(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
This is Let's Talk Mayfield, a community-focused podcast centered on listening first and learning from local voices. Join Derek Parrott and guests as they explore the issues shaping Mayfield's future. Welcome to Let's Talk Mayfield.
We have a guest today. A lot of people know him for his backpack drive, people know him as an educator, and a lot of people know him as a DJ as well. He's known throughout the community.
They have done a lot of work here in Mayfield. He lives in Louisville, but he comes to Mayfield quite often. Glad to have our guest today, Ricky Murphy.
Ricky, thank you for joining us today. Tell us a little bit about growing up in Mayfield. First off, thanks for having me.
Growing up in Mayfield, what shaped me to be the man that I am right here. Mayfield taught me community, everything, man. Mayfield taught me what to do, what not to do, who to hang with, who not to hang with, everything.
Everything that I became as a man, I was taught from Mayfield. Mayfield, growing up, was dope. Family, friends, community, you know what I'm saying? Playing ball, just all sorts of things, man.
Mayfield is everything. I could talk all day about it. I remember growing up, you were a few years older than me, I remember hanging out just all throughout the community at the parks, just having a good time.
That's how I remember so many people were just supportive, you know what I'm saying? When I hear, it takes a village, I'm a strong believer of it takes a village. That's something that encouraged me to want to come back to my community after I graduated to pour into our community because I remember growing up, it was a village. So many people went out their way to make sure that we had support, resources, and try their best just to help us out.
Yeah, stuff to do, man, that taught us character. I vividly remember basketball tournaments all the time, you know what I'm saying? Us just battling as kids all the way growing up. All that stuff teach you everything, discipline, all that good stuff.
So yeah, man, Mayfield is dope. So tell me, when do you first realize you wanted your life to be about serving others as far as community service, giving back to the community? I watched other people do it, friends that I made throughout life make money and then support their own community. So I felt like, shoot, if they could do it, I could do it.
So I told myself when I started KY Rays, if I'm blessed enough to be able to make some money for my company and doing the DJing and stuff that I do, that I would take some of those proceeds and come back and help the town. And I thought that education is near and dear to my heart. So I just decided that a backpack drive would be the best thing for me to do to contribute.
We didn't have one at the time. And I just wanted to give the kids a start off, take some of the pressure away from some of the parents that have things to go through. Because I remember growing up and going to school and getting school supplies and school clothes was a big ordeal.
And I just couldn't imagine not being able to have the resources to be able to get the things that I really wanted during that time. So that's why we decided to do this back to school thing. All right.
You spent many years working with the Jefferson County Public School District in Louisville. 20 years. What initially drew you to education? Ms. Wright.
Shout out to Ms. Wright. I don't know if you know Ms. Wright. She's a teacher.
And she was teaching the first grade. I feel like Ms. Wright was teaching first grade. She was my teacher at one point.
So I went to school. She was. I went to school.
I was in the same grade as her son, Eric. Growing up, I knew them. When I got older, we was Spanish.
We had Spanish class, right, with Ms. Peebles. And we'd go to the elementary school to teach the kids Spanish. And when I was teaching, I remember going and I was teaching the kids Spanish.
And Ms. Wright kept looking at me. And I was like, she's looking at me and smiling. I'm like, why this lady keep looking at me and smiling? Like, what did I do? And after it was over, she came over to me.
She was like, have you ever thought about being a teacher? And I was like, no. She was like, I think that you have a natural gift you don't even see. And she was like, I think you should be.
You should think about teaching. And I was like, I'm gonna go to school, play football. What are you talking about teaching? She was like, you gotta have a backup plan.
She was like, so you go to school, what you gonna study? She's like, you need to think about education. So I never forgot that. So I bet she don't even know she did that.
But 20 years later, I am still teaching. And it was from her inspiration to make me have the thought to do it. And then I thought about it.
She also told me, you'll make a lot of. She's like, you will be able to get a job really easily because there's not a lot of men in elementary education and definitely not a lot of black men. So, you know what I'm saying? I looked at that as an opportunity as well.
Here we are. And how has education changed you since you first started teaching? It taught me patience, way more patience than I thought. I mean, I always had patience, but it definitely taught me patience.
Patience with people, kids and adults. Because we all just a sum of all the stuff that we've been through, man. And everybody ain't been through the things that you've been through.
So with that being said, like I learned to have patience with kids because they don't know better. And then a lot of adults don't know better either. So you just have to have patience to deal with people.
So yeah, I've definitely learned to be way more patient than I initially was. And that's all from the education process. Okay.
And I know as we talk about education, a big push is to get kids prepared and inspired and motivated to maybe go to college or go from high school straight to the workforce. And I think while students are in middle school and high school, it's important that they start to get mentorship, apprenticeships, things such as that, so they can connect with people who are influential, people who have positive mindsets, and just to be able to connect that student with different opportunities that they might see themselves doing in the future. And also, I think it's important because you have the mentorships with apprenticeships and things such as that, mentors, positive people in your life.
They can also help connect you before you go off to school to obtain a degree or certificate. If you connect it with people in the community, that will encourage you to come back because it makes you feel like you have more of an opportunity to maybe start a business or either get a good job. Mentors, that's important.
Important to have those while growing up in your teenage years. And Mayfield is the mentor place, man. You're going to get mentored regardless if you need to or not.
So I got all types of people from coaches to community leaders, to people at church, to just people in the neighborhood. Everybody kind of mentors you in some type of way. You just kind of got to learn how to take the right game from those mentors.
But yeah, it's a lot of people. It's a bunch of people that in my life was very instrumental in just helping God and just listening to a kid that probably thought he knew more than what he really knew. You know what I'm saying? Maneuvering through this life, we all need somebody to mentor us.
So I mean, I'm sure you can attest where we all got our own fathers to people. Just everybody in the community, man. Everybody mentor you in some type of way.
You got gems from all type of people, man. It's dope in that way at Mayfield. It's a lot of access today.
Like you said, it takes a village. And I think as you mentioned, your parents, cousins, relatives, uncles, you know, all that's important. All those people will pour into you and try to give you good guidance.
And also, I know you had mentioned football. You know, you said, I'm going to play football. That was a priority.
And I mean, we're in Mayfield. Everybody in the community get excited about football. How could you not? Titletown, known as Titletown.
People connect through football. And as I think about middle school, high school, college, I mean, I think of those mentors and those who made me be accountable. That's important to me.
And a lot of time outside of my community, it was coaches. They made you to be responsible, help you work through challenges, put you in situations to see how you respond and help you to respond in the correct way. And also not only your coaches, but then you think about your teammates.
I think some of my closest friends to this day are people I played football with in high school and college. Those are the people I talk to just about every day, every other day. But you've been through something.
Yeah, I've been through something. You got super history. You went to war with those people.
Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's important.
Like when I was stepping on the field with my friends, you know, people who end up being my friends and people I connected and bonded with, I think about when I seen them beside me, it gave me confidence, courage and motivated me. Yeah. You know.
You got to trust somebody. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
As you grow up and you learn through experience, you have to trust people. Yeah. You know, or if you don't mentally and emotionally, you've been in a bad space.
You got that right. So I'd say playing football at Mayfield, man, it didn't matter your background, your race, your ethnicity. Everybody, your size.
Your size. Right. You better be out there.
Right. Mayfield, no, man. You don't play football.
A lot of times they looking at you like you better have some real reason why you not playing ball. Right, right. Your background.
None of that mattered. Everybody worked together toward one common goal. Everybody got along.
Everyone showed respect and people took other strengths. You know, you look for strengths in people. We all work together because, of course, we know you only as strong as your weakest link.
Also, it just helped to build teamwork and work together and be accountable to other people. So football is a big draw in our community. And it helps you in so many areas outside the football field.
You know, what you learn in football field, you can transfer those skills and those experience to other arenas and avenues in life. I'm going to move on to the school drive you had. You know, you've been organizing a school drive, the KY Rays back to school drive.
And this year was the 15th year you've put together this school drive. Tell me a little bit about that. This is something that I wanted to do.
Like I said, I saw some of my friends. So I always shout out. Eric Logan is one of my partners.
He's from Madisonville, Kentucky. And we went to school together. And he always had a back to school event.
And I thought it was really impressive for him to give back to his community. But he also did like backpacks and haircuts. And he just did a bunch of different stuff that I didn't really see everybody doing.
That was a little bit different for the community and getting people ready for school. And then my dog, DJ Mr. King out of Akron, Ohio. He was doing the exact same thing.
So as I'm watching these brothers who are, you know, around my age that are doing the things that they're doing on a big scale in another market. I'm like, why would we not have it here? Like, how come I can't? Why would I not be able to do that for my community? So like I said, when I was blessed enough to do that, we started off with 100 backpacks the first year. Just did 100 backpacks and nobody know.
I mean, we have volunteers and people that help to put stuff together. But I just kind of did it just to see how it would go. And it worked out.
And it was dope. And we realized that there was a need for it. So then after that, we started kind of opening up, getting donations and making it bigger.
And we started off with 100 backpacks that very first year. We've been going up every since then. So, yeah, I mean, we're not at 1,500.
I mean, we don't go up 100 every year. So I'm just saying we go for the need. So it's been getting bigger and better and publicizing.
The community comes out and it's dope, man. I think it's one of those things where it's like, it's just kind of like a yearly celebration at this point. Now, you know what I'm saying? People come, they don't even have kids that need backpacks.
They just come for the fellowship. And this is like one of those things we do every year. Get together, have a good time, make sure the kids are cool.
Do something, show off new businesses and all type of stuff. You know what I'm saying? People come in and donate from all over. And people who never even been to Mayfield donate.
You know what I'm saying? Just to make sure that, you know, the kids at Mayfield are good. So, yeah, we've been doing it for 15 long years. What keeps you motivated year after year? Next year will be your 16th year that you'll be doing the KY Rays Backpack School Supply Drive.
What keeps you motivated to continue with this effort? The need. Like this year, we got rid of everything. Now, in my mind, I'm hustling to try to figure out a way to get some more resources for people.
So, you know, next year, we're going to try to do it bigger and better. So, yeah, when you get rid of everything, man, and you see all the people happy and smiling faces and stuff. And people like, yo, you helped me take off just a little bit of the load of what I got to do without, you know, kids.
Or maybe I got one kid or maybe we got 16 kids, whatever. However you help out. That's just dope to me.
I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'm kind of selfish in that, right? I get a high out of looking at other people smiling and having a good time and feeling like, hey, you know, somebody care enough to support, give us some resources that I probably wouldn't be able to get my hands on. Hey, and one thing, when you do have the backpack drive, people always out dancing.
So they really enjoy the music as well, which I know you've been DJing for a long time. I remember in high school, I would follow you to parties. I mean, when I got to college, I would still follow you to parties and whatnot.
We'd say, Ricky DJing here. Let's call him. Let's make sure we show up.
So tell me, how did you begin your journey with DJing? What inspired you to want to become a DJ? Okay, so I always liked music. I never knew. I'm gonna try to keep this short as possible.
I never knew about DJing. Like, I knew a DJ was a thing, but I never seen nobody that was a DJ. The only DJs in our town at the time was Royce, Royce Oliver.
I remember that. Jizzay at the time, but I didn't know Jizzay to that extent at that time. I think maybe Hooker was DJing at parties.
That's really it. So imagine those people being a little older than me, of course. Not really knowing.
I just knew I had music. And one time, shout out Steven Beasley. He was having a get-together, a party or something.
And he was like, hey man, come over here and bring your music. And I was like, bring my music? He said, man, you got all the music. Just bring all the music.
And I was like, hang on. He said, man, you can play the music. You a DJ.
And I was like, all right. So I just brought my music. I didn't even know that was a thing.
I thought everybody had music. Little did I know, I was the only person collecting all the music. And they was like, nah, man, people don't keep music like you.
You got all the music. So I came over there. I played my music.
And from that point on, people said, hey man, would you DJ at my party? I was like, DJ? They was like, yeah, I'll pay you. And I was like, you get paid to play music? I don't know. I'm like, yes, this is what I'm doing for the rest of my life.
And there it went. And from then, I did, I think it was my seventh grade, seventh, eighth grade. And I've been DJing ever since then.
And it stopped. Yeah. I remember the times when I was in high school, college.
And as an adult, I would call you like, where you DJing at? Yeah. And we're going to pull up on you. We'll call you when we get there.
Yeah. And we're staying. It's all good.
And you can ask anybody from Mayfield. I don't care who it is. Friend, foe, enemy, loved one.
If they called me and I was DJing, ask them, did they get in? Ask them, did they get in? Ask them, did they get in? That's facts. That's facts. Did I shout them out on the mic? Ask them, did I show them all the love? Always.
I love Mayfield. Everybody know that. It's in my tagline when I'm talking all the time.
I don't care wherever I've ever been in this whole world. I done been all over DJing. And I made them understand that I'm from Mayfield.
You know, so I'm going to shout out the rest of Kentucky. But they know I'm from Mayfield. Mayfield for sure.
Mayfield for sure. Mayfield first. There's three things I know for certain that connects people.
Sports, food, and music. So tell me, how has music helped you connect people from different backgrounds, different walks of life? Just so in similarities, I think that's a big thing. We all day look at differences.
When you in a club or you in a spot where some music take over, it just bring people of all ethnicities together. I'm going to give you a perfect example. Michael Jackson movie just came out, right? It's kids that didn't even know Michael.
Kids that just being introduced to Michael Jackson. People that was kids when they first found out about Michael Jackson. And all these grown people, young people, all these people coming together to hear about Michael Jackson.
And they having a good time doing it. They enjoying the music. They learning the story.
They trying, you know what I'm saying? They figuring out everything. All that brought people from all walks of life together. So like music is universal.
It's a feeling. You can't stop a feeling. So feelings bring people good feelings.
You go to a football game, you get a good feeling. Your team wins, you get an emotional high. You know what I'm saying? You're like, yeah, like that's how you feel.
You go to a good movie, you get out of there. You're like, man, that was crazy. When the music come through and the music's right, it bring everybody together.
So it don't matter if you're young or old. If I put on Tom and Dog, the old lady, kids gonna dance. The oldest lady and I gonna get out of her wheelchair and start moving.
It's just part of it. So my daughter, she watched some of the Michael Jackson movie with us. And next thing I know, she turned on her iPad to Michael Jackson music, trying to do the moonwalk.
And I'm like, hey, music reaches people. All ages, all stages. Definitely.
Hey, so tell me this. As far as our community, what makes me feel special to you? Maybe it's because I'm from, like being from here. I know everybody, but that's a flex.
Like knowing everybody is a flex. Okay, like you ever meet somebody, they be like, man, you from a small town. Everybody know everybody.
You can't do nothing. But you can do everything though. That's one thing.
That's a connection piece. Yeah, if you trying to do some dirt, you don't want nobody to find out that you was sneaking. But you know what I'm saying? If it's something that you need to get accomplished, you can get that done.
Honestly, think about this. I live in Louisville. If my car breaks down, I got to go to a place that's assertive.
I don't know nobody who could change a water pump. You know what I'm saying? That's part of my reason. It may feel, I know 10 people who could do it today.
So it's like that makes our community, everybody knowing each other and being willing to help out regardless. This community is just something else. When it's go time, it's go time.
The Tornado told me that our community is like a place in outer space. You know what I'm saying? For people who come here and they look at it like, dang, y'all got a real community. People was going crazy when they were seeing how everybody came together during the Tornado.
Helped each other out. Everything has its ups and downs. But I'm just saying when it was go time and when it was like, hey, the Tornado just happened and everybody's coming together.
But everybody pitched in. Everybody's community ain't like that. Everybody don't have that.
Yeah. And I think that showed how special our community is. When the Tornado hit, it shows we have some hard working, resilient folks that care about each other.
Like I said, it doesn't matter where you grew up. I feel like everyone came together and try to help each other. That was definitely a special moment.
Tell me something you think here in our community we can improve on. What do we need improvement in our community to help our community for growth, development, and to prosper? To be a vibrant community. Public relations.
Public relations. Yeah, we just need- Tell me more about that. Exposure, man.
Exposure. That's all it is. There was a golden opportunity during the Tornado time, which was a horrible tragedy, first of all.
But in the rebuilding stages coming from that, it should have been handled a little bit differently by a personal opinion. I'm not, I don't know who is to blame. I'm not blaming nobody.
I'm just saying there should have been a different type of exposure on what was happening. Somebody should have been documenting the progress of houses and businesses and things happening. And then that should have been publicized to the people.
Because what happens was we got a big influx of people who came in to help during Tornado time, and then it trickles off. And that's with everything. It's just a part of it.
And then it trickles off. Now you've done where there's nothing else coming in. We could have been riding the wave of that.
When the eyes were on, I don't feel like it was handled properly because you can't get that exposure back. And you can only be hot for one time. Even do you think about that earns hot? Yeah, it should have been more striking.
My personal opinion. Who knows the right way to handle that stuff? It's easy for me to say that looking back at it. But I just feel like if we would have did some other things and brought more visibility on what was happening in the town, I think we'll be better off right now.
That opportunity being missed. I still think there's opportunity, but people need to see what's going on. So how do I know what's going on if it's not being publicized? So I feel like there should be more recognition on just regular town stuff.
Just stuff that's going on within the town. Community stuff. Don't have to be nothing super serious.
Don't got to be political. It just needs to be publicized. There needs to be more publicity on what's happening in the town.
Wonderful things. We just had a big event. There's other big events going on.
There's a concert. Whatever's going on. It just needs more publicity.
So I think websites, advertisement, some kind of committee, some kind of digital marketing team for the town. Right. I agree with you.
I agree with you. I think marketing is a big piece. And also you need optimism in a community.
You need everyone having a sense of pride. Know what's going on. People have to be heard, valued, seen, respected for them to give to the community and be optimistic about the community.
I agree that we could have did a better job with marketing our community and also getting the word out what we're doing, what our plans are. We're in this phase. What's the next phase? What we need to do a better job is getting out in the community, getting out in the neighborhoods, making sure people are seen, heard, valued, respected.
Seeing what communities want. Looking, seeing what immediate needs are in communities as far as sub-community neighborhoods. See what their needs are.
See what they like to see in the community. Getting a lot of input. I know we might have, we have spaces where, hey, we have a meeting here for X, Y, and Z. I think it's imperative that we go to neighborhoods, meet the citizens where they at.
See what they like to see. See what they want for the community. You know, I think it's important.
Also, let them know what the community is doing. It's a lot of misinformation and people not knowing. I think it's important that us as a community, us as a city, I think it's important that we create the narrative with input from the community.
Because if people don't feel seen, heard, valued, then they're going to feel like they're not part of the community. I think moving forward, we didn't capitalize off the opportunity. We did what we did, but I feel like we could have more improvement.
We still got opportunity. However, that opportunity is starting to narrow. You know, as the years go by, it's narrowing more and more.
At one point, it was a huge opportunity gap, and we still have time to capitalize off of it. But I think, as you mentioned, I mean, we need community people, our neighborhood leaders. We need them, community leaders, stakeholders.
We have to be intentional about reaching out to the private sector, get everybody on the same page and everybody working collaboratively toward the same mission. And make sure we've been transparent with everyone, good or bad, this is what we're doing, and we need everybody on board. We're going to take your opinion, your input.
If it's not going to work during this phase, maybe it'll work during the next phase. But I think it's important that our citizens and community, like, they feel heard and seen, you know. And also, it's important that we make sure we're connecting with different organizations around our region as well.
We need other regions involved, and we need to make sure we capitalize it off of state initiatives as well. What you said, we need to publicize more and market what we're doing and what we're trying to do as well to get everyone on board. Not only our neighborhoods, but our city, the region, and make sure even the state know what we're doing.
Making sure we have, and to help us with resources and different things we need to help us to progress and move forward. Yeah, and the more publicity, the more people are interested to come and bring in those businesses here. They know that it's an economy here that can stimulate what they got going on, and we just need to do a better job of putting it out there.
But I think it could be done. I just thought of a wonderful idea. I'm not going to tell you on here because somebody might take our idea.
I'll tell you later on when we get done. But I just thought of a great idea to help with that. Like I said, and that's what's important.
You know, people from our community and outside our community with knowledge and different experiences, bringing back different ideas from our community. You know, we don't want to all be stuck in one box. It's important that we get input from outside the community, different ideas, thoughts.
I think that's important as well. And as we close out, what does community mean to you? Community is everything, man. Community is what makes you feel like you belong, when you feel like you belong to something you work harder for.
No matter what it is. You belong to your family. You work hard for your family.
You got a job, whatever. You're a part of that community. You work hard for that community.
The community of Mayfield is everything. You know what I'm saying? Community is everything. We talked about only being strong is your weakest link.
We talked about all these things as far as utilizing resources, as far as like being there for people. And all those things, man. Community is everything.
And if you're not tapped in with the community, it can be hard to maneuver. There's a lot of people that try to say, I'm self-made and I do things by myself. But you're nothing without the people, man.
Like we do it. For instance, we got this backpack drive. I get the credit for it because I'm the face of it.
But I'm nothing without the community. I can't do this by myself. Bro, if you don't come out there and help put them bags together, how do I function? I can't do that by myself.
You know what I'm saying? So without the help of the community, I'm nothing. We're nothing. No nothing flows.
No money flows. Nobody's happy out here. We don't have the great place that we have to live.
You know what I'm saying? That is offered to live here in Mayfield and all these things, man. So community is everything. And the more you tap in with the community, you take care of the community, the easier life is.
That's my motto. And Ricky, we thank you for giving back to the community, investing in the community, and most importantly, just showing up and following through with the backpack drive for the 15th year. I commend you for that.
I know it takes a lot of time, effort, energy, and sacrifice. We thank you. Thank you for joining us.
And good luck going into your 20th year as a teacher. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you, man.
I appreciate your time and efforts. And I love to see what you're doing, my brother. I love to see you maneuvering through this world and doing wonderful things, man, for this community and for Mayfield.
So, man, thank you as well. Dope, man. I love to see your progression.
I look forward to seeing what you're going to be doing next, man. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you. Now, I'd like to thank you all for joining. Let's Talk Mayfield.
Until next time. Thank you. Thanks for listening and for caring about Mayfield's future.
Keep the conversation going. Meet you right back here next time.
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