Tag: West Chester

Lori’s Roadhouse in West Chester: Mark Welch, the Superstar of Politics

Government is Best when it Gets out of the Way

As I listened to Mark Welch speak at a special fundraiser preview event at the new honky-tonk in West Chester called Lori’s Roadhouse, I couldn’t help but think that government is good, at least in West Chester.  When I say honky-tonk, I’m not talking about the old days of Gilley’s in Pasadena, Texas, where Urban Cowboy took place.  This place in West Chester is more like the modern Gilley’s in Las Vegas, very nicely put together luxuriously.  There is nothing cheap about it; it’s an ample space to host very large national talent for concerts. It’s something special for the Cincinnati area, and it’s great to see it located in West Chester, Ohio.  It’s not by accident.  The endeavor is a combination of great government that pushed out of the way as much nonsense as possible so that the dream of Greg and Lori Fisher could put all their great efforts into creating such a wonderful venue. I’ve been to places like Lori’s Roadhouse in parts of the country far away from Cincinnati.  But the moment I stepped into Mark’s fundraiser and saw what the owners were up to, I was enchanted.  There wasn’t a better way to show why Mark Welch should be re-elected as trustee of West Chester.  It’s not so much what an elected official can do for a project like Lori’s Roadhouse, but what kind of nonsense Mark can remove from the Fishers to let their creative input do the great work of creating such a wonderful place. 

Mark Welch and one of the owners, Lori Fisher herself

I view business as a creative enterprise, and I deeply respect people who go out on a limb and build new things that contribute to an economy.  Something like Lori’s Roadhouse is one of those things that adds to the many other things there are to do in West Chester.  There are so many options, and a lot of the reason is that the government has been small enough not to crush the hopes and dreams of entrepreneurs along the way.  It is hard enough to come up with an idea and then fund it with seed money.  It’s quite another to deal with politicians and other bureaucrats who embed themselves into the system to make a molehill of regulation into mountains for their benefit.  Usually, projects like Lori’s Roadhouse would be crushed before a business plan could ever be conducted because of politics.  I can think of hundreds, if not thousands of places around the country where a place like Lori’s Roadhouse would do well.  But, the politics of those areas would prohibit the dream from becoming a reality. 

Mark Welch and his wife Karen
Mark Welch doing what he does, being a celebrity politician

I had a chance to talk to Lori and her husband Greg Fisher quite a lot which was nice.  It was busy at the fundraiser, and I wasn’t sure if I’d get the chance.  As it turned out, Lori is the perfect front lady for such a place. She’s very friendly and optimistic, a fun personality which a place like that needs.  She told me she usually likes to work behind the scenes, but I can see why her name is on the place.  It deserves to have her name on the place.  Then there is her husband Greg, who had just spent months and months working out every little detail of this spectacular venue.  The food was great.  The bar was full.  The bathrooms are designed to still look good after lots and lots of drinking.  There is plenty of space for the men and women to have their dignity and get back to the action of live country music, a sports bar setting in much of the place, but a vast stage and dance hall area complete with VIP booths.  It was all top class, and the acoustics were fabulous as personally supervised by Greg.  As he ran down the list of all the elements of the place, it was apparent, he had a genuine love for the work, and I was happy to see it. That’s where someone like Mark Welch comes into these kinds of things.  Mark had worked in the background ever so subtly to help take away the burden of government from the Fishers so they could focus on the important stuff. Like securing the millions of dollars a place like that would cost and building a reputation that would bring in the big acts from all over the country.  A modern Gilley’s, but I would say better and with more class.  Something specific to West Chester. 

Lori and her Husband Greg Fisher, a dream come true in West Chester

TC Rogers was there; he is one of the commissioners of Butler County, where some of the legacy zoning issues made the project hard to get moving.  But at least West Chester didn’t do as other places do and compound the problem.  There were a lot of big-name politicians at Mark’s event, which was a good way to open a good American testament to goodness that Lori’s Roadhouse was offering.  It was undoubtedly a place anybody could enjoy, but country music, big leather boots, and cowboy hats draw a certain kind of political flavor, and it was on full display.  I had just returned from Jackson, Wyoming, where they have a similar high-class flair to their country background.  They have some very classy honky-tonk types of places there, but Lori’s Roadhouse was far better.  It looked and felt like something right out of Music City, Nashville.  It was unapologetically American for sure.  It had the kind of swagger that I had just been bragging about that I saw at a Cody, Wyoming rodeo.  They were similar in their boot-kicking display of Americana and a tip of the cowboy hat to great family tradition. 

Lori’s Roadhouse in West Chester, a super cool place of Americana and family friendly entertainment
Mark Welch Gets It! No Income Tax!!!!!

The community will have an option not just for the concerts but for a place to stop by after work, have a few drinks, and talk to people in the community; Lori’s Roadhouse will be a real treasure.  It’s not fair to give Mark so much credit because the Fishers did all the work along with their crews.  But I have to give Mark and the trustees credit for not getting in the way, and Mark specifically for helping where he could make the process of dealing with the government not such a challenging endeavor.  I had to smile a bit to myself as I listened to Greg and Lori talk about their new place because I have heard so many hundreds of stories over the years from people who never get things like this launched into reality.  And they had managed to do it. Usually, what ends up happening is the life gets sucked out of a project like this by all the rules and regulations of government.  It’s not often where a dream comes close to the original vision, and in the case of Lori’s Roadhouse, it’s easy to see the dream of the owners as they intended it to be, and that is the result of good government that knows when to help and when to get out of the way.  Often the skill of politicians is in knowing when not to be part of the problem, but in being part of the solution.  And when they figure that much out, great things like Lori’s Roadhouse happens.  And I am very excited about the results. 

TC Rogers, Commissioner of Butler County with the Owners of Lori’s Roadhouse

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Progressive Labor Union, LEA endorses Trent Emeneker: Hoping to slide a liberal under the door for West Chester Trustee

The LEA Endorses Trent Emeneker

At this point, it’s pretty well known that the challenger for the West Chester trustee seat in Butler County, Ohio, Trent Emeneker, is not a conservative.  He has stated that he’s a registered Republican. Still, much of what he talks about, like wanting to turn West Chester into a big bureaucratic city full of city council positions and other nonsense, is excessively liberal.  It didn’t help that he did a meet and greet at Liberty Center’s AC Hotel hosted by an activist Democrat.  So Trent has loads of problems even before a single-yard sign was ever put into the ground.  But as if all that were not enough, the LEA (Lakota Education Association) has endorsed Trent, which is essentially the kiss of death in Butler County.  The LEA, of course, is the ultra-progressive labor union that runs the Lakota school system.  They work under the umbrella of the Ohio Education Association, and ultimately the National Education Association, which everyone knows by now are essentially PAC groups for Democrats and the advancement of progressive causes.  Those not sure what progressive causes are responsible for should know that they are encouraging sex education in early grade school and transsexual bathrooms.  I would go as far as to say that it is an evil organization of radical politics intent on the destruction of the United States.  But judge for yourself.  What matters is that they have endorsed Trent Emeneker and hope to squeak him under the door in an off-year race that typically has low voter turnout. 

There is nothing good that comes out of the LEA.  They essentially protect bad teachers from being fired and lobby to pay them too much money to do it.  They are wholly committed to the destruction of America as we know it.  They collect money from their union dues and apply it directly to Democrats nationwide.  If you can think of something terrible about government schools, and I can think of a lot, the root cause of the trouble goes back to teacher unions, especially the NEA.  So long as they exist and have a footprint of any kind in our schools with our children, there is no hope of making those schools better.  People understand that more now than they did even a few years ago.  At Lakota, there is an opportunity to vote for new school board members to replace the current ones, which might stand against these teacher unions better than we’ve had in the past.  Usually, there is no defense on the school board.  The LEA essentially runs everything, including putting their candidates on the board as they are trying again this year with Kelley Casper, Michael Pearl, and Doug Horton.  There are finally options this year with actual Republican endorsed candidates.  Many people are running, so voter turnout will have to be high to defeat the incumbent’s LEA has also endorsed.  So we’ll see if voters take advantage of this opportunity with great voter turnout on election day, November 2nd. 

The LEA endorses Trent Emeneker for West Chester Trustee

It is just that kind of low voter turnout that the LEA hopes push the liberal Trent Emeneker into a West Chester Trustee seat.  They usually have their activists who always show up to vote and preserve their intent to destroy America.  So Republican voters will have to show up and defend themselves to keep that from happening.  But as to Trent’s intent, there is no doubt about it now that the LEA has endorsed him on their web page.  When you have the LEA behind you, you know that a vast evil is not far behind.  Everything the LEA does is rooted in some destruction for the American way of life and the families that make the country great.  Behind all teacher union activities are actions intended to attack family and its institution to a progressive need.  Suppose there are members of the LEA who call themselves Republicans and just go along for the great six-figure paycheck at Lakota. In that case, they are doing like all RINOs do, help evil get a foothold into our lives with the death whisper of compliance which is silently killing our country as we speak.  Those teachers in the LEA are just as bad as the purple-headed progressives advocating gay rights, critical race theory, and globalism by saying nothing and letting evil have its way in the world. 

Trent has tried to sell himself as an old military guy hoping that blind allegiance to service might make people ignore his obvious liberalism.  His biggest complaint about the current West Chester trustees is spending a few million dollars on landscaping for the new Union Center exchange.  He considers that fiscal irresponsibility.  Yet West Chester is operating in the black, which is how it should be, and considering the amount of GDP produced at that highway exit, the landscaping costs are easily justified.  Oddly enough, at a recent debate where Trent tried to make an issue of this cost, it was Lee Wong who best slapped him down for it.  Now everyone knows I’m not a huge Lee Wong fan, one of the current trustees.  But next to Trent Emeneker, Lee sounds like Donald Trump.  Lee explained well the need for the landscaping in a very Trump-like way.  Union Center in West Chester is one of the premier spots in the entire country for economic activity.  I would put the GDP moving through that exit among the top in the country.  There is nothing wrong with having some nice flowers there to greet the mass commerce that occurs.   Of course, nobody talks about that the LEA is against all capitalist activity as they are socialists and communists in their origins.  They are “the vote red for ed” types. The red is the red flag of communism, so for Trent to attack a few flowers when Lakota is bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars into these LEA employees advocating against family values, small government ideas, and the promotion of the religion of climate change, Trent proves he’s just a stooge for the LEA liberalism and not interested in fiscal responsibility.  If he indeed were, the LEA would never endorse him because all they want is a run-away wallet with no limit on the credit card. 

So remember as you vote that the LEA endorsed Trent Emeneker.  I don’t think it will change anything.  The same several thousand people who will vote to keep the current big spenders on the Lakota school board will vote for Trent as a trustee.  But there are a lot more Republicans in Butler County than Democrats.  It will all come down to voter turnout.  If you don’t want to see more LEA liberalism contaminating our community, then be sure to get out on election night and vote. Don’t just show up and vote for Trump or the mid-terms.  Vote now and for the same reasons, defend your turf from these radical progressives and their plans of doom for our children.  And know when you vote that Trent Emeneker is one of them.  The LEA does not endorse Republicans, not real ones.  They are out to destroy conservative politics so they would never put their name next to anybody who won’t help them do just that.  Trent is a big government guy, which is why they want him.  But, if you show up to vote, you can stop their plans.  So, could you not take it for granted?  The time for action is coming up; make sure you are part of the solution.   

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Trent Emeneker is a Liberal in West Chester: Relative to Butler County, Ohio, the trustee challenger is a Democrat in disguise

Trent Emeneker Wants to Be a Liberal Trustee in West Chester, Ohio

Not a surprise; I’m a Mark Welch guy in West Chester.  Of course, I’m supporting Mark Welch for re-election to the West Chester trustees. He’s had that job for a while and has done a fantastic job.  West Chester, Ohio, is one of the greatest places to live in all of America.  As I said in the video above, I have recently returned from Jackson, Wyoming, which is per capita one of the wealthiest places in the United States.  I love Jackson Hole, Wyoming; I enjoyed shopping there with my family.  It was all very nice.  But it’s not nicer than West Chester, Ohio.  Not by a long shot.  I’ve been all over the United States and seen a lot of nice areas to live in.  When people vote for West Chester to be one of the best places anywhere to live, they aren’t kidding.  And Mark Welch gets a lot of credit for making it that way.  The process started long ago when Senator George Lang was a trustee and implemented a small-government philosophy, which the trustees still adhere to currently.  Small government anywhere, minimal, competent, government leads to prosperity.  A big, bloated government, especially filled by incompetent people, leads to corruption, disaster, and high costs to maintain that government.  In this upcoming race for re-election in November of 2021, Mark Welch is the small-government guy with a proven track record.  End of the story, vote for Mark and enjoy another term in office to keep West Chester great.

But there are always challenges to these kinds of positions, and this year is no different.  Liberals are always trying to replace conservatives as trustees, representatives, commissioners, everywhere.  And to do that, they have to pretend to be Republicans when, in fact, they are Democrats, relative to the kind of politics that we have in Butler County, Ohio.  The challenger this time is a guy by the name of Trent Emeneker, a recently laid-off employee at GE who needs something to do, so he decided to run for West Chester Trustee.  Now on paper, Trent will say that he’s a former Marine and a registered Republican.  However, the Democrats had a recent fundraiser for Trent hosted by the old Lakota school levy supporter Kathy Wyenandt at the AC Hotel at Liberty Center.  I was at the Roosevelt Room across the street around 5:30 PM on the Tuesday of that fundraiser and learned all about it from some little birdies who came to that back table complaining about the $10 drinks at the cash bar.  I didn’t know Trent much but thought it was strange that a so-called “fiscal” conservative was having a fundraiser with a Democrat, even if only a few people showed up.  I didn’t pay much attention to the guy until that point, but the fundraiser was enough of suspicion to inspire some research.  After all, who would question a former Marine?  Well, maybe people should ask those with a military record more often and not just assume they will be good officeholders.  That is how we ended up with General Milley.  In today’s military, many progressives are coming out of that system, so we can’t take anything for granted, which looks to be the case with Trent Emeneker.

The biggest problem with Trent is that he wants to hold a vote in West Chester to make the township into a city, which has long been a progressive plan wanted by people who attended Kathy Wyenandt’s fundraiser.  Do you know why they want to make West Chester into a city?  It’s not to better pay for roads and other social services.  We do well now with partnerships with Butler County to operate a great community with low crime, high service value, and without an income tax.  Liberals want to make West Chester a city to create more office positions for people who wish to sit in and get attention. I’m thinking of old-school levy supporters like Joan Powell, who has pushed for this city thing in West Chester for a long time.  With a city comes city council seats like what they have in Middletown and Mason.  Then, of course, there are significant positions such as mayors, vice mayors, and other offices.  Government expansion is what we are talking about, and for liberals, it’s a chance to do something progressive and raise taxes to pay for everything.   Right now, West Chester is run by essentially three trustees and a fiscal officer.  Parts of Butler County that are cities do not run better than West Chester.  The track record is unavoidable. 

Yet that is pretty much the campaign of Trent Emeneker.  Somebody that not even GE thought was worth having around since they let him go as part of their Covid-19 resizing. He wants to get on West Chester’s Board of Trustees and push to become a city so that more liberals can have some office to sit on and create more bureaucracy, such as what happens everywhere that government expands.  With West Chester interacting with hundreds of thousands of people in the residing area, providing services to them all efficiently and with a budget surplus most of the time, what else is there for Trent to do but complain about making government bigger?  This is where the “fiscal” conservative on his signs comes into play.  If he was a real conservative, not just somebody who might have voted for George Bush in the past or every other RINO like John Kasich, he does not think like a conservative.  It’s not enough to complain that the current Trustees spent millions of dollars on landscaping at the new exit off the highway.  Hey, when you manage your money, you can do that.  I like coming off that exit and seeing it look classy.  The amount of money that is generated off the Union Center exit in West Chester is enormous.  Planting a few flowers doesn’t make the current trustees fiscally reckless. Instead, they respect the great businesses camped out in West Chester because the trustees have protected them from the overly intrusive government Trent wants. 

These kinds of campaign theatrics used to work when people didn’t know better, but in West Chester, everyone can look at a track record of success.  Then to propose that government is what makes something great, which most liberals believe and what gives Trent away as a liberal, is to slap away everything successful in West Chester.  And that’s what would come with a vote for Trent Emeneker.  He can sell himself as Goose from Top Gun because he spent ten years in the Marines in the back of a Navy fighter.  I might like Top Gun, but I don’t know if I’d want Goose managing the money in my home township. I’d need more than that.  What matters to me is that he was so invaluable that he ended up on the lay-off list at GE when they decided they needed to reduce their workforce after Covid hit.  Why would he make a good trustee again if an employer didn’t even want him?  And when Democrats are pushing to get you elected, what does that say about the person running?  Yeah, I’m sure Trent is a nice fellow.  He probably is a nice husband and father.  But keep that guy away from money.  Because he’s a liberal in disguise, and he wants to expand government and change what has been working for us all very well already.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Vote For Mark Welch: Shooting guns, solving problems and making the world a better place

Vote for Mark Welch

If West Chester wasn’t one of the best places in the world which demonstrates what small government looks like and how much prosperity can occur when proper management at the level of government is applied, I can’t imagine what it would be.  West Chester, Ohio, has the population density to make it a city, but over the years, it has stayed small, where just Trustees run the community’s needs, and it has flourished.  What started as a kind of Tea Party dream, with two members getting elected to the Board of Trustees and applying fiscal responsibility and limited government concepts to the day-to-day business, George Lang and Mark Welch, West Chester has been proof of what good government looks like.  Even during the government-induced pandemic over coronavirus.  Even as many businesses struggled to stay open all across the country or find employees to fill their vacancies, West Chester has managed to see astonishing growth in some ways.  Much of that points back at the policy set by the conservative trustees who have been running things in West Chester for over a decade.  Lowering the cost of doing business, reducing bureaucracy so that things can happen, West Chester would be, for me, the example of what good governments everywhere in the world should look like.  When we debate about government so much, we could always offer West Chester an example of where the government goes right.   

A lot of that credit goes to Mark Welch, who has been with the trustees in West Chester for a while now, a few terms. He’s been that critical second vote when George Lang set the stage for much of West Chester’s success.  Then as George moved on to a position in the Senate, Mark carried the torch for the next generation and continued the policies that made West Chester wonderful.  Mark has been great at the significant and minor issues, so much so that often you never even hear about the things he is doing.  I often say, especially in management positions, that if you are good people won’t even know you are there doing a good job.  Its when managers in government make themselves part of the story that things start going wrong.  Then, the more people you add to a process, the worse it gets.  And thus, that’s how you get a bad government.  The federal government that we are always talking about is just such an example.  It’s big, nobody takes responsibility for anything, and they always make themselves part of the story on everything.  Their goals are usually to make themselves known by looting off the efforts of others, while Mark has always been a facilitator of other people’s dreams and needs.  He doesn’t get in the way of some big project that wants to come into West Chester.  Instead, he finds a way to get rid of the obstacles so that something new could be born.  Whether the project is a significant new company or a hot new entertainment venue, West Chester has thrived because Mark and other conservatives have created an environment where productive output wasn’t penalized but rather encouraged. I’ve been all over the United States, and you’d be hard-pressed anywhere to see four highway exits that are better than the ones in West Chester with a diversity of options, per capita income, and future opportunities.

Shooting with Mark Welch

Mark Welch is up for re-election this year, which he should have no problem with.  But for many of the new residents of West Chester who don’t hear much drama from their trustees, especially with a community with such a high population density, they wouldn’t know about it because the government isn’t in their face about every little thing.  Yet I think it would only be wise to pull back the curtain a bit and share with everyone what I know of Mark Welch, a guy who goes shooting with me often at Premier in West Chester, a great gun range at Port Union off RT 747.  Included here are a few video clips of our last trip just to let people be a bit of a fly on the wall.  I go to Premier often to shoot various guns and to blow off some steam.  I enjoy almost everything in West Chester, from the steaks at Jags to the fine dining and shopping options at Voice of America.  And I love Voice of America Park, another great story that we could write books about.  But commercially, I spend most of my time at Premier, and often Mark is there too where we manage stress at the gun range and often contemplate the origin of the universe.  The other day, it occurred to me that people don’t get to see that side of Mark, and they should because it’s what makes him unique in government. 

When Premier Shooting first opened, Mark and I were there for the grand tour, which was very special.  To have a classy gun range in such an elegant town with so many business and residential options was such a treat, and we’ve enjoyed it now for several years.  They have added a nice walking trail around the big fishing lake and turned the whole property into a country club setting that is great for escaping from business during a lunch break. That’s how I use Premier Shooting as a place of stress management.  And now, primarily because of the policies Mark has nurtured and a small government approach, Harley Davidson is building a new superstore next to Premier.  Adding this business to the rest of the options in that area is an incredible achievement. It is just another example of what can be done when the government doesn’t make itself the story but gets out of the way.  Mark likes to see new things being built as much as I do, but he’s as far away from the type of intrusive politician who always wants to stick their nose in everyone’s business.  That is precisely why Harley Davidson is building such a large store that will be a great gift to the community. 

Shooting the Colt .45

Talking to Mark the other day while we were up at Premier shooting the guns in the videos shown here, we talked about the new Harley Davidson store as we watched an excavation team work machinery leveling the site for a foundation.  Mark was like a kid brimming with excitement at what such a place would mean, and I sort of thought for a moment how unusual it was for a politician to have that kind of attitude. I’ve been around many politicians over the years who would look at a situation like that and find some way to insert themselves into the story and try to take credit for all Harley Davidson’s efforts.  But not Mark.  In an actual small government, conservative fashion, he likes seeing things happen.  If he can help them along, he’s happy to do it.  Yet, it never crosses his mind to loot off the efforts of others.  He wants to help make things happen, which is one of the premier ways in which West Chester has remained one of the best places to live in the world, even as economic downturns have hurt communities elsewhere.  West Chester is lucky to have Mark Welch.  But to Mark’s mind, he truly wants what is best for West Chester in the ways good management always does, by getting out of the way of those who make things happen in the world.

Rich Hoffman

The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business
Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Lee Wong Strips and Shows Everyone his 70-year-old Nipples at a Trustee Meeting: Using racism to hide incompetency

I heard about it after it happened and was waiting for the video to come out from the West Chester Trustee meeting to see for myself.  However, by the time the video did come out it was a national story because it fed a media narrative, especially from NBC that they were pushing, and Lee Wong served it up on a buffet for them to delight in.  Sure enough, on the NBC Nightly News there was the video of Trustee Lee Wong stripping off his shirt and showing us all his 70-year-old nipples after grandstanding for several minutes about his old military record which he retired from and showing off what he’s calling a scar he received during his service.  I wasn’t going to talk about it unless the video proved to be as ridiculous as I heard it was because Lee Wong is an old story in my community of West Chester and honestly, I thought the guy had embarrassed himself enough over the years.  But in a lot of ways he stuck a stick in the eye of the community that can’t be forgiven and he tried to buffer the effect with this grandiose strip show he provided at what should have been a professional trustee meeting where all the elected representatives do the township business.  But the level of radicalism was just the kind of thing that filled a national narrative that wants to divert away from the follies of the Biden administration, the mountain of evidence of voter irregularities due to all the Covid rules made willy-nilly by more radical Democrats all across the nation, and the sudden outbreaks of gun violence under the new administration that is really a major policy breakdown from liberals that they want to paint as anger toward Asians.  That’s where Wong came in.

This is what’s really going on which you never hear about in the news these days because they take the sensationalism and apply their own context to a story to fit their political agenda.   In this case, they don’t want to know anything about Lee Wong, they just wanted to see his nipples from him taking off his shirt at a township meeting.  So let’s set the record straight on Lee Wong for the national audience who doesn’t know anything about him which are now looking at West Chester as a cesspit of racism because of his pure selfishness in trying to hide his internal poll numbers which show him slipping in our community in popularity during an election year.  Hey, if there is any anger at Lee its not because of the color of his skin or his face resembling an Asian, it’s because he is a Democrat putting a Republican next to his name because that’s the only way he could get elected in a very conservative county.  He’s been in elected office for many years and people get tired of him legislating like a Democrat then when people call him on it he goes straight for racism to cover it up and try to keep people from looking too closely to what he really is as a representative in our community. 

It used to be that people were more accepting of RINOs who were obviously not very politically passionate toward the party they run under.  A guy like Lee could get away with it for decades in the past until people started waking up during this last decade and realizing how the shell game worked, and Lee has been caught in it.  Recently he made a run for the 4th Senate District in Ohio and he came in 3rd out of three which was very embarrassing to him.  And the word on the street is that he has lost his brand even within West Chester where he has been a trustee for a very long time.  Its obvious to political people who see these kinds of things, and fundraisers who give out money to politicians for their campaigns that Lee is a dead duck.  There are several challengers who donors like a lot better than Lee coming up to challenge him in this year’s race as trustee and fresh off his embarrassing loss for that senate seat, Lee Wong had to do something to get some attention.  So he did what Democrats always do, they accuse the community of racism hoping to freeze people’s true opinions about him so that they are afraid to not support him in fear of being called a racist.  And of course, NBC took the torch and lit it for all Democrats to see.  Maybe now, Lee thinks, he might get some fundraising for his fall election so he can put out some signs hoping to turn the tide that has built against him.  

In West Chester, Lee has been elected, and he has served in office, but he has failed over many years of trying.  People have voted for him, but they have grown tired of him acting more and more like a Democrat than the Republican he claims to be.  Not having an answer for that behavior, Lee turned to the nuclear option of racism hoping to increase his public persona, which obviously worked for attention.  I would say it’s the wrong kind of attention and will hang on his neck like a weight he doesn’t want.  Some of the biggest follies Lee has had fairly recently is when he aligned himself with China several years ago as tensions well before President Trump came on the scene started escalating with the communist country.  There are lots of Chinese people and Asians in our area and people accept them openly.  But not all of them go around looking to build bridges where they came from like Lee does.  Most Americans figure that if people left somewhere, its for a reason.  However, Lee has continued to show support for China any time he can, especially in the Sherry Chen case who was a scientist accused of spying for China who lost her job.  Lee’s defense was simply that it was racism that caused her to lose her job, not that she was thought to be a spy for China.  People don’t forget things like that, and that’s why people have been questioning Lee’s patriotism.  It’s his track record, not his face that is the problem.

In a time where China is more and more openly hostile toward the United States, Lee has went well out of his way to promote China as a friend which taking off his shirt in public and showing a couple of scars he received in military service a lifetime ago were meant to hide.  Yet Lee did it to himself and now he’s made it worse by trying to play the race card to get himself some attention during an election year where he has challengers and very few people who want to give him money this time around.  That fundraising gap was quite obvious during his senate run, and it looks like these other candidates are going to get the money to knock off Lee.  So its not a matter of racism that has hurt Lee Wong, it’s his own incompetence which those types of people always look to hide behind some social cause.  This latest Asian aggression story, which was made up by the media in reaction to the Atlanta shootings to divert away from the cause of sex addiction is the same tired tricks that has gotten Lee in trouble before.  Only this time, he’s gone way too far and put West Chester in an embarrassing national spotlight, all for his selfish reasons to attempt re-election when its obvious that people don’t want him anymore.  Not for his race, but because he’s incompetent.  

Cliffhanger the Overmanwarrior
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Ding Dong Lee Wong: Prostitutes, collusion, and Chinese loyalty–you can go “wrong with Wong”

I’ve seen it a few times myself while dining at the very good Sushi Monk in West Chester, the liberal trustee Lee Wong posing as a Republican will knock at the back door if he finds the door is locked and come in to the restaurant making sure everyone knows that he’s friends with the owners and has special privileges. I’ve often wondered about the revelation that Lee has spent time in Hamilton’s East Avenue “talking” to prostitutes and why he would even do such a thing. But when pressed, Lee will always cite his military service then try to use it to get the upper hand on whomever he is speaking with as if that puts the entire issue to rest. But you can always tell a lot about a person in how they behave in public and his need to bum free meals off restaurant owners working hard to make a living, and coming to the back door to let everyone know that he’s special—or wants people to think he is—says everything you need to know about Ding Dong Lee Wong.

Lee is a natural moocher off the world around him. He looms in the background on everything that happens never taking the lead on anything. He votes as a trustee and has enjoyed riding on the coat tails of the great management that occurred in West Chester with trustees Mark Welch and George Lang formally, and currently Ann Becker. But he has done little himself to do anything to contribute instead looms in the background and mooches off every situation more as a complainer about fairness and advocating constantly for the rights of the Chinese that he baffles people who supposedly know him best. He’s friendly, because he has to be. He has nothing else to offer, certainly not leadership. And he is known as an advocate for policies that are very much related to Democrats rather than for Republicans. He is running as a Republican, but that is only because he knows there is no other path to an elected seat in Butler County than to put on the mask. But legislatively, he votes to the left, and sometimes to the far left. And if you happen to be in Sushi Monk on a night where he walks down from his house which is right behind the restaurant in Beckett Ridge, his manner of social content is obvious even to a political novice.

I am a big fan of Sushi Monk, its ran by nice people who are very good at what they do. What are they supposed to do when a trustee tries to befriend them in the hopes of getting a free meal? They aren’t dumb, they have been locking that back door so Lee has been walking around to the front where everyone else has to come in. But you can feel the arrogance from Lee wherever he is, a sense of entitlement that comes from people who are natural looters off the world around them. And without question that is Lee’s interest in the Ohio Senate seat for the 4th District. Lee will walk around the neighborhoods and shake hands, but what he wants is an easy seat in Columbus that makes him look like a big man, and give him more opportunities for more free meals as a big shot living off the efforts of others.

To validate what I’m saying just watch the countless videos published on the West Chester trustee meetings, he has stood in opposition to just about everything logical that either George or Mark has proposed and has stood in direct opposition with them behaving exactly as a Democrat would. The idea of someone like him even voting in the senate is a terrifying concept. If people think Mitt Romney is bad at the federal level, Lee isn’t even trying to hide it. Not that I think he will come anywhere close to being elected, but there are always some voters who don’t know the candidates who see Lee’s name on a ballot and might think “what the heck, what is there to lose?” Well, let me tell you, Ding Dong Wong is a long way from the right choice. You can go wrong, with Wong.

Knowing a Lee enough I think the only reason he wants the Senate job is for the opportunity at free meals and access to social spots he might not have otherwise. Before it was even Christmas he started putting out the signs for the March primary in his little eco car that no real conservative would be caught dead in, and hoped to get his name out to enough people to surprise the election results. Knowing him and how much he despises George Lang, I’m sure he has fantasies of upsetting him in the primary with a split vote. He dislikes Lang because he’s a pro-business capitalist and Lee is a Chinese anti-Trump sympathizer. He came to a recent Trump rally held in West Chester because he had to, but he has made lots of anti-Trump comments in his years as a trustee that are recorded on those videos to reveal how he really feels. And that is what’s really scary about someone like Ding Dong Wong, they are not what they say they are, but are something other

.

Every time I see Lee in different places I wonder about why he was on East Avenue asking known prostitutes if they were working. I have lived in the area for most of my life and I’m not even sure where East Avenue is. Why would Lee even be there asking such questions? The prostitute who reported him was Robin McDaniel who told Ding Dong Wong “no” because she thought it might be a sting. Lee has denied the allegation, but McDaniel didn’t have any reason to lie about it. Out of all the people in the world, she mentioned Ding Dong, and nobody else. When I think of it the situation sounds just like how Wong came in the back door at Sushi Monk, always a little sneaky, always a little empowered, hiding some dark personality of communist sentiment behind a mask of military service. A spiteful bootlicker as a trustee who takes some grand pleasure at pretending to be a Republican so he can hold office and ruin the plans of real Republicans like George Lang and Mark Welch. It is people like Ding Dong Wong who have always given politics a bad name, and like most Democrats do, they point at everyone else as the villains when it is they patrolling East Avenue looking for “working girls” and sneaking in the back doors of restaurants so that everyone can see that they are privileged because they have power.

I may not think these things about Ding Dong Wong if he didn’t get caught trying to funnel West Chester money into a sidewalk deal of Eagleridge Drive and Eaglet. In that deal Lee colluded with a neighbor of his, a Mr. Cho, to have a crosswalk built at taxpayer expense and he had a second vote for the motion in the long-time liberal Cathy Stoker. It was a simple matter of $4,690.00 dollars to put in the crosswalk, but that’s not the issue. The issue is that Lee has a history of using his office to make his friends happy, and he uses that happiness to gain benefits for himself. He is more in love with the power of an office than in the sacrifice of doing the work. And when questioned he always hides behind a military record that a lot of people have, yet he thinks of it as an immunity card. I think of Ding Dong Lee Wong as one of the most corrupt politicians running for any office in Ohio. And if voters aren’t careful, they’ll wake up one night to a ding dong at their back door, and what they’ll find there is Lee Wong singing a song of benefits for office access, and they’ll find themselves in a very uncomfortable position.

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Rich Hoffman

George Lang: The Magnificent future Senator of Ohio

While the President of the United States was in Iowa getting in front of the Democrat primaries there, there was a rally in West Chester that had more people at it than the averages of all the Democrat presidential candidates have at any of their rallies. Joe Biden would have considered himself lucky to have so many people gather anywhere he is at, let alone people coming to gather in his honor even though he wasn’t even there. Yet that was what happened with Trump, the supporters of Butler County were willing to wait in line and give respect to the President even when he’s 500 miles away in a completely different state. And that includes politicians like George Lang who is currently a member of the Ohio House of Representatives running for the senate. George Lang has supported Donald Trump well before the Republican primaries of 2016 even had their first vote, so he certainly wasn’t going to miss a rally for the President taking place in his home district even while the House was locked in a procedural stalemate. Lang persuaded leadership to let him leave the chamber and drive from Columbus to West Chester in time to give this very energized speech. After the event was over, George headed back to Columbus to conclude his work with the House and it is people like this who have emerged in such a positive way in American politics with Trump leading the way in the White House.

George Lang has always been magnificent and full of abundant energy. However, he has never had the opportunity to be so effective as he has since Donald Trump has been elected. In the speech he gave at the Trump rally he was able to distinguish a bit why he was elected to the House and is such a front runner in the Senate, he used to be a trustee in West Chester which thrived under his leadership. West Chester under Lang’s pro-business policies has thrived into a wonderland of business, entertainment, and a residential paradise, one of the truly best places to live in all of America, and therefor the world. Given the energy he has for whatever job he plunges himself into, George Lang excels and everyone he touches benefits. In that way he is truly magnificent. He understands that its not government that gives people opportunity, but that it’s the job of the politician to get government out of the way of progress as much as possible so that the individual can think, create, and bring forth the wonders of their imaginations.

During Lang’s speech he spoke about the timeline of progress stating that society might have had many new inventions much sooner in life than with government always standing in the way. Of course he’s speaking about the very important journey from Aristotle to the Founding Fathers and how human intelligence had evolved away from kingship to the wonders of a Thomas Edison inventing new things every couple of days at the end of the 19th century. Not everyone is so inclined to be such a contributor, but any productive society wants to set up the conditions for uniqueness to spring forward and to thrive under the protection of a stable society. If government has a job it is to create that stability, but certainly not to micromanage people into bureaucratic compliance to out of touch politicians. George Lang has always understood what the true role of government should be and West Chester has thrived under his leadership and divine energy.

That same energy was on full display at the Trump rally with the events of his very busy day, starting out early with House business and an important vote to end at the Trump rally, only to finish off back in Columbus to resume business without complaint or any measure of apathy. George Lang is a tireless warrior for the innovative, the creative, and the diligent business leaders not just wanting to make money for their companies and employees, but to extend their personal risk into operations of a chance that wouldn’t be possible under any other form of government but the supporter who seeks to remove regulation and barriers giving more time and investment to new business creation. With that kind of approach West Chester has created a climate where new business investment has been willing to give new birth to strip malls like the ones that Kroger moves out of to make new, magnificent Marketplace stores only to leave behind shells of smaller buildings now vacant, like a crab leaving behind a smaller shell only to take on the form of a larger creature. In West Chester most of the time new business concepts move into those smaller shells to take advantage of the very friendly business climate, such as The Web near Lakota East, and The Antique Mall that moved into the old Biggs location. Other communities struggle to keep their real estate fresh and exciting, but due to Lang’s very friendly pro-business environment and his ability to help build the next generation of trustees in West Chester, this land of economic paradise continues to grow in positive ways, under the invisible hand of innovation and sheer creativity free of too much government intervention.

Many of us aren’t trained to think in such a way, that better results come from less government. Our education institutions teach us the opposite, but history has shown that the true path is the one that George Lang understands, less is more and unbridled energy is contagious. That is what separates Lang from the pack of ankle biters who constantly are trying to peck at him into slowing down long enough for them to catch up. But Lang is a tireless warrior of intellect and passion. The candidates running against him for the upcoming primary are either rock throwers who have no other pages in their playbook or they are social butterflies who think they can shake hands with enough people to get a free lunch. They are not at the caliber of George Lang and they are well aware of it. You didn’t see them speaking at a Trump rally, and you certainly don’t see them with backstage pictures with President Trump, essentially because like minds gravitate toward each other and George Lang and Donald Trump are essentially likeminded personalities who occasionally find each other in the chaos of government driven conformity as change agents seeking to reverse that trend. Trump has now been doing on a national scale what George Lang has been doing for decades in West Chester, promoting a pro-business climate, going against the bureaucrat class who simply want to tie everyone’s hands with more unthoughtful regulation, and inspiring individuals to take leadership positions in their own lives instead of waiting for someone who never comes to provide it for them. Empowerment is the theme of this new age of politics and like Donald Trump, George Lang is one of the original creators.

So for more reasons than just to give a speech, George Lang rushed to West Chester to be with fellow Trump supporters to rally for tomorrow’s new opportunities and to cast a wide net of optimism on the future itself. With all the hope for what’s best about people, George Lang enjoys empowering people to do what’s best for them, which then becomes what’s best for their community decided by market need, not some stuffy regulator afraid of their own shadows and in essence, that is a remarkable opportunity we all have, to have people like George Lang as options on a voter card, and Donald Trump who with such boyish optimism can put the world on their backs and carry them over mountains of red tape to a land of opportunity that was always there, only we could not see it for the mess presented to us. That is why George is so magnificent, its because he has never learned to fail, never accepted less than his dreams, and is in spite of many barriers given to him in his own life never yielded to them. And the result is this fantastic man who is willing to give to everyone who can vote for him the opportunities for unlimited fulfilment if only they would dare enough to say yes to it.

Rich Hoffman

A Miracle in West Chester: People brought together to cheer on a president who wasn’t even there

As there was an event dedicated to President Trump held by a combination of people important to the re-election actions needed in 2020, I was reminded of some of the more subtle realities of leadership management that don’t get talked about much. To comment that there was a Trump rally in West Chester, Ohio that drew a very large crowd, and he wasn’t even there says a lot about just how good this president is in ways that modern academia is clueless about. They can’t teach this kind of leadership effect at West Point, or any institution of learning, because the contents of its power are so elusive that it is beyond the measurement of modern methods. But I have come to understand it in my own way, the nature of influence leadership and just how important it is into shaping the world that we know. Even with all the attacks against President Trump, and the attempts to prevent the inevitable that comes from his raw enthusiasm for everyday life, I have watched his remote influence shape directly the lives of a cast of characters I have known within the Republican Party in such positive ways that it has been almost magical, straight out of a Disney movie.

Locally within Butler County where Republicanism is almost a regional consideration, the values have not always been aligned. I was reminded at that same event by several people that the Butler County Republican Party supported John Kasich during the last election, and we all watched that character fall from grace completely, and totally making himself a national embarrassment along the way as he made a hard left on the political spectrum almost toward the death and resurrection of Karl Marx himself. Even for me, I had been in conflict with many of the people celebrating the Presidency of Donald Trump. We all had differences rooted in positions along that political spectrum, yet at the event, we were all friends united by a common love, and understanding that Trump brings to everything he does, and that is the element that makes him so good. He unites as all leaders do people’s attention toward the obscure and they love him for it.

Even now, I see that the person I had been supporting for Senate, Jim Renacci has conflict with the current governor of Ohio Mike DeWine. I could tell similar stories about many people attending the West Chester Trump Rally on January 30, 2020. There were people there who had been at each other’s throats in years before, myself included, but with a little Chick-Fil-A offered up as a food option and a lot of positive sentiment directed toward the stage where current politicians reminisced about the Trump presidency, there was great love born from the experience where those differences melted away like a spoonful of butter on hot pancakes in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It was quite something to witness.

I have been warning many who have been in the fight for a long time not to become too in love with the thrill of the fight, and the nature of conflict, because at some point there will be a unifying circumstance that will bring everyone together as friends again. So its important to be open to that friendship when it gives rise to the opportunity. Its also important not to put away the weapons of war too deep into the closet either. Just because everyone has found unity in an idea, conflict is still the bond that creates future friends and pushes for the development of new frontiers of thought. Sipping tea and conversing over lattés doesn’t get you there. Team building comes directly out of people unified by necessity and war still is the most unifying function that can focus people’s attention on the things that connect them, not what divides. Part of the reason the Democrats are so floundering to find solutions for themselves these days is that they have used an attempted need to create hatred for President Trump to move their base forward, perhaps in the way that the Tea Party movement thought of Obama. The problem is, President Trump is a very likeable person and he has managed to unify nearly the entire spectrum of the Republican Party into a happy family, maybe as much as would ever be possible, and he has done it in a remarkably short period of time.

I was part of many conversations in those early days of Trump among those same Republicans, many whom supported Kasich for President, or Ted Cruz types. Some of us still had old war wounds from political endeavors where we all weren’t in agreement, particularly on public union issues. But under the pro-growth policies of the Trump approach to things, many of those concerns have been crushed under the sheer optimism of a Dow Jones marker near 30,000. I think it’s a lot to ask of any expectation, but if we can’t get politicians to agree on cutting out the fat in their budgets, Trump has chosen to think big and grow our way out of it. Even for me, I can see a path that will deal with the national debt in the next term as all these pro-growth strategies will begin operating in the black. That doesn’t solve the problem of debt spending by a government out of control, but the Trump solution of solving part of it with sheer growth has put the knives back in their sheaths and allow friendships to spring forth once again on unified fronts. That doesn’t mean that constructive conflict won’t continue, but perhaps instead of slit throats it will only be arm wrestling.

The media seemed to have difficulty understanding the story of this Trump Rally in West Chester, because as they kept saying, Butler County is Trump Country. What’s so big about a rally there with or without him. Where is the news? Of course, the prejudice from newsroom directors is obvious, they could find a story in a cat stuck in a tree, so their choice is not to give any positive news to the public about anything Trump does. But their boycott on logic went deeper to that, to an almost subconscious understanding of this leadership issue, and that the Democrats just don’t have an equal. But outside of the conflicts of politics, the story is in the long reaching effects of good leadership and how unifying it can be in obtaining goals everyone can agree on. That to my eyes is a miracle of modern splendor nearly unheard of in the history of the world. It was a good story to see, so many wild and woolly Republicans of all different backgrounds and needs unified in such a wonderful way, that was a news story that should have made front page news in any other time. But because the other side doesn’t have a comparable advocate, the results are being ignored in hopes that the greater world might not yet be touched by such a miracle. And to know the characters involved in this shin dig in West Chester, calling it a miracle is an understatement. Yet former enemies were now friends, and the seething combat that often takes place on Facebook and during fierce campaigns was now cheers for a president far away in Washington D.C., not even there to shake hands and pump his fist to the crowd, and that was something to behold for the prosperity of all time to witness.

Rich Hoffman

I Fully endorse George Lang for the Senate District 4 seat in Ohio

I was quite excited to learn that George Lang was running for the Senate seat that Bill Coley had been occupying in Ohio for several years. The seat itself was terming out and George let me know that on Monday at noon he was going to announce his run for it, and it brought a lot of joy to me. I first learned of his candidacy while on vacation with my family in Charleston, South Carolina touring sites that many were reviewing as the best in the world. I kept hearing while on my weeklong stay in Charleston that this neighborhood, this beach, this restaurant, this shipping lane, this and that were the best anywhere. I had to admit that everything was very nice. Property values were certainly great, and shipping vessels seemed to come into the harbor every 30 minutes loaded to their max. Even at 3 in the morning from our Mt Pleasant home I could hear the cranes working and I found all that economic activity very exciting. Yet the town of Mt Pleasant across the harbor from downtown Charleston was quiet and very chic at that time of night, just as it was all other hours of the day. The people there were prosperous and happy, no crime was in sight. Prosperity tends to do that to a community. So I was a little sad to leave and come home, but then for comparison as my family hit Cincinnati starting at Florence then going up I-71 to avoid the traffic on I-75 it was a startling comparison which culminated into our last moments of the journey travelling down Butler County Regional Highway where for as far as the eye could see, there was prosperity, especially in West Chester. After coming from an extremely wealthy area full of vibrant economic activity, it was obvious that my hometown of Butler County, Ohio was even greater and that is something the rest of the nation hasn’t been talking about. And for the last twenty years, it was my friend George Lang who has had a tremendous hand in that success, which was why I was elated that he was running for that Ohio Senate seat.

It goes without saying then that I endorse George Lang for the Senate District 4 seat in Ohio, fully. I could tell stories all day about why he’s qualified, but the best part of his resume is in this opening paragraph. I had spent a week in one of America’s most prosperous communities and coming directly home to West Chester, where I work, and Liberty Township where I live it becomes obvious that we have it better than most anywhere else in the country and that is due to the very pro-business environment that Lang has championed for many years starting as a trustee in West Chester. Even when Lang was outvoted 2 to 1 on most issues in West Chester by the much more liberal trustees who were there at the time, Lee Wong being one of them, George managed to be a change agent for the betterment of business and the results are obvious today, and the spill over has poured over into neighboring Liberty Township and other regions connected directly to West Chester very positively.

I remember well when George benefited from Mark Welch getting elected into that second trustee seat knocking out a longtime incumbent so that a second vote could be obtained, and real growth could occur for business. For a few years George Lang and Mark Welch opened West Chester to a very positive pro-business culture that is now carrying over into our current conditions which rival any of the best in the entire country and now George wants to bring that culture to all of Ohio. When George was elected into the 52nd House of Representative seat, this was his ultimate goal which he has been working toward. However, as a Senator, he will have much greater leverage to make that pro-business platform more prominent and to take it above the noise of all the other political matters that permeate the state.

George really doesn’t have any competition for this spot, his rivals during the upcoming primary are Candice Keller out of Middletown, who I think is a wonderful person. But when it comes to experience, George has many of the same positions as her on conservative ideas, but his understanding of business and his pro-business platform just puts him on a higher level. Then as I’ve said about Lee Wong, he’s the kind of guy who is a liberal in a conservative area. He has no choice but to run as a Republican. His policy decisions are very much that of a Democrat. If he were running for office in Hamilton County or even Dayton, he’d be a Democrat without question. It was Lee who stood in the way of many of the growth ideas that George wanted to implement in West Chester. I seem to remember Wong’s campaign slogan was that you “Couldn’t go wrong with Wong.” Well, yes you can, in a big way. He’s a nice guy but he’s not on the level of Lang, in any category. In many ways Lee stood in the way of growth, it was George and Mark who broke through his resistance to give West Chester the great prosperity that it sees today.

So, if there is a theme to all this, management does matter and who we elect into these positions has a major impact on all our lives. Obviously in Charleston South Carolina they have a lot of good things going on. Essentially there they have a deep and rich history to draw from which has put politics on the efforts of preserving that history, and not getting in the way of businesses wanting to capitalize off that deep history. In West Chester, Ohio the situation was harder, while Butler County does have a great history going back to before the Revolution, just as Charleston does, we had to be good the old-fashioned way, in the middle of the country with great highway access. We needed our politicians to make the most of those advantages with low cost compliance and protections on upfront investment for businesses. In West Chester, George Lang alone for a long time, then later with a good support staff from a very good Republican Party presence, have created an economic boom that plugs straight into the Trump administration. There is a reason that President Trump enjoys coming to the southern Ohio area so much, and George Lang is more a part of that success than just about anybody. Not in what he has done, but in what he hasn’t.

Most politicians measure their success by what bills they sponsor and ultimately by how much they grow government. In George’s case, it’s the opposite, he measures his success by how much he can get government out of the way of business, allowing them to spend their time and energy on being profitable, which then allows a high quality of living for everyone. For people who have lived in the Butler County area for many years, its easy to take for granted just how good it is. But if you have traveled, the benefits are obvious in comparison. I am very excited to see George Lang do for Ohio as a Senator what he has done for West Chester. I personally think Ohio has an opportunity to become one of the great economic powerhouses of the world and it will take people like George to make it happen. So he has my endorsement and then some. I simply can’t wait to get him in that seat so he can start the work, for which we will all benefit.

 

Rich Hoffman

 

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Rush Run Farms: How to make taking a shower much more exciting

Obviously it takes a lot to impress me, but once I do get excited about something, I tend to have explosive enthusiasm about the topic.  So when my sister-in-law whom I’ve known since she was a very little girl told me she was starting a signature soap business—I sort of glazed over on the topic.  After all, soap is soap—right?  Well, she and her husband have this really cool farm just south of Dry Ridge, Kentucky where I sometimes go so we can shoot some of our big guns and I noticed a series of boxes where they were growing some unique items.  After a little probing Nikki told me that it was for her business.  I shrugged my shoulders, loaded my guns and shot for the rest of the afternoon not thinking much of it.  After all, I’m a guy—using soap is like a two-minute operation for me.  But then on Christmas she gave my wife and I a nice little present featuring her soaps and that’s when I could see how much craftsmanship and passion she was putting into this business.  Her product to my experience was far superior to what they were selling at Bed Bath and Beyond and I thought she was on to something.  Here is a description of her work from the website of her soap business, Rush Run Farm.

We are Nikki and Brian McAllister, proud owners of Rush Run Farm.  Here at the farm, we believe in nature’s beautiful simplicity.  Our farm is host to an organically grown herb garden including eight different varieties of Lavender (Munstead, Jean Davis, Vera, Miss Katherine, Sachet, Hidcote, Sarah, Grosso, and White Grosso), two varieties of Rosemary (Arp Rosemary and Madeline Hill Rosemary),  and four varieties of mint (Kentucky Colonel Spearmint, Lavender Mint, Peppermint, and Orange Mint),  These organically grown herbs are used to make our Kentucky handcrafted all-natural soaps.  Stay tuned to watch our garden grow!

Our Soap Shop will feature our signature soaps such as:  Mint Julep Soap, Derby Soap, and Horse Feed Soap.  We use only the finest, purest, most natural ingredients we can find.  All of our base oils and butters are certified organic.  Every step of our soap making process has been carefully thought out to minimize any type of toxins being introduced.  We DO NOT use any plastics of any kind as BPA, phthalates, and other toxins could leach into the soap.  Our molds are made out of unstained wood.  We only use glass, stainless steel, silicone, unbleached parchment paper, and painters tape in our process.  We want your soap to be as pure as can be.

In our Craft Corner, we will be offering Kentucky handmade crafts made from recycled materials from the original farmhouse on our property.  We will also use natural elements found on our farm to make our crafts.  Here in Kentucky, we have a unique heritage and defining character.  We hope our store will bring a little bit of Kentucky to you!

https://www.rushrunfarm.com/store/c1/Featured_Products.html

As we all know in business there are three basic kinds of manufacture, mass production, lean, and then there’s craft.  Craft production is certainly what Nikki is doing.  After using her product I can testify that it is like driving a Lamborghini as opposed to a Lincoln MKZ, or a Toyota Camry—only its soap instead of a car.  The soaps have a feel to them that feels exotic and makes you feel special for using them.  Of the cars mentioned all of them are nice of course, the Lincoln is a product of mass production, the Camry of Lean, and the Lamborghini of craft where all the components are handmade and put together by a small team heavily specialized mechanics.  What Nikki and her husband are doing are hand making the ingredients of these soaps to bring craft production into the execution of their product which then carries over into the daily routine of personal body maintenance.  In a world where we tend to take things like body maintenance for granted, Nikki was onto something with her Rush Run Farm product line, and I was proud of her for taking things to that next very important step—moving from conception to execution.

So if you are looking for a last-minute gift idea for Christmas, check out the link to her site and pick up some of her offerings.  Her product line is unique enough to break the ice on those sometimes awkward Christmas gift exchanges where you want to give someone something special, but don’t have time to do anything but swing by the mall to get something quick—then feel bad about it because you meant to do something more personal.  A visit to Nikki’s Rush Run Farm website is just the thing for that unique gift item.  And if you are looking for a volume purchase, tell her you know me and see if she won’t cut you a deal.  It’s one of those things you can’t go wrong on, because she actually makes soap exciting.  And that is quite an extraordinary task!

Nikki is originally from the West Chester area graduating from high school at Lakota.  After a short modeling career that had New York agents seeking her out, she attended Ohio State then moved south where she met her husband.  They have been very successful literally as power brokers in energy commodities.   After turning 40 they made a decision to invest in the farm south of Dry Ridge from their original home in Louisville and have been directing their life in that direction finding a passion they both could share.  So it’s nice to see people pursuing their dreams, but it’s even better when those dreams use the method of craft production to make taking a shower much more exciting and the after effect of how you feel once you have been cleaned and pampered to a point that makes you feel unique.  I think she’s onto something special so I hope she does well with it and sticks with it until it’s a household name.  Nikki is a neat person, not just because she’s my sister-in-law.  I admire her tenacity and her endless optimism.  And best of all, she voted for Trump—and she’s not afraid to tell you about it.

Rich Hoffman
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