you go in the cat classic Instagram, it's like he was doing all our graphics and stuff and he just made it funny and fun and not so serious because we're not at West trying to be a part of X games, we're in the South.

I mean we're literally about to be done with skiing within the next week, or so. So don't make it what it's not, but it is a celebration and it is a blessing and fun to be up there and there is a lot of talent, of people doing incredible stuff. That's like somebody should celebrate this, cool.

You know All right, so tell us about your celebration. Then you had how many videos. How many people were there? Sounded like it was a great night, great food, great music.

Yeah, Break it down for us. Well, we had. In the end we had 24 entries. Obviously we would, we would, we would have loved more, but I think for first year, we are so pleased.

That's cool.

And the amount of response that we got from the people who were involved and the people who sponsored it and other people who, like, came to the event, I think was enough testament to us. I was like, cool, we did something that we should have. We did something we should have done. Cool, yeah, 24 entries. We wanted to do a women's division, you know, of course, but you know there had been any contest around here in so long. Anyway, I think any contest would have been welcome. But I was like, man, I want to know what ladies are out here ripping the slopes that I don't know about, right, you know. And then also the younger generations, like I want to know who these people are. People made incredible videos. They edited the music. You know, it was fun. I mean, we just got a wide variety of different, different takes on people riding the mountain, but people participated and it was cool. So then we set up the premiere and called Salty Dogs Backyard Bar in Maggie Valley so you could go ski the mountain, come off the mountain, come eat some barbecue and, like, watch a video of you and your friends and cheer and just try to make it as fun as we could.

We had a traumatic experience with one of the cooks actually choked. Cpr had to be done in mouth to mouth and I think it was a real traumatic and scary experience for a lot of us. You know, you never expect or hope for anything like that to happen. The good news is, I mean he survived, but it was. I mean it's happened right in the middle of the event that a man choked. I told you early, one of the most incredible parts of the story was two kids who had entered from Asheville, not that familiar with their parents, brought them to the event. They had skied Cattilucci that day, come down there for the event. This gentleman choked and they're the ones who did CPR and mouth to mouth and save save this guy's life.

Wow, it's amazing. Yeah, Still gives me chills.

That man left in an ambulance and you know it was traumatic for everybody and so we. You know that's a tough one to bring the vibe back from, but you know I knew people still wanted to see the videos and the entries and I just told everybody, you know, just think about that, this could have been any one of us. Keep this man in your prayers and your thoughts and let's send him all the good energy. But I know that this man he helped me organize this thing he wants this to happen.

Oh, I didn't know that we did, oh, wow.

Yeah, he was one of the you know employees of the restaurant, like technically one of the owners, and so when we were first planning of it, he was the guy I would sit down with at the restaurant and we worked through like, all right, this is what we think it's going to be. All right, you're going to do this food. All right, we'll start at this time. So he was very excited. He wanted this to happen. He's like I like this idea, you know, and it was just unfortunate what happened. But once you know he left, I just told me I was like I know this. He wants us to party. Like for us to hang it up right now would bum him out. He would want us to party. So we did the best we could and brought the vibes back. We had live music from dudes who work at Kataluchi, which was so cool.

Cool, cool.

Yeah, to be able to be like oh you guys work at Kat, but you have a band, let's go. Of course you guys can get on the stage. So we did music we made. We made like big cardboard checks but we made them out like nice wood and everything and painted them Cool. And I remember going to skate contest as a kid and getting a few of those big checks and still to this day they hang up in the ski shop and I love it and people are always like that's so cool. All it is a fake check. Yeah, it's big, but it invokes something like this is special and like unique, and I was like I just wanted to pass that on to kids to get them stoked.

And that's what you've done. I mean, I feel like you've spent a lifetime doing that. You started out as a 13, 14 year old youth, got stoked, got into it, and then you just kept wanting to bring other people along and you haven't let up Like I don't know, you don't know how to let up on that, do you? No, no, but.

I'm blessed, you know, and I know you know life can change at any point. But the friends that I'm making from it and the connections within my community and everything he's like, why would I want to give that and just to have the opportunity to try stuff now you know to be like, all right, let's try this. Are some people going to be offended by this contest? Maybe or not.

Yeah maybe, but I think our intentions are good and I think we want to invoke Good change. So I think the good far outweighs the bad is the way I viewed it. And if nobody else is, nobody else is doing it for the youth, you know. So they does, they deserve it. I think. What I think the talent within the skate world and the snowboard world around here is Cool and is good, and it takes very little to make gas kids up and make them happy.

Yeah, well, so what? There's many things to love about this, but one of the things in particular I think that I love is that there can be you going back to your mom, you Cops calling your mom saying this kid, there's this, there's this mindset that these kids are gonna come and tear up and destroy and thrash, and you know all the things and their subcultures within scale. There's all these things you have to kind of overcome, but at the end of the day, there's very, very positive things. They're out, they're active, they, you know, if it's that they're chosen way to express their own creativity. You can have a mountain biker does the same thing, a kayaker it's really no different whatsoever and there are kids who now have outlets, and it also makes a huge economic impact as well.

And so the towns, people, the mayors, they're traveling, they're seeing the impact that these events are making. You see them popping up all over now. I mean just down the road in Mills River we have I don't know if it's gonna be a skate park, but they're completely Revitalizing that pump tracks, a whole nine yard. I mean it's really cool to see what's happening and those that didn't exist before. I mean I'm preaching to the choir with you and I don't skate, but I just remember, you know I what I do remember is back in the 80s in high school, going for the school newspaper to do a Story on the local skaters who had just built. There was nothing for them anywhere and it was just literally a half-pike in the backyard that there wasn't place for people to do that kind of stuff.

And there is now and you see that, and I've kind of have just watched, even though I'm not a skater myself, I have, I have a longboard, you know, with, with, with a stick, it's great on flat ground. I start to get on the the inclines and going downhill I really realized real quickly I'm out of my element here, I better hang on. But I understand the stoke and you can see it in the kids and you see that they have an outlet. And one word that you used earlier I keep I was calling you a change agent or, you know, community activator, and you just said you know it's, it's positive change. I'm gonna create positive change and you've said that over and over and you've said it a couple times here today and and that's what's happening in both you and I think it's also happening in these, facilities are being built for kids too. We have a skate park just not too far away in in Hendersonville too. That's a pretty widely popular skate park.

I'm in Hendersonville. I'm going there after our leaf here. There you go See all the way out here I'm gonna, you're gonna skate birds with one stone. I love it.

I love it. Oh, that's great, that's awesome. Well, listen, man, you're the type of person that every time we've talked, we always kind of joke and say we should have hit record Because we could have had another episode that came out of that. Even standing in the dining hall at cat one night, you know, I applaud and really kind of celebrate what you do, man, what you do for people. And you know, again, stephen Reinhold, we got to give him, you know, a shout out for Encouraging me to have this. He knew that you'd be somebody that people would love to hear their story. And then there's more to that story too, I know, and there's more to be told in this story with you, I think, with future events.

Yeah, we're gonna keep doing and I feel like what's cool about this is, you know, you find people within the same energies and the same passions as you and you grow it. I mean, that's how I hear with you today. You know I had come across your podcast through being involved with BOC and made by mountains. Yeah and I, you know, started listening to you while while I worked. I was like this is somebody who is self, that same ick as I feel like, as I am, you know cool and To broaden that and to make a new friend.

You know it's like super valuable and cool, you know. Yeah.

We are today. Here we are today. I know I love it. I really do celebrate you and all the work that you're doing before I let you go, though, and go skate, because I know that's what you really want to get to. You want to talk about, you want to do it. I would love for people to know how can they find out more about where you work, number one, and then also about the Wayne Town throwdown a little bit more about how people can find out about that and get involved.

You know my social media is just underscored. Jared Lee, if you don't live around Haywood County, we're going to be posting up signs at the skate park to have QR codes so people can pre-register and find out any info on the event. We'll post those same QR codes, you know, through our social medias and spread them through the skate world as well as we can through shops and whatnot, so that you can find out about that. Come out. If you don't skate it that day, come out Watch Support. We're going to have some food trucks. We're going to block off the whole parking lot and let some people, let us set up some ramps in the parking lot so while the younger kids are skating in their part of the contest, you can still go skate the parking lot and just hopefully have an atmosphere where people just hang out all day. So we're going to be spreading that.

You know, in the winter months I work at Ski's and T's in Maggie Valley. We go in there and we serve the visitors of Maggie and try to help them have a good time when they go to Kataluchi, get ready to phase out of there and go do my summer work, which is I just have a lawn care business. It pays the bills. I get to be outside, I get to listen to podcasts like yours and others, and so that's great. And then you know, I've run a thing called Big Brother Boards, which is like a skate camp. Well, we did, we've done camps. Right now We've just been doing lessons, but there's a lot of cool things, hopefully in the future, that are coming together with that.

Well, keep spreading the stoke dude. Every time I'm with you, man, your smile is infectious, your vibe is infectious. Yeah, you, just you're a fun guy to be around, man, and I just appreciate you making the drive down here and sharing just a tiny bit of your story. I know there's a lot more there that I can't wait to unpack and learn as the days go on.

Well, I'm grateful and thankful for having me.

As we reflect on Jared's journey, we're reminded of the power of perseverance and community support. From advocating for a skate park to spreading the stoke for snowboarding, jared's impact resonates far beyond the confines of his town. I hope you've been inspired by Jared's story and the broader implications of outdoor activities and community engagement. Let's continue to celebrate the collaborative spirit and shape thriving environments for all to pursue their dreams. Be sure to subscribe to Exploration Local so you'll be one of the first to know about more heartfelt discussions and stories of transformation. Join me on Instagram and Facebook and drop me a note at Mike at ExplorationLocalcom if you ever have a suggestion for a future episode or if you just want to say hello. Until next time, keep embracing your passions and fostering connections within your community and, by all means, keep wandering far but exploring local. And by all means, keep wandering far but exploring local.