The Golden Age: Flint Community Schools

Good school districts are more than a function of how much money they collect from taxpayers.  Schools must connect with the community where they are located in ways that go beyond math, science and reading.  

Flint, Michigan at one time was the envy of America. Flint leaders developed and funded the concept of the Community Schools Program.  The Flint School District and its Community Schools Model drew people from across the nation and the world to study the educational model. The concept was replicated in thousands of school districts in the United States and abroad.  

The product of that district's efforts were after-school programs that enriched the community and provided learning experiences for the whole family after school was in recess.

Skip Harbin, a life long native of Flint, as well as a former teacher, school administrator and school board member shares with us the "golden years" of the Flint Community Schools.  Skip provides context and insight to the devolution of on of America's great industrial towns.  He discusses the effects of economic changes that resulted from GM's globalization, the breakdown of family structure and the growth of Charter and private schools.  

This interview is part of a series of personal histories that showcase the people of Flint, Michigan.  They provide a tapestry from which to view the dramatic economic and social change that has come to the heartland of America.---

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Transcript

Arthur Busch: 0:13

Okay, good morning. This is Arthur Busch, and you're listening to Radio Free Flint, and we have a wonderful guest today, and I'm really excited about this. It's taken me a very long time to get this podcast going, so I had to turn my phone off. And we have Skip Harbin, who uh is a legend in Flint and uh in the community school, uh both in Grand Blanc and Southwestern. And Skip uh is also a Flintstone. So without any further ado, I wore this Spartan hat for you today, Skip. Uh well I'm a I'm a Michigan fan, but uh I'll go with you, Art. Okay, just for today. And uh Skip, um you went to Southwestern High School. What class did you graduate in?

Skip Harbin: 1:03

I was in the class of 68. So we had our 50-year reunion two years ago. So uh it's been 52 years uh since I was a student at Southwestern. Wow. And and of course, you were a star fullback on that team, correct?

Arthur Busch: 1:19

Well, I played fullback. I was captain of the team. I don't know about star, but uh we had a good team. I enjoyed playing football, and I played two years at Ferris State College and enjoyed that. Uh played on the first undefeated football team at Ferris, and uh three years ago we were inducted into the uh Ferris State Hall of Fame.

Skip Harbin: 1:35

Wow. Now tell me, I'm interested in Southwestern first, and then we'll move to Ferris. Okay. Who who were some of your teammates there that you that you remember? Well, Gary Alford, who became a homicide detective in Flint. Uh Mitch Moore also became a police officer in Flint. I I guess the number one would be Butch Carpenter. He and I were both captains of the team, and Butch went on and played four years at University of Michigan, played in the Rose Bowl, and sorry to say he passed away at 27 years of old, 27 years of age. And so kind of missed Butch, but uh he was a heck of a guy.

Arthur Busch: 2:12

Wow. And uh what position did he play?

Skip Harbin: 2:16

He played uh tight end and defensive end.

Arthur Busch: 2:18

And who was the quarterback on that team?

Skip Harbin: 2:21

Gary Wilson. Gary Wilson, a Zimmerman kid. Yeah, he played quarterback.

Arthur Busch: 2:25

Now you had one of my favorites at that time, I believe, Gary Sauvie.

Skip Harbin: 2:29

Was that his was that his Gary Sauvie was a few Gary Sauvie was a few years before me. He graduated in Southwestern in 1965, the same year my uh brother did. So he played baseball there at Southwestern, and uh he graduated in 65 three years before I was there.

Arthur Busch: 2:44

Now, Skip, you spent a lot of your life, actually, most all of your professional life has been working with young people in some capacity or another. Uh let's uh take me a little bit uh around your career and where where you've been and some of the positions that you've held.

Skip Harbin: 3:02

Okay. Well, I graduated in 1972 from Eastern Michigan, and I got a teaching position at McKinley Junior High. I taught there one year, was a ninth grade football coach, then I became a community school director in Flint. I was at Homedale Elementary for five years, and then I became uh the community school director in 1977 at Flint Southwestern High School, and I was there until 82, and then in 82 I became the community school director at Longfellow Middle School, and I was there until 89 uh when they phased out the uh community school director program.

Arthur Busch: 3:34

Now tell uh tell us a little bit, uh, because there's gonna be people who are gonna listen to this from other places, a little bit, just the short version of what is the community school director and what what is that program all about?

Skip Harbin: 3:48

Well, that was the lifeblood of Flint Schools for a number of years. Uh, we provided all kinds of programs and activities for people in the community from preschoolers all the way up to senior citizens. We uh help coach the elementary and middle school athletic teams uh to provide the kids with some good, clean, wholesome athletics, teach them things like sportsmanship, teamwork, working hard, all those things that you learn in sports. And uh we we also did the Flint Olympian and Canoosa games in the summer, which is the biggest program in Flint uh for a number of years for kids to participate in. Uh so that it pretty much wraps it up. I mean, we were kind of like the do everything kind of guy. We wore the white hat. We provided great opportunities for kids, adults, and uh I enjoyed that job probably more than any job I've ever had.

Arthur Busch: 4:36

So the the Canusa games were something else. Uh and that tradition in Flint still continues, doesn't it?

Skip Harbin: 4:43

Yes, it does. It sure does. And they've tied in with the Bobby Crim Foundation, and the Bobby Crim Foundation is now one of the major sponsors of the Flint Olympian and Canusa games. Uh the Flint Schools uh no longer kind of oversees that. It's pretty much under the uh guidance of the uh Bobby Crim Foundation, and they've got a lot more resources and things to provide that uh the Flint Schools just couldn't provide anymore.

Arthur Busch: 5:06

So uh that is uh essentially a partnership between a sister city, Hamilton, Ontario, and those in the city of Flint. And then families and uh individuals compete uh against uh families and individuals in the other uh country, right?

Skip Harbin: 5:25

Yeah, that was the big part of that, more than the competition, was that when you go to Canada and participate there as an athlete, you live in the home of another athlete who you're probably competing against. So it's that fellowship, goodwill, uh, international relations that you uh develop in um more so than the competition. Of course, you always want to beat Canada, but again, winning or losing was not the most important thing. The most important thing was developing those relationships with another country, people from another country, and uh it was it was fun, it was great times.

Arthur Busch: 5:56

Now, uh that program has been ongoing for how many years, do you know?

Skip Harbin: 6:02

Yes, it started at pretty sure in 1957, and so they've well passed their 50th anniversary, was in uh 2007, and so you had 13. So they're about uh about 63 years now, they've been going strong in Flint.

Arthur Busch: 6:17

And the community school director, explain to explain to the listeners what a community school director does. What what you know, just where are your activities when you're a school direct uh community school?

Skip Harbin: 6:30

Oh shoot, there's you know, all kinds of activities, uh preschool reading, art for the three and four-year-old, uh uh adult high school completion classes, uh recreation activities, uh men's club, teen club, um providing uh open night for uh women to come in and play volleyball, have a night where senior citizens come in and square dance and sit and play cards, have a good time, have potlucks. Uh it was just a gathering place. The uh community school was the haven, was the lifeblood of each individual community. And when we had to start closing schools in Flint, that was probably my hardest decision. You're probably getting this later when I was a Flint board member, was having to close schools. And we closed schools, a lot of those schools, the communities depended on those schools for those activities, for that place to go and gather. And when you started closing community schools, they lost that sense of community, and you start seeing some of these communities deteriorate as a result. Right. So I I I kind of I kind of tie in the loss of the community education program per se with the community school directors in in in the uh not really deterioration, I want to say, of Flint, but in you know, a lot of people exited Flint. They uh went out to the uh suburbs, looked for different things to do uh because we just couldn't provide the same things that they used to provide.

Arthur Busch: 7:46

Now you grew up in the city on the south end of Flint, uh near Freeman School. What were an example of some of the activities you participated in as uh as a youngster?

Skip Harbin: 8:00

Okay, well, I I grew up uh actually by Lincoln School. I was at Lincoln School from kindergarten through fifth grade, and at that time uh they had a community. I know I know the name of every community school director that I came into contact with from the 50s all the way up to the 60s. Uh it was Al Coth and Bob Shaw at Lincoln, and uh they they're the ones that taught me how to golf, uh much to my chagrin. But I learned how to golf at in the fourth and fifth grade at Lincoln School. I then moved on to uh sixth grade. We moved our uh in the neighborhood of Freeman School, and the community school director there was Mel Harold, and we had Bob Callis and uh uh McDick McMillan. Uh they were the community school directors there for a number of years. Then I went on to McKinley and Joe Fisher was a community school director there, and then on to Southwestern where Dan Cady was the community school director. And then I later became the community school director of Southwestern. So it was kind of neat going full circle like that.

Arthur Busch: 8:52

And Dan Cady became the uh the director and chief engineer of community schools uh at at a national level. I I think he worked for several years at the end of his career doing that.

Skip Harbin: 9:07

Yes, he was at the National Center for Community Education, which was on Avon Street, and he was also at one time president of the National Community Education Association. So Dan, Dan really was the guru of community education in Flint for a number of years.

Arthur Busch: 9:21

Yeah, we've had uh a guest or two who spoke about people coming here from other places to study things such as uh the community radio station that was uh begun, WFBE. And uh and I assume there were other spheres where people came from even other countries to study Flint.

Skip Harbin: 9:46

Oh, oh yeah. To give you an idea of how big community education was in Flint back in the 60s and into the 70s, down at the administration building for the Flint Community Schools, they had an office. It was called Conference and Visitations. They had two full-time staff members, and their primary job was to uh provide uh conferences and services for people coming from other states, other countries, into the United States, into Michigan, into Flint, and uh they uh showed them how to take community school program concept back to their community. So, oh yeah, it was big time. Like I say, when you have a full-time office with two full-time staff members providing these things for other people to take community education back, it it was it was something.

Arthur Busch: 10:30

So Flint was a place that people didn't want to run from in those days, they wanted to come to.

Skip Harbin: 10:35

Oh, no question. That was the Flint, we have people move into Flint because of the schools, and uh it's sad the way things have gone now. To give you an example here, in the late 60s, there were 47,000 students in the Flint Community Schools. There's less than 4,000 students in the Flint community schools now.

Arthur Busch: 10:53

Wow. Now, uh Skip, you uh at least in my mind, it's one of the reasons I called you, is you represent and are the epitome uh of Flint's heyday, so to speak. You uh were raised in the 60s in Flint, and uh you participated in all kinds of activities. I assume you had a flag football team someplace in there at some point.

Skip Harbin: 11:20

Oh, yeah, and at sixth grade at McKinley, or excuse me, at Freeman. And then we had Mott Football Program at McKinley, and uh that was provided by the Mott Foundation on Saturday mornings. We'd go there, and a lot of times the high school athletes, along with maybe a coach or a teacher from the school there, would coach us, and then we played a few games down at Atwood Stadium to to end the season. So yeah, it was uh it was big. Yeah, sports were always big in Flint. In fact, I people might ask me why Flint is such a resilient and tough town, and I think it the foundation is the athletics and sports programs. That is what really uh fed Flint and uh you look at all the state championships Flint used to win Central, Northern, Southwestern, Northwestern. I mean, for years, it a year didn't go by that a Flint school didn't win a state championship in one sport or another. And uh it's sad now that uh we've we've gone down, that we don't have uh our sports teams have really uh haven't been doing as well as they have in the past. And uh that's what really bothers me a lot.

Arthur Busch: 12:19

It seems to have shifted in many respects to private schools. Uh of course, powers powers Catholic is uh a great tradition. Uh and some of the schools Detroit Country Day, I think of, and some of the others on the west side of the state, uh, seem to have taken up that uh that vacuum, if you will, of of the uh demise of public schools. So I want to get back to talking about you. Almost in every stage of your life, you've you've benefited, it seems like, whether it was football or academics or community activity, and then you went back to be a leader in in that in that system. What was it about that uh upbringing of yours that made you want to do that and stay and help the people of Flint the way you did?

Skip Harbin: 13:17

Well, I think a lot of it had to do with growing up in Flint. My dad was a Flint police officer for 25 years, and uh he was an old school kind of dad, and uh you uh always gave back to the community that you you you brought up in. And he taught me that. He taught me that you know what uh we were offered a lot of things in Flint, and and we ought we owe it to Flint to get some things back. And so I really feel that working with the kids in Flint was probably my high point of my career. I did go on and was the uh assistant principal and uh athletic director at Grand Blanc Middle School, and the good fun part about that was being the athletic director and working with kids. That's always been the most fun part of my life in my job is working with kids. That's that's it's it's a rewarding thing.

Arthur Busch: 14:00

So you you you went and moved to suburbia to the nice community of Grand Blanc, and you finished your career there. And uh when you retired, what was the position you held?

Skip Harbin: 14:13

What was that art?

Arthur Busch: 14:14

What position did you last hold in the Grand Blanc?

Skip Harbin: 14:16

I was the assistant principal athletic director at Grand Blanc East Middle School, and I so I retired after 41 years in education and uh 25 in Flint, 16 in Grand Blanc. And one thing I found out was whether you're from Flint or from Grand Blanc, kids are the same. Kids are the same. They uh they're no different, you know. They're you know, kids are brought up under different circumstances, and and that you always think the haves and have nots, but you know, there's really they all have, they're all good kids, and uh kids from Flint were were just as good as the kids from Grand Blank, and the Grand Blank kids were just as good as the kids in Flint. So I don't like to compare the two as one's better than the other because I don't think that's the case.

Arthur Busch: 14:52

And uh one of the things that interested me is to watch you um rather reluctantly, I think, get involved in the school board. Uh get get involved in a position in the Flint Public Schools where uh somehow somebody signed you up. I'm not sure how that worked. Tell us that how you got interested in serving on the school board.

Skip Harbin: 15:20

Well, I've lived in Flint all my life. I still live in Flint, so I'm going on 70 years old and I've never left Flint, so I have my roots in Flint. After I left the uh Flint school system, that made me eligible to be able to run for the Flint Board. As a school employee, you cannot run for the board of education because as an employee, you can't run for the school board in Flint. So when I started working in Grand Blanc, that left the open for me to then run for the school board. And some people mentioned to me with my experience as a teacher, coach, community school director, administrator in Flint, that maybe I could bring some ideas to the board of education. So in 2001, I was elected to a six-year term and served on the board for five years, uh, two years as the president of the Flint Board of Education. And I mentioned earlier the hardest decision we have to make as a board is developing a budget. And you know, they say you always make decisions that are in the best interest of kids. Well, the problem is sometimes financial reasons don't allow you to do that. Uh do you put a new roof on a building or do you buy some more technology? Do you put a new boiler in a building or do you buy new textbooks? I mean, you the the yin and yang with that was really, really frustrating because you only had so much money to spend and you had to maintain buildings that were deteriorating, but at the same time, that was taking away money from the kids and the education. So it's that was the most frustrating part about being on the board of education, and that along with having to close schools. That that was tough.

Arthur Busch: 17:41

Yeah. Now one of the things that's always um I've always had questions about, and that is we uh we saw Michigan get into the charter school business, and it seems almost as though as soon as the charter school business came along, then uh the population of the uh of the Flint public schools started to diminish. What effect do you think this the uh charter school movement in Michigan has had on the Flint Public School District?

Skip Harbin: 18:20

Well, I I think what's happened is it's drained from the school districts like Flint, where that's where when they start losing kids, you start losing state aid money. And state aid money helps pay for the bills and pays for the uh teacher salaries, pays for technology, pays for the maintenance, pays for all those things. And the less money you bring in, you've still got the buildings, the less money you bring in, the less money you've got to take care of your house. And so that was really what really hurt Flint was when the charter schools started draining, and they always said that they're providing a better education. I don't believe that. I believe that if we would have concentrated that money and developed Flint schools, uh, we wouldn't have needed those charter schools. But uh the state of Michigan approved them, and uh a number of charter schools did start siphoning off pupils from the school district, and that that did hurt.

Arthur Busch: 19:11

And and and especially uh at the elementary school level, it seems that that the charter schools didn't have the money to run the more complicated parts of education that may not have been as profitable, which would be uh junior high, middle school, and then ultimately high school. Because there's so many many more programs that you have to run to be successful. Is that right?

Skip Harbin: 19:38

Well, yeah, charter schools are a for-profit organization. People had to realize charter schools are there to make money. So as a result, if you're making money, they're taking off some of that profit that they're getting from state aid money, and they're they're making money off of uh off of education. The public schools did not do that, they were not a for-profit uh organization. All the money that they received from state aid would go back in, and they weren't trying to make a profit. So as a result, when you start trying to have a make a profit, what are you gonna do? You're gonna cut back activities. Uh uh, I know it's funny. When I was at Grand Blank Middle School, there were kids, parents whose kids went to charter schools, and they wanted their kids to participate in the athletic programs that we were providing at Grand Blanc Middle School. Well, the Michigan High School Athletic Association, which we were under their rules and guidelines, said that you had to attend the school that you were playing for. And so I had to tell parents, well, you made a choice to send your child to a charter school, and that choice involves them not being able to participate in our after school athletic program. And so they got a little upset, but I said, the money that you are getting for your child is going to that charter school. I guess you need to go to that charter school and start pressuring them to develop some after school athletic programs for the kids at that school. Well again, if if you're if you're trying to raise money and try to get a profit, you're not gonna provide all those things.

Arthur Busch: 21:06

That's right. Now it it seems to me as I look at the full public school district, um essentially what you have is a reversal of what the trend had been for the good part of the uh 60s, 70s, and even some part of the eighties, but the charter school movement and the decline of the public schools in Flint have essentially changed the racial uh composition of the school and created a segregated school more or less. Would you agree with that?

Skip Harbin: 21:42

Well, it it's hard to say, you know, which is I'll tell you what really hurt. Well, you heard and I mentioned uh uh you know the the charter schools, the loss of jobs in Flint. When they closed Fisher One, Fisher Two, Buick City, Chevy in the Hole, AC, there's a lot of parents who worked there in those factories and lived in Flint. Well, when they closed those factories, a lot of people left Flint because of that, not because the school district, but because they had to go where the jobs were. And so I really hold uh GM accountable for the loss of a lot of students. We lost a big tax base when the factories closed down. We were getting they were giving money to the schools through a tax base, and uh that really hurt. GM took a lot from the Flint community for years, and then as far as I'm concerned, they left us high and dry. So I'm a little bitter about the way Gender Motors handled that. And then started outsourcing uh jobs to Mexico, China, other places instead of hiring and and and providing jobs for people in the Flint community. Well, we've got to come back is have some manufacturing jobs to get some more jobs for people in Flint, and maybe we can start attracting people back. I would love to see on the main campus at Central and Whittier tear down those schools, build a big major high school there, call it Charles Stewart Mott Classical Academy, whatever you want. You've got the Institute of Arts, you've got the Institute of Music, you've got the Planetarium, you've got the uh uh Whiting Auditorium, you've got Mott College right there, Flint Public Library. What a place to have a middle school, high school campus. And then along with that, build a sports complex facility on another site where these kids can then go and develop those athletic abilities, uh, and and then go on and get scholarships. A lot of kids in Flint got scholarships from playing athletics.

Arthur Busch: 23:28

Now, uh, Skip, you've done a lot more than just work at schools. You've been involved in the community in other ways, particularly Big Brothers and Big Sisters. Some communities don't have it in Flint and Genesee County. We've had Big Brothers, Big Sisters for many years. Uh and one of your best friends, as I understand, is uh Duncan Beagle, who in many ways uh has been uh uh probably the biggest cheerleader in Flint for that program. Tell us a little bit about your activities outside of work at at uh the school districts that you've been at.

Skip Harbin: 24:03

Well, I was a uh in the summers, uh there were several summers where I was a director of the 5K, 10K Buick City Road Race, and we had over a thousand runners participate in that. For a couple of years, I was a director of the Mecca three-on-three basketball tournament, which took place in downtown Flint, and we did that in conjunction with the big brothers, big sisters. Um and Duncan Beagle has been very instrumental. He has been, like you said, the major cheerleader. He was involved with the Atwood uh stadium renovations and and and other things. And uh Duncan is very, very strong supporter of Flint. Uh I I'm glad to call him a friend.

Arthur Busch: 24:39

Yes. Now, going back to your uh your many years, I know football and and athletics in general is a love of yours, and Flint has become uh you know, it still is seen across our nation as a uh as a sports town. It's interesting to read in the paper here. Recently they put the 10 uh you know highest drafted players from Flint in there, and it was quite a was quite a read with uh Hall of Fame uh football players and and uh quite an amazing group. Uh everybody from Paul Krauss, Reggie Williams, uh Brandon Carr, Mark Ingram, I don't want to leave anybody off. Um Lynn Chad Noise from uh my my uh alma mater, Michigan State, who who had Rick Leach from your high school alma mater. He did. He did, but he didn't play uh professional uh football, he played professional baseball for a period of time. Right for ten for ten years. But I guess going back into looking at that, what is it that makes these young people who come from Flint, and we still, you know, they may not come from the Flint school district, but they're coming from other places still yet today. What is it that makes this area uh such a um high growth zone, if you will, for professional athletes?

Skip Harbin: 26:08

I think it goes back to the elementary schools when they were giving good guidance and direction, learning the fundamentals of different sports, and then they refined these uh skills at the middle school and high school level. And that was one thing as community school directors, we all had sports teams at our elementary school, and we got these kids in the fourth, fifth, sixth grade and had them playing flag football, had them playing uh your organized basketball, had them playing uh baseball or whatever, and uh we just don't have that as much anymore. So I attribute a lot of those athletes, if you look back into their their past, they had some very good guidance and coaching, not just at the high school level, but going all the way back to elementary school.

Arthur Busch: 26:49

Skip, when you were uh coming along in Flint, who are some of your mentors?

Skip Harbin: 26:55

Oh gosh, some of my mentors? Oh shoot. Uh well Dan Cady was definitely one of my mentors. Um Vince Olzuwski, who was a principal Southwestern, was one of my mentors. Um guys that I worked with, John Clothier, uh, some of these guys who had been community school directors before I got there, they they really helped bring me along and helped me because you always had support. If you had a problem, you call one of those guys up, and sure enough, they'd help you solve it. So there's a lot I uh two too many to mention as far as my mentors. There anybody I came into contact with who had more experience than I tried to learn from them. Just like when I worked for Ron Barnett as the assistant principal at Longfellow, one of the greatest uh principals I had worked for. Uh and so I learned a lot from him as how to be an administrator, how to uh work with staff, how to uh be a leader. And uh I I think I'm just trying to pick the best. Uh one of my biggest ones, I forgot to mention him, was Bob Leach. He was my uh football coach at Ferris Estate. Uh very, very big mentor for me. I really enjoy playing football for him. And as you know, he coached at Flint Central for a number of years, and he went on to coach at Ferris State, then he went on to coach the uh St. Louis Cardinals as assistant coach in throw football.

Arthur Busch: 28:10

Wow, amazing. Now, at the at Ferris, you said it was an undefeated team, and and who were some of your teammates that we might know?

Skip Harbin: 28:19

Oh, he coach Leach recruited from the Flint year. Tommy Hamlet was an all-American that year. He played at Flint Northern, graduated in 68. Gary Alford started a defensive end, he played at Southwestern. Uh, Dave Gardy came back, he graduated in 65, was in the Marine Corps, went to Vietnam, came back and played at Ferris. Um shoot, there's uh I think that I counted there about eight or ten kids from the Flint schools, and about another five or six from the parochial schools that played. Uh Richie Green from Atherton, uh Alley Kennedy from Davison, uh Tom Monroe from Kirchley. Um shoot, I'm trying to think, don't miss anybody, but no, there were and we just had our 50-year reunion of our undefeated team, and about 20, 30 of the guys came back. It was really, really neat. Some of some of our players, our teammates have passed on, but a lot of them are still around, and we always swap stories, and we're we're always better now than we were back then. You know how that goes.

Arthur Busch: 29:12

Yeah, for sure. Uh for really, for sure. Now, uh Skip, uh, you grew up in uh in a neighborhood in in the south end of Flint, and just as luck has had it here with this uh Radio Free Flint project that I've undertaken where I'm doing personal uh history interviews. It seems like I got stuck in that neighborhood for some reason. Uh and I've interviewed some pretty interesting people. How would you describe that that neighborhood in general? What would what what what was that made it such a special place?

Skip Harbin: 29:54

Well, one thing, you know, back then you most families there was a mom and a dad. Uh I don't remember too many of kids that I grew up with that were came from divorced families. So you got a mom and a dad in that home, and usually the dad was the breadwinner, and mom was a June cleaver staying at home. And that was the traditional family thing. So I think that really added to uh the support that kids had. If you went up to a baseball game, you saw a lot of parents on the sidelines. You you know uh they or if there's an away game, you see parents driving their kids to the game. So the parental support in in the in in a lot of the Flint communities, especially the Freeman School area, was tremendous. Uh and uh really I I when I mentioned mentors, I guess my dad was my number one mentor.

Arthur Busch: 30:40

For sure. Now, uh Skip, if you had any advice uh for the people of Flint that somebody would take, what might that be?

Skip Harbin: 30:51

Well, don't lose faith, don't give up, see what you can do to uh make the community better. Uh don't just complain. Uh if it's a matter of getting involved politically, uh or being a volunteer at a school or or running for a school board position or running from a city council, but be a part of the solution and not part of the problem. I think that's the big thing. And stay in Flint. You know, I I've stayed in Flint, and but a lot of my friends have moved out of Flint. It's uh the Exodus says I I know a lot of people support Flint, and when I look at some of these supporters, none of them live in Flint anymore. But they they love Flint, they grew up in Flint, and they'll really brag about Flint, but they don't live in Flint. So I guess we need to keep the ones we got and try to get some of them to move back.

Arthur Busch: 31:37

Well, that's what I'm trying to do with this project is at least bring Flint to them for the minute, and maybe uh they'll get inspired by people like you. Skip Harbin, uh I could talk to you for a long time. Uh I first met you uh on that hard surfaced uh field out there behind McKinley School when you were a high school uh senior, and you were trying to teach me how to be a fullback, which uh did it work?

Skip Harbin: 32:10

Did I help you or hurt you?

Arthur Busch: 32:12

Uh no, no. Uh I I wish I had a few a few moves, but I I didn't I didn't have the speed in those days. And then after I uh seen what was happening with Whittier and all the great players that played on that team, about 10 of them went into Division I NCAA Division I football. I think they beat our team like 90 to nothing or something. And uh I realized that maybe baseball was a lot was more my more my sport, and uh so that's how that kind of unfolded. But I still play golf and uh I and I love sports as you do. And I want to say this and on behalf of many people out there who have nothing but the highest regard for you. You are the epitome of what it means to be a Flintstone. And when I look back uh at all the things that I've done myself, uh there are people like you who are just a bedrock of that town. And so I admire what you've done. And uh I know uh you enjoy your retirement and keep keep my beloved South and Deflint uh in line.

Skip Harbin: 33:22

I'll try to do the best I can. I just still live down the street in Freeman School where he used to uh I was talking to Jeff Natchez the other day, and he talked about playing some of those Sandlot football games we had, and he said that would toughen him up to play uh football in high school and baseball and go on to play uh semi-professional ball and professional ball.

Arthur Busch: 33:40

We we had some we had some tremendous players that would would join up on a Sunday afternoon uh at both at McKinley and Freeman. And uh and some of those kids went on to play in college, and and Jeff the other day was reminiscing about Paul Krauss, who's an NFL Hall of Famer. Um some say the best athlete to come from our area. I don't know how you measure that, but was one hell of an athlete. Um but you know that also ended my football career because I got injured and I had to have knee surgery. So when Dark Christensen came, I had to tell him the unfortunate news was that I couldn't continue to practice with his team because I had um I had to rehab that injury. So in any event, uh next time I'll have you interview me and I'll tell my story. Sounds good to me. Take care, Skip, and stay inside. Hopefully, uh, I know that you'd give that advice to everybody who's listening. Please stay at home just a little bit longer. It's not gonna be that much longer, hopefully. But uh for now, uh, this is Radio Free Flint. Uh, your uh host Arthur Bush and guest today, Skip Harbin, wish you a very nice day and uh Asu Luego. Bye-bye.