The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

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Good morning and thank you for joining me for the scoop with Tanya flat again. I'm so happy you decided to wake up and start your day with me. Here on the scoop, where we talk about life, joy, funny moments, trending topics, and so much more. We promise to keep you in the know and find out what you know. So let's get started.

Unknown Speaker 0:46
Good morning. Good morning. Good morning Las Vegas on Welcome to a another episode of the scoop here on K you envy 91.5 Public Radio, we are broadcasting so proudly from the campus of UNLV. And so happy that you are up to Sunday morning to join us. We are in the throes of Black History Month. And I thought it would be super cool this month to try to shine the spotlight as much as possible on contributions of African American and an African American culture and how it has shaped our society. So this morning, I am talking with none other than the incomparable Robin Kelsey west of Nehemiah ministries here in Las Vegas. And we're going to talk about his life, his story, and what I'm going to call his legacy. Before we jump into all of that, let me say good morning, and welcome to Reverend West.

Unknown Speaker 1:37
Good morning, it's such an honor to be on the show in the spin this Sunday morning with you thank you so much for having me.

Unknown Speaker 1:45
And now Sunday's are a busy day for you. So I'm glad that we could carve out a little bit of time before you jump into everything and get into the space with your congregation and deliver the message. So thank you for stealing some time away from your parishioners. I'm grateful to you for your generosity in that space. So much. Thank you, as I mentioned, and we all know is Black History Month and I said something about your legacy. And 31 going on 32 years ago and correct me if I have my numbers wrong. You found it the unity through knowledge, historical black college tour. And I want to talk a little bit this month, this Sunday about the contributions of African Americans. And I feel like you've done a lot of things and you have a number of awards. But this is a huge legacy. So tell us a little bit introduce yourself to the community. For those who don't know who you are, you are just a phenomenal servant.

Unknown Speaker 2:49
Well, thank you. And let me just share this. It was actually 2929 years ago, we've hosted 27 tours in 29 years, we didn't do a tour 911. We didn't do a tour during COVID. But we have been blessed to host little over 3000 students. And we've taken them on tours to visit our HBCUs. To date, we have four tours for students and start with us their freshman year, and go on for tours prior to graduating. And so it has just been a tremendous honor and joy. We're now second generation, I have students of former students going on the tour. And every time I'm in a tour meeting, I have to fight back to tears because I just can't believe that we've been blessed with this type of consistency.

Unknown Speaker 3:39
I think it says I mean, it's an awesome concept. So what we're talking about is Robin Kelsey West, makes available to families here in the Valley. And even to people who don't live here, you can do this for children who are in grades nine through 12. So their freshman into their senior years in high school, he makes available an opportunity to go on a one week tour of a variety of historically black colleges and universities. And you have been doing you've done this 29 times for over 3000 students. So you first had this idea if I'm not mistaken, you established this in 1993 1994. So where did the idea come from? Because I also want to talk about something else that you did but where did this idea the

Unknown Speaker 4:34
this came this came from? I'm originally from Michigan, Pontiac, Michigan, and I wasn't in the marching band but a lot of my friends were in the marching band which meant they they were recruited by HBCUs. So I had friends at HBCUs and I moved to Las Vegas to attend and later graduate from UNLV. However, being in Las Vegas, I will see students go away in kind I'm back home. And then when I started interviewing those students, they told me, it was the culture shock. first light bulb, I had to look at my transition Michigan in Las Vegas, it was a culture shock. So let's put a tour together, let's help students see what it looks like. And that in our tagline has always been, we want to help students see what a different world really looks like at our HBCUs. And so it was really just just a just an idea to expose that the key word for us is exposure.

Unknown Speaker 5:37
And that is so awesome. And I say that because I came out and I'm dating myself now. I finished high school around ADA. So okay, when it was time for me to apply the question surface, and I went to high school in Arizona and Phoenix, but the questions began to arise about HBCUs, there was a little bit of conversation. And I'm making the comparison, because Las Vegas is a western city, just like Phoenix is a western city, right? So you have some African Americans, but you don't have a huge number. But here, I think, per capita, there's always more African Americans visibly than what you find in Phoenix. So there isn't a lot of information about HBCUs at the point in time that you start this. So hailing from Michigan, from the East Coast, also made a difference, because you have that perspective, because there just wasn't a conversation, you couldn't get information back. I remember reaching out to get information from like Howard and my parents were both from Mississippi. So Jackson State, the Jackson, you know, how they say the Jackson, the I love or whatever, right, you could not get information. And then schools had specializations. So you almost needed to know what you needed to be so sure of what you were going to major in. Because if you weren't very sure, there were very few HBCUs that were considered spaces you could go into and change your mind. Because knowledge is a discovery experience. So bringing this information to light at a time when the understanding or awareness of HBCUs unless someone had family members from the south, or parents or someone or someone uncle, who had gone on before them to attend HBCU. So I'm sure people were looking at you like what?

Unknown Speaker 7:38
Yeah, and I mean, this is this is so watch, this is what I had working against me. I was 24. With my first tour, I was still the student at UNLV when I hosted my first HBCU tour, and then not being a graduate from an HBCU almost made people territorial. And so I'm grateful that our track record started to be established real quick. And I started to earn the trust of our school district counselors, parents, and really, that's who I give the most credit to the parents coming back every year letting other parents know, you should send your child on this trip. But in the beginning, I remember people in our community telling me, You're wasting your time people aren't going to sign up, people are not going to invest. My first tour was 47 students. Now we're averaging three, three classes. So 150 students is our average now.

Unknown Speaker 8:42
Wow. I mean, that's phenomenal. I was looking at some information and seeing that you your maximum number of participants is around 156 and the least number you've ever done is like I would do is like 25 I think it is just a beautiful, give back a beautiful give back now. You also it's not just the tour though for a week more happens and goes into this because you're trying to create a space of awareness and education about the process because kids going off to college is also a space where you is your first introduction to becoming an adult and making adult decisions thinking for yourself waking up managing your money managing your time like it's not you know high school no one's gonna be there Mom's not there to wake you up in the morning and tell you to get up get dressed and have some breakfast and make sure monitor that you get out the house on time because you know my friends would would tease me and I had like the epitome of a mama we all think our mother is the greatest person in the world. I think no less of my mom, may she rest in peace. But my mother was always making me breakfast even when I was 25 and came back home after my first intern job after college and then I moved away as a reporter to watch Washington State and came back home and did some work in Arizona before I moved here. And my mother literally will make me breakfast every morning when I say breakfast, I mean, pancakes.

Unknown Speaker 10:13
Every day, I understand I was blessed to have a mom as well and a mother random. I had breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yes, right understand, on the plate with the breakfast, but nobody

Unknown Speaker 10:26
is waking you up in college. So when you get to college, you just you know, if you stay up too late, or you go to the party, or you don't get the paper done, or you don't show up in class. It's not. It's the days of where are you are over. So in this space, you're also teaching them about what's going to come with The Collegiate space and experience in terms of independence, and self reliance. So how does that How long do the workshops, those workshops, right, we

Unknown Speaker 10:55
start, we start, June of every year, I started meeting with students and parents so so our calendar, we have now set toward June, around August, I started meeting with students and parents when they have monthly workshops. So from August until March or April, depending upon when spring break falls, we're preparing them for the tour. And so I transition from a pastor to an old school professor, because I want them to understand time management, money management, self management. And so they have an itinerary they know five o'clock wake up call eight o'clock, you need to be on the bus, eight to one you're late. Money management, what percentage of your money do you have left? Why don't you buy those sneakers. And now you're you've thrown off your budget, self management, we have nightly, late night discussions. And we encourage students if you know you need to be in a session, don't follow your roommates back to the room, enroll in the extracurricular course you need. So the tour is really a nonstop college prep experience. From the moment they get to the airport, they're working on something to earn a free trip or book scholarship. And so I just share with them just like you know, in the real world you don't know who's watching. Have no idea we give scholarships away for most ingenio, the kid who says the morning every day, we give scholarships to the kid who has the best portfolio because all of our kids, we encourage them to assemble a professional portfolio. And so if it's a real college prep experience,

Unknown Speaker 12:45
I think it is just phenomenal. Thank you, thank you because it's those are like the hands on things that kids really need when they find themselves in that independent space for school. So it seems like right on time that you would touch on those very things the time the self management and money.

Unknown Speaker 13:06
Yes, ma'am. That has, that has been the heartbeat, the foundation of the tour. I've always been a fan of television shows. And so I like competitions. And so took a page from the apprentice. And so the rooms, the rooms are actually your roommates become your teammates. And so they're working on marketing campaigns. They're learning marketing, not even knowing that's what they're doing for weeks.

Unknown Speaker 13:39
So how do the parents fit into the equation because for these types of programs to be successful, it's an all in everyone's on the team. So students or their mom and dad or their mom or dad,

Unknown Speaker 13:52
the how parents help his parents come into the meetings, being engaged, ask some questions, or being in support of the program, understanding that I do have strict rules. And just being supportive. That understanding is college prep. So we may be in a workshop until the wee hours of the morning with an early wake up call. Welcome to College. But there is no way I could be in a hotel with 150 kids wired and just not having something constructive for them to do. So every night. Every night. They know there's there's a group project of some sort.

Unknown Speaker 14:34
I love that because you are talking about being aware and then you want it to be fun for them too because it's their spring break week. So we asked that question for those of you who are out there wondering when does this take place is every year during spring when spring break falls for the students here

Unknown Speaker 14:51
let me let me let me share this real quick on the fun side, the fun side. So our tours are we fly into a city so we You have four tours, DC, Virginia, Maryland. We have North and South Carolina, which is our upcoming tour. We have a Georgia, Alabama, Florida. And then we have a Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi. You're touring, you're touring colleges, but I want this to be the highlight of high school. So last tour we finished at Cowboys Stadium playing football on the field. We went to the potter's house with Bishop J. And he gave us an hour and a half of him just sitting with our students. We gone to Six Flags, we've been in Atlanta and taking the kids to cascades roller rink. When we're in DC, we see everything, because I want the kids to understand just how precious moments are. And so if there's something that we can see, I try to happen.

Unknown Speaker 15:55
I think that is phenomenal. So you say there's four tours. So does that mean that at different points in the year the tours are happening? No, no.

Unknown Speaker 16:03
So I have four tours that rotate. So a freshman if you start with the freshman year, do all four. Okay, I see. So by the time you're three years, you can make a solid selection because you've been to, you know, almost 30 Plus campuses. And it's not just the campuses, you know, I want them to see the area around the campus. We have kids never been to the country. So you're going to Grambling but you do know Grantland shuts down at a certain time. Do know, Walmart is not walking distance, you do not you need to get on the shuttle to go to church.

Unknown Speaker 16:47
So this is such a wonderful experience for the kids. Because they're there for a week. But it is spring break. And so they're having such a good time. But you want them to not feel like they've lost all of that on on a tour. So in the evenings you were talking about you. You do fun things with them. So tell me more about the activities that go on during the week in addition to the traditional parts of the tour.

Unknown Speaker 17:11
Oh yes. And so one of the highlights of our tour is whether we're at Six Flags or cascade skating rink or playing football at AT and T Stadium, home with the Dallas Cowboys. I love to expose them to those wild moments. DC, you know, making sure we touch all of the monuments, taking kids to the zoo, and having them come be honest about the fact they've never been to the zoo. And so it's those moments. The last time we were in DC going to the African American Museum, and having kids tell me read at first, I didn't want to spend five hours in a museum. Now I wish I had five more hours. And so it's those moments, it's the late night meetings where kids will tell me Rev. Can't sleep. Let's have another discussion. Can we pick another topic. And so those are the moments where the tour becomes more than a tour. Or when kids who didn't know somebody later write me and say read my roommate at Spelman is the person I met on the tour. So it's those moments where you just go, you know, this was really an act

Unknown Speaker 18:27
of God. Yeah, that's really a wonderful life. It's just a life changing, changing experience, because they are introduced to unforgettable things that they'll never forget to have included in your spring break and opportunity to be in the DC area and to visit the monuments and to go to the African American Smithsonian or any of the Smithsonian's. I mean, I've been to DC many times that it is just fun not to I think the last time I was there, I went to the Library of Congress. And it was in Utah, it's like you don't have enough hours. So I can only imagine how the students feel being exposed to these different things that are one of a kind. And once in a lifetime. It's just so powerful. And the lives you've changed over the years. So I mean, if my child is a freshman and the freshman, sophomore, junior senior year, spring break is an unforgettable journey every year of high school. And that is just a phenomenal it. That's it. It's beautiful that you thought of this, and that God gave you the foresight to do it. And you have the energy and the ingenuity to stick it out. Despite the naysayers who said, hey, you know that won't work. Your life is a testament. That's right. So that's what I say thank you for doing it. How can people I want to make sure that we really give people time to write down information, where they can find information on what the tour is about how to reach You had to sign up for information to come to them and keep them abreast of when dates and deadlines are arriving.

Unknown Speaker 20:07
Yes, our website www dot 32nd street.us. That's the number three the number two, in like Nancy D like David s like Sam t like Tom got us. 32nd street.us is how people can learn all about our tours, we announced them four years in advance. They can also call me direct 702-860-6638. I welcome community supporters and sponsors. I do have a waiting list. For chaperones. I have a team of people who have been working with me for a long time they understand the program. But as we expand that make room for more. I

Unknown Speaker 20:54
saw the opportunity to be a chaperone. And I was curious. I'm glad you mentioned that because I wanted to touch on that while we were talking. And also the 32nd street, I want people to understand the connection between that as well. So what is that about the 32nd street that name because 32nd street theater when I and I've known you for a number of years, we've worked on some community projects together. Thank you for your work with Susan G. Komen. I'm always proud of that collaborative as a breast cancer survivor and thankful for your contribution and time and energy that you gave to that endeavor when I was there, working with that organization as well, that you found time. So thank you so much for that. But 32nd street theater, I read while I was doing some research on you that you have a playwright background, there's an interest in the arts, theatrical arts. So this man of many talents, many hats, what's that about? I have a little bit more time because I do want to let people know about this part of your

Unknown Speaker 22:00
walking walking distance from where we are here at UNLV is the Clark County Library. And so when I was in college, I just started writing plays, I was raised my mom expose me to the black and white. Watch Shirley Temple, the Nicholas brothers tap dancing. So and then she used to take me to play as I remember seeing Peter Pan as a little boy. And so I have a theater background. And so I was able to write and produce for original project. My last project was a tribute to the music of Marvin Gaye. And so we packed out the Clark County Library theater, it seats 450 In this pre social media, we talked in street marketing. I had no but I had a script, no budget, but um, but we were able to pack out that theater.

Unknown Speaker 22:55
So when did you start doing like, like, how young were you when you did the place and got into that space?

Unknown Speaker 23:00
So So watch this. That was right before the tour began.

Unknown Speaker 23:04
So you were 24 when you started the tour, so 2223 When you started the play, right?

Unknown Speaker 23:09
That's right. 22 To 24 writing plays 2424 I start doing HBCU tours. 26 I say yes to ministry. 34 I say yes to pastoring. And so that's that's the timeline.

Unknown Speaker 23:29
That's the beautiful life journey too. But I have to ask at any point did you feel because you had to feel overwhelmed, you know, we are called to do things. And often it's frightening to be called in, you're laying there at night and you're not sleeping. Because this thought it's on your mind. This thing is tugging at you.

Unknown Speaker 23:50
How all the time all the time, all the time. I have that feeling all the time. And so I have to have people around me that helped me relax, people who you know, just understand, you know, there's a heavy call on my life. And so I have to avoid unnecessary stress. But every day, I never know I never know who's calling and what the next opportunity is.

Unknown Speaker 24:19
But it has been a great journey for you. It has been a tremendous

Unknown Speaker 24:23
Oh, I give God I give God all praise, honor and glory for allowing a little kid from Pontiac, Michigan, who was once bullied. A young man who when I came to Las Vegas, I was expelled before I graduated, and so it's just been a great journey.

Unknown Speaker 24:44
I want to say thank you to for being allowing your life to be a testament and being so transparent. Because you I have seen you speak in the community as well and you are so transparent. You are so there to say this is what I've gone through. This is how I responded to it. This is why it matters. Here's who it helps. And here's who I hope I help in the future. And here's how it helped me. And I think that is just a tremendous amount of selflessness. Because a lot of times we go through things. We're not always willing to share what we've gone through without realizing that by sharing, we usually you're helping someone who's in a space that we don't even know about. That's right. Yeah. So I want to say thank you for that.

Unknown Speaker 25:28
No, thank you. That's, that's my honor. I truly believe, you know, even you know, when you and I are stories, you know, you sharing that you're a survivor. Yeah, you're a hero to me, You're a hero to others. And if you keep that in mind, how many people how many people are affected through our silence? You

Unknown Speaker 25:48
know, you're right. It took me the third bout with breast cancer to realize that I remember the first time, the first time I was diagnosed, and I just come to work. I was working for Clark County. And I was attending victory in Pastor Robert Fowler. May he rest in peace? Yes, yes. He came to my office. And he said, and so pastor fella came to my office, and he said to me, what do you think God is trying to tell you? And honestly, at the time, I was young, it was my first diagnosis. I was surprised by it. I just wanted to move through and get past it. And I was like, I don't know. And he waken something in me to like, I've never really stopped thinking about that. And then came the second diagnosis. The third diagnosis, I said, You know what, I think I want to get involved, I lost my mom to disease. And I decided to find a way to work in the community to give back and that was kind of how the efforts with komen but really more the grassroots outreach, because it was any radio show any talk any opportunity, anyone can call, anything I can give you that will help you and your family manage as best as it is as best as it can manage to navigate through the stress and the pain that comes with a cancer diagnosis and how that impacts the family. And it just became a space to help other people. So I completely get and you know why it's so important to take our stories, our testimonies, and to allow them to transform us into a space that is service. But as our clock ticks out this morning, I want to say thank you for spending some time with me. And I pray you have a wonderful rest of the day. I know you're gonna bless so many people today in this week. Thank you. Real quick again. 32nd Street Theater, the Yes, unity through knowledge historical black college tour, Reverend Kelsey West Nehemiah ministries, a great opportunity for you and your children. If you're considering going to a historically black college or university you want to know more. Amen. Reverend West. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 28:14
Thank you so much. Love you for like this. All right. All right. Talk to you later.

Unknown Speaker 28:20
You too. Bye. I want to thank you for tuning into the scoop with me telling you Flanagan and I want to invite you to get social with me. I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My name is my handle TA in YAFLA na GA N You can also find me on Instagram at Tanya almond eyes Flanagan and if you have a thought and opinion or a suggestion, don't hesitate to shoot me an email to tanya.flanagan@unlv.edu Thanks again for joining in. Stay safe and have a great week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai