Greetings from the WORLD 2018 editorial retreat

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Friday, June 8th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from member-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Today, the team is gathered for a staff retreat at WORLD’s home base in Asheville, North Carolina.

Not just the radio team, but the entire WORLD editorial team: our magazine writers, magazine designers, illustrators; our WORLD Digital team, the reporters and the editors.

We are a far-flung team and when we’re able to get together in one place, it’s something special.

REICHARD: This has been so great and so refreshing, to get to gather around and talk about some of the small details of our day-to-day work. But also zoom up to the 30,000-foot level to see the big picture and recommit ourselves to the mission.

So before we go today, you can probably hear we’ve stepped outside. It’s a beautiful day here in Asheville, and I want to hand the microphone back to Megan Basham. She’s going to introduce you to some of our staff members.

Hey there, Megan. It’s been so much fun to be with you this week and meet your great family!

MEGAN BASHAM: Well, thanks Mary! Man, we have had just such a great time this week getting to know each other a little bit better in the midst of all this work and I thought it’d be fun to put some people on the spot and let you get to know us a little better, too.

So let’s walk over here to Susan Olasky. Susan, tell us something fun you learned about one of your fellow WORLD Radio staff members.

SUSAN OLASKY: I learned that Jenny Lind Schmitt went to Switzerland as a college student and there she met a ski instructor, married him, and he had a really nice red jacket.

BASHAM: Ooh, yeah, so she was looking for the really important things.

JENNY LIND SCHMITT: Yeah, and the chocolate.

BASHAM: What did you learn?

SCHMITT: I learned that J.C. Derrick’s journalistic achilles heel is the difference between affect and effect.

BASHAM: Ah, wow. So we can all lord that over him now.

SCHMITT: The effects are really hard on me.

BASHAM: Sarah?

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG: Hello!

BASHAM: Hi.

SCHWEINSBERG: Actually, I got the privilege of being your roommate, Megan.

BASHAM: So she got a lot of dirt.

SCHWEINSBERG: Yes, but I’ll narrow it down. I learned she has the two cutest little girls ever. They’re adorable. And I learned that once upon a time, Megan went on the Today show to discuss women’s roles in and out of the home and actually got so verbally assaulted and attacked that Meredith Vieira felt the need to come apologize to her.

BASHAM: She did and she was very gracious. And I’m just gonna say, on my side. (laughter) So, we’ll move along. Jim Henry, what’d you dig up this week.

JIM HENRY: I was able to confirm the rumor that Kent Covington is pickle intolerant. He can’t stand ‘em, won’t have ‘em on his sandwich or eat a sandwich if it’s in the same room with a pickle.

BASHAM: I just don’t understand that. It was putting a crimp in our Chick Fil A time. J.C., our managing editor. You probably have all the dirt.

J.C. DERRICK: I do have a lot of dirt, but I already knew a lot of it coming in, but there were some people I met here, one of which was Rob Holmes who writes for WORLD Digital. And I thought that he was a recent college grad, young guy, 20s. Turns out, he’s an adult with a long career, a wife, and children. And he actually was once a translator for Wycliffe Bible translators, which is pretty cool.

BASHAM: Right! And learned some really obscure languages.

DERRICK: He did, he did. And learned them all sorts of interesting ways; roaming streets and all sorts of stuff.

BASHAM: Well, you know what’s funny is we don’t see each other, so then you meet and you’re like, “Wow! You’re a grown-up! Go figure.”

Paul Butler, you’ve got a really interesting fact. Let’s hear about it. Actually, we all did.

PAUL BUTLER: That’s right. We all learned that Susan Olasky was once brought up on trumped up ethics charges and how Marvin used to jokingly use those to get his kids to behave.

BASHAM: I’m waiting for the big Spielberg movie on Susan Olasky and her ethics charges.

Kristen, how about you? Just so you know, you can’t see Kristen but she is so smiley and just brings light to every room, so that’s my fact for Kristen. She’s just light and happiness.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Well, thank you. So, we all know Laura Finch. What we didn’t know and I didn’t know is that she actually has synesthesia, which means she sees letters and numbers in her mind’s eye as colors.

BASHAM: It’s like so complicated you can’t even pronounce it. I’m going to have to go look it up.

So, yeah, it’s been so much fun getting to learn all this, but I’ve got to tell you, I think I got the best facts of all.

First, I learned that your two hosts, one of them, has been to a state lunch with Ronald Reagan. I’ll give you like five seconds to guess who that was. It was Nick. But even more impressive —

EICHER: Old enough to have had lunch with Ronald Reagan, number one, but the guy was great and hilarious. When he introduced himself, he reaches across the table to me and he says, “Well, hello. My name is Ronald Reagan. It’s nice to meet you.” As though he needed an introduction. And I felt like I’m just some college kid, right? I need no introduction.

BASHAM: Well, you don’t need an introduction today. We all know Nick Eicher. But, I gotta say, Nick, even more impressive was what I learned about Mary Reichard.

To put herself through law school, Mary was a jeans model. So, I just think that is super cool. So she’s not only a lawyer, she’s not only a brilliant host, she doesn’t only have golden tones, but also lovely. So we’re all free, all the ladies, to hate Mary Reichard but we love you anyway.

REICHARD: Well, that professional career was 35 years ago, so let’s just be clear on that.

BASHAM: You’re still very lovely.

REICHARD: Thank you, thank you.

Alright, now I have a bit of trivia about Mary Coleman related to presidential history.

Back in the 80s, she was at Princeton for a three-week summer course and her roommate was a young woman named Michelle Robinson. Now, you may not recognize the name Michelle Robinson. You probably know her better today as Michelle Obama.

So, I think it’s hard to top that one.

EICHER: It is hard to top that one, and it’s going to be hard to top the next retreat we do, but this thing has been fantastic. I think we all had a great, great time.

(applause)

I think it’s an appropriate time here to say thanks to our WORLD Movers for making these kinds of gatherings possible. This does bring the team together in a special way and helps drive a fresh commitment to the mission — which, by the way, is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

It’s day eight of our Spring Giving Drive, and I hope you’ll be inspired to be a part of it. We’re getting close to the $150,000 mark, and that’s about 25% of the way to our $600,000 goal to close out our fiscal year.

The place to go is wng.org/donate. You can also track our campaign progress there: wng.org/donate.

REICHARD: Well, now let’s recognize our awesome radio team we got to spend the week with:

Megan Basham, Mindy Belz, Paul Butler, Janie B. Cheaney, Michael Cochrane, June Cheng, Mary Coleman, Kent Covington, Laura Finch, Kristen Flavin, and Kim Henderson.

Also, Jim Henry, Jill Nelson, Susan Olasky, Onize Ohikere, Jenny Lind Schmitt, and Sarah Schweinsberg.

EICHER: Marvin Olasky is editor in chief. Our audio engineers are Johnny Franklin and Carl Peetz.

Also, Managing Editor J.C. Derrick, who gets big props for organizing our retreat.

REICHARD: We’ll be back Monday with Legal Docket. Have a joyous weekend.

(Photo/Kristen Flavin)

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