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-He can't go one da without Diet Coke, chocolat milk, or ice cream.

His career has mostly bee about raising money.

He's a Jackson City Counci membe and loves rehabbing old houses.

Coming up next on Tennesse Writes we're sitting down with Fran McMeen, who is out with his second book.

We'll find out how he has time to write, where his stories come from and what he's doing next.

Get your coffee pot brewin and get comfortable.

Tennessee Writes starts righ now.

-Books about Tennessee.

-Books that come from Tennesse authors.

-Books and stories with Tennessee twist.

-West Tennessee PB presents Tennessee Writes.

[music] -Hello, my name is Peter Noll, and you've found the show about books with a Tennesse connection.

You'll meet people who wen from thinking, "I should write book," to actually doing it.

Some of our authors are fro Tennessee others have moved here, but all their book have a Tennessee twist.

Today, Tennessee Write welcomes author Frank McMeen.

He's president of the Communit Foundatio of West Tennessee, a Jackson City Council member, and he's addicte to fixing up old houses, 12 an counting.

Please welcome Frank McMeen.

Frank, thank you for coming -Thank you, Peter.

-Tell us, I read your first one, and now I've read your secon one how did you find time to come up with a second book?

-At least with me you're driven to do that.

You're inspired at times.

I'll get inspired about concept, and I'll sit down at night an just usually after everybody goes t bed, I'll be writing a chapter.

-I heard a rumor you write you books on Facebook.

Is this true -I do.

I don't have Word, so you don' hav any way to write i.. and save it.

I'll go on Facebook, and I'll write it like you woul any post.

I'll save it just for me and then I'll come back and edi it.

-This book, It's All About the Story, wa written on Facebook -Facebook, yes.

-I think that could be a first.

Have you heard of other people doing that?

-I've done that with every book.

It's a nice, cheap way.

You don't have to buy Word.

Then you copy it, and then I'll put it on m computer and I'll email it to m publisher.

-Now, you're not from Jackson.

You were born-- -In Columbia, Tennessee.

-Columbia -I was born in Louisburg, the big city of Louisburg outside of Columbia.

Our doctor was a family doctor for three or four generations.

When it came time for me to be born, we drove all the way to Louisburg for me to be born, and we drove all the.. -Your career path has taken you all over West Tennessee per se, before you foun Jackson, and now you really love Jackson.

-Yes.

When I graduated from college, I went to Freed Hardeman, West Tennessee, and I graduated from Free Hardeman became a youth minister in Cleveland, Tennessee, and found out very quickly neede to raise money to get paid.

I began raising money for the students center there, and then I moved back to Freed Hardeman after a couple of years and was recruiting students.

Then a strange thing happened.

I was asked to be presiden or to interview to be president of a grea schoo in Middle Tennessee, Columbia Academy.

It was a forme Columbia Military Academy, CMA, had a rich history.

I was hired to work there.

I was 31.

I was very young.

No fundraising experience othe than being a youth minister.

That was very sobering, ver quick.

-How so?

-Because you have to learn abou budgets in a big way.

You have 800 students, and so you hire teachers and coaches, and you're dealing with how do yo.. care of the campus and makin sur that the school operates in th black and parents are upset all those kinds of things.

At 31, it was like, "That's very sobering."

I went back to Freed Hardeman to where I was just doin nothin but raising money and became vice president and was there for seven years.

Then I was traveling all ove the country.

Charles Jackso was president of the foundation, and he called me and asked me if I knew of anybody on ou staf that might want to come and work at the foundation raising money.

I thought, "Fundraisers are har to find.

Why would you try to stea ours?"

The more I thought about it, I thought, "If I'm in Jackson, Tennessee, and raising money in Jackson I don't go anywhere further than Trenton, Milan, Dyersburg, Camden."

I thought, "I can mow my ow grass.

I can get a dog.

I'm not gone for a wee and back for a week."

-You'll rehab more houses.

-Yes.

Anyway, took this job 26 years ago, and it's been a fun ride.

-Your love for fundraising, is it a love -It is a love.

In fact, you find things that you love t do, and fundraisers, people that raise mone for nonprofits or colleges, especially colleges, and universities, they understand fundraisin in a very pure form because th.. to do all of it.

To be able to sit down and tal to another fundraiser and just ask simple question like, "So how much do I hav to really raise a year, and what's your endowmen level?"

and things that people ar going, "What?"

My doctorate was in how do yo buil a sustainable nonprofit privat school in a small rural community.

You begin to lear all the details in, number one doing it, and then when you're workin on your doctorate, you have to do some thing that are very serious about, "Well, how do you prove that?

How do that?"

-There are a lot of peopl watchin this show right now that have to raise mone for their kids' band trip, or it seems like everyone ha to be raising money, something.

We all have to rais money to pay our bills.

-Yes -What would you say are th keys, the top three things people nee to know about raising money?

-Relationships.

The way you raise money i that you have to develop relationships.

Even for your band, you would figure out "Who do I know?Who do I like?

Who likes me?

Who likes m child?"

and you go to them and ask the for whatever the amount of mone you need.

The key to fundraising is all about building relationship building a sense of trust because you're asking them to give the most important thin in a family's life or a person' life is their money.

What do they get for your money?

Nothing.

If I'm raising money, and people now ask me for money as I've gotten a little mor seasoned, and the things that ar important to me, and I do support the thing that mean something to me.

What do I get out of it?

The satisfaction of givin an organization I trust and I love money.

-Let's move on to it take money to rehab old houses.

12.

Is that the current count?

-Current count is 12 -Is there going to be a 13, 14?

-I'm working on a 13th.

If I'm sensible, I'll stop a 13.

-Is it like what we se on HGTV all the time?

-HGTV, they do it in 30 minutes.

The house I'm working on now, COVID, had open heart surgery, I'm going on five years on tha one.

I'm making progress.

When you have limited time sometimes it makes it longer.

-What is the lov about the fixing of older homes?

-There's something fixed in me to where if something's messed up, try to fix it, make it pretty, in an old house make it look clean.

Sometimes it's tearing ou a wall, but eventually, new sheetrock or new plaster i going up and there's going to be a coa of paint on there.

It's going to look so nice and pretty.

The floors that may be messed u now, they can be made to look brand new, especially if they're hardwood floors and they're from th beginning of the house.

You end up with somethin that you're going, "I'm very proud of that."

I don't think I've ever taken hous that wasn't ready to be tor down, but it was salvageabl because it had good bones.

It was something redeemable, and that when you walk into house generally you will go, "Look at that fireplace, or, "Look at that staircase, or, "Notice these stained glas windows."

You go, "I want this house, because something attache itself t.. Then you say, "I've got to hav this."

-Do you drive around and loo at those 12 houses?

-I see them almost every day a number of them, because all the ones I did are in Midtown Jackson, not far from where I live.

The one I'm working o is one block from my secon house, and my third house, and m fourth house.

Number 13 is just down the road, and I've always wanted it.

There was a tim when I couldn't afford it, and so I'd just drive by, take a friend, and go, "See that house?

I want to buy that house."

Eventually, I was ready to go up and as this 13th house on West King, just ask the owners "Can I buy your house?"

Thinking, "What will they say?"

I walked up to the front door, and the sheriff had alread taken possession of the hous for whatever reason.

I don't know why.

The couple was older, very, ver old.

Then I began, "Who owns thi house?"

It took months and month to figure this out.

I put an offer in and bought th house, and I'm workin on that dream of that house that I've always loved.

My second house was a hous that I bought telling myself, "I don't want this house."

The owner of the house was friend, and we were on the library boar together.

We'd go to a board meeting and she would say, "You need to come and see this house," knowing what she was implyin there.

I thought, "I just need to, on time go with her and see this house, because I'm not buying thi house, and not interested in the house not interested in anothe house."

Anyway, I went, and I walked in, or I walked to the front door, and it you had thi.. She opened the door, and there was this beautiful staircase.

We're just not used to seein multiple levels of th staircase.

Stained glass, and pocket door with beveled glass.

I'm like, "Oh, yes I'm buying this house."

We worked on a price, and it was interestin because this was her parents home.

When her parents died, she locked the garag with a 1930 car in there.

She locked the house.

It became a museum.

Nothing was done for 50 years.

She would just come back an visi the house where my parent lived, and where all their possession were.

It was just a piece of history but she was now much older, and something needed to be don to sav the house because the roof wa bad, it was startin to mess up other parts of th house.

The timing was perfect.

-What happened to the car?

-I was praying that by the tim we closed the car would still be there.

-It wasn't?

-First thing I did, I came to the hous and looked in the garage, and it was gone.

I'm like, "Oh."

Anyway.

Somewhere, someon has this really cool car tha .. in a garage for a couple o decades without being driven.

She couldn't put it in reverse which her mother couldn't, so it just stayed there.

[music] -Frank, let's delve into you second book It's All About a Story: B Encouraged.

This is an offshoot of you first book.

-Yes, Let Me Tell You a Story.

-Yes.

It's a collection of stories, of things that happened to you about real life.

This is Be Encouraged.

They all have a positiv meaning.

-Yes -What made you feel like th first book wasn't complete?

-Because the stories kept comin to me.

I'd mentioned that I get thi inspiration and it's more than just-- that's a great thought.

It' like, "This must be told," and so you begin to figure out how can that story be told?

They all start with somethin either funn or something that relates to m life.

Then every story end with a spiritual message that n matter who you are, where you've been whatever you've done, God loves you.

All he wants you i just to come back to him if you've wandered away.

If you have a great relationshi with God, it's so encouraging to remind you that God love you.

In fact, writing this or both of the books, has helpe me with a greater understanding o who God is and how he feels about us.

-Did you feel God workin through yo as you were writing your books?

-Yes.

That was the message that I kept gettin because it would come with, "This story must be told."

Like I said, I write the at night because it comes and I start thinking about it, and it's different than jus thinkin about something like a house that you process.

It comes with, "This is why this story has to be told."

I don't know why but it just comes that way.

I'll stay up late at nigh writing to try to get the story there.

Then I'll edit it the nex morning and I'll post it on Facebook.

Then posting it on Facebook, because people are reading it, it makes me edit it immediatel because I don't want them to b reading incorrect grammar.

It makes me get this stor better.

Then I sleep on i after that and eventually, it'll get to the publisher -Of all the stories in the book, what is your favorite one, the one that really speaks t your heart -In this book?

-Yes.

-I'm going to read one to you.

That one is an important one.

There are a coupl that deal with my father, who just passed away.

Our life as he got into his 90 was really a fun thing, and how do you dea with older people or you father, the things you've learned fro your fathe back when fathers were not cool when you're 17, 18, 19, but when you're in your 40s 50s and 60s, you look at you parents in a whole different light.

Losing my mother and facing COVID and open hear surger created the reason for the firs book.

Something happened when my mother passed away and COVID came.

During COVID, I had open heart surgery.

Having open heart surger changed me.

After that surgery, the world was different.

Everything was different.

The Sunday before my surgery o Tuesday, I went into this dee depression, because you have to dea with the fact that open hear surgery, some people don't come back ou of this.

You sign a piece of paper that says, "You may not live through this."

On that Sunday, listene to church on my iPhone and went into this depressio and crying because it's like, "This is serious stuff."

When I came out the other en a couple of hours later, it was a whole differen perspective about life.

Surgery didn't mean a lot then.

It was like I was prepared, and I ha this different perspective o God, which led me to first book and through the second book, and leading into the third book.

-How much of your sharing of stories and posts in here and publicly about your father and how that relationshi became stronger, changed, how much of that do you feel i in here?

-A lot, because finishing my doctorate and handing my parent a copy of my dissertation, that was so important to m because here I had a father-- I get emotional whe we're talking about this.

Here I had a father who won-- He was a wonderful hors trainer.

Many, many, many blue ribbon with two world championships.

That output that he did when I was alive, he reminded me, "Son, there were som before you came along."

I had a fathe who was highly successful in hi career.

How am I living up to him?

I felt like I neede to prove some things to him.

The dissertation was one.

Mom had passed away by the time I brought my diploma to show my father.

I wanted to hand it to both of them, so I handed it to my dad, and my dad had always been like "Son, how much education do yo need?"

I said, "Dad, you're not payin for this, so it doesn't matter."

Then it became important to han him a book that had my name on it, that was dedicated to him and m mother.

-What did he say when you gave it to him?

-Here you have a fathe that's 88 at the time-ish, and we were just learning emotions.

Of that generation, fathers didn't share those, and so he didn't say a lot abou it.

At one point, we talked a little bit about i because he was having troubl seeing, and he said, "Son, I can't rea because I can't see very well."

He shared with me that he was pleased over these books.

Handing them to him wa important to me.

Two books and a dissertation an a diploma helped me feel like, "Dad, I'm trying to show yo that I'm somebody, and I want to make you proud."

-Did you feel you needed to do that?

-Yes.

I don't know why.

I've always been that type o person-- Our family name was the most important thin that we could produce in ou comm..

Protecting my family name and then doing thing that helped me tell my parents, "I'm worthy of your love."

There's a story in the firs boo about them telling me, "There's nothing you're goin to do that's going to separate you from us loving you."

I remember that Sunda afternoon.

I'm sure my dad who emotionally, he didn't share emotions because we were talking abou cow and the vegetable garden an horses, and mom pops into this.

"Son, we want you to know this."

It's like, "Where'd that com from?"

Then it's like, we've never been at that point other than my mother when she was in the hospital, I needed to tell her I love her, and she goes "Oh, honey, I just love you."

You know how mothers are.

Anyway, I needed to have tha from my dad.

This is all part of that.

[music] -We've come to the segment o Tennesse Writes we call Lightning Round.

Some people love it the best.

It's where we ask our visiting authors a series of questions about books, about writing, and see how many they can answe in two minutes.

Do you want to play -Yes.

-We have two minute on the clock, and it will begin after the first question.

If your dog could read, wha boo would you recommend to them?

-Three Hops on Pop.

-If you could pick a celebrity to narrate one of your books, who would it be?

-The guy that just died.

The Star Wars guy.

-What animal best represent your book?

-A dog with love.

-How many pages woul the book about your life be?

-It might be rather short.

-If you were strande on an island with only one book, what would it be?

-It would have to be the Bible.

-Favorite book you rea for fun during high school?

-See, none of them.

-Name the book you thin everyone should read.

-Max Lucado's In the Eye of th Storm.

-What celebrit would you most like to co-author a book with?

-Max Lucado.

-Who did you give a copy of you firs published book to?

-My dad.

-Name a fellow author you would like to go on a book tour with.

-We just talked about him just a little while ago.

Jon Meacham.

-Whose autobiograph is your all-time favorite?

-Richard Nixon.

-Do you prefer fiction o non-fiction?

-Non-fiction.

-What' the last audiobook you listene to?

-Simply Jesus by NT Wright.

-How many books ar on your nightstand right now?

-Two.

-What book is on your list t read next?

-I don't have a next I'm still working on Simpl Jesus.

-On average, how many book did you read growing up?

-Probably around 12.

-Favorite place to read books?

-On my couch.

-Who would you want to play yo if your book or life is mad into a movie?

-I'll pass on that one.

-Paper or e-books?

-Paper.

-That's two minutes.

-Yay -18.

-Is that good -That's pretty good.

-Yay.

-Our conversation with Fran McMee about his latest book, It's All About a Story continues.

We've run out of time for this half hour, but stay tuned for the next episode of Tennessee Writes, where we pick it up with Frank McMeen to find out more.

[music] -For comments about today' show or to suggest a Tennessee author for a future program, email us at tennesseewrites@westtnpbs.org.

Tennessee Writes on air and streaming now.

[music] -This program you've bee watching was made possible through the generous financial support of West Tennessee PBS viewers like you.

Please visit westtnpbs.org an mak a donation today so that we ca continue to make local programs like thi possible.

Thank you.

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