The Personal Story Behind Kari's Law

MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Welcome to More Than Seven Dirty Words, the official FCC Podcast. I'm Evan Swarztrauber. Nearly every child in America is taught a few basic things in life. Don't cross the street without looking both ways, don't talk to strangers, and if you're in trouble dial 911. It's pretty simple. When you dial 911 the call should go through, and help should be on the way. But, unfortunately, that's not always the case. In many office buildings, campuses around the country, you have to press 9 before going out, or some other number. And we saw the tragic result of that impediment in the case of Kari Hunt.

In 2013 Kari went to a Texas motel with her kids to meet her estranged husband. He attacked and killed her. Kari's daughter tried to call 911 from the motel room phone four times, but the call wouldn't go through. The motel's phone system required her to first dial a 9. This tragedy should never be repeated. Thankfully action is being taken.

I'm honored to be joined by Hank Hunt, Kari's father, who has worked tirelessly to bring attention to this problem and solve it. Hank, thank you so much for coming to the show, and thank you for your moving presentation at the today's FCC open meeting. We are recording this on September 26th. Thank you for joining.

MR. HUNT: Thank you for having me.

MR. SWARZTRAUBER: And I'm also joined by Ajit Pai, Chairman of the FCC, and I want to turn it over to you because you have been working hand in hand with Hank for so long on this issue.

MR. PAI: Thanks so much, Evan. Thanks for coming Hank. I really appreciate your advocacy and friendship over the years, and your willingness to sit down with a couple of bureaucrats here in Washington to discuss your story. And as I said earlier today, I've just found your example so inspiring with the courage and the persistence you had in a situation that would make most people want to withdraw. You had the opposite reaction. I've just personally found it very inspiring to see your example over the last several years.

Before getting into Kari's story though, I would like to just learn a little bit about you. Where are you from? And did you grow up there? And what do you do?

MR. HUNT: Well, I was actually born in Little Rock, Arkansas.

MR. PAI: We won't hold that against you.

MR. HUNT: Well, a lot of people do.

MR. PAI: (Laughter.)

MR. HUNT: And sometimes I do too. But Razorback country. We moved to Texas when I was in the --- middle school, and been a Texan ever since. And won't ever be anything else but that from now on. And I live in East Texas, Northeast, Texas, between Tyler, Texas and Longview. You have to get a map for those, and those are the largest towns around me. And my wife and I are edging toward retirement, and have a very small little horse ranch out in the country. And that's where we like to stay, and we have grandkids come over, slide down the hill, play out in the horse pastures.

MR. PAI: And I've got to say, I mean, at 29 D.J. is a little early for retirement, but, you know, I respect everyone's choices.

MR. HUNT: Well, you know, we do what we can to make her happy.

MR. PAI: (Laughter.)

MR. HUNT: You know.

MR. PAI: What's that saying, "Happy wife, happy life.

MR. HUNT: Yes, that's it. That's it.

MR. PAI: Can you describe what Kari was like as a little girl?

MR. HUNT: Oh, happy, full of life. The only way --- the best way for me to describe Kari is a day that we went out together. We would --- on my days off we would go --- I think she was about eight, seven or eight about this time, during the summer. And we --- I had a little Bronco 2, I don't know if you remember those or not, but just a little four-wheel drive vehicle. And we went out below Mansfield Dam in Austin, and we were four wheeling down there. And it was a great little --- I don't want to say pasture, but just a little bit of land, green --- bright green grass, some trees, but it had a creek run up through the middle of it. It was only about eight, ten inches deep, and rock bottom, about 15 feet wide. Not a big deal, but I pulled up to it and I said I'm not going to --- if you weren't with me then I would go through it, but I'm not going to do that. And she kept asking me to, "Let's do it, let's do it." And, you know, I said, "No, you're with me and I'm not going to chance this thing." It's not going to float anywhere, because it's just a small creek, but still. And I looked over at her and she grabbed her seatbelt, and she tightened real tight. And she reached up and grabbed the hand hold. And she looked at me and she said chicken. And she knew at that point ---

MR. PAI: (Laughter.)

MR. HUNT: Needlessly to say, we made it through the creek, and we did it several times. But that's the way she was every day, challenges, she loved jokes, and we always had family day during --- each month we would have a family day where everybody would come over. And their favorite ones was kite day, and we all made our own kites. Not a speck of wind blowing anywhere. And I actually tied five of them to my riding lawnmower, and pulled that across the horse pasture and we flew kites, so. But that's what --- she was chasing me to make sure that they stayed up in the air for the kids so that they could see the kites flying, and make sure that they fly. And that's what --- that's what we always did, and she was always in the middle of that. If it had to do with family she was there.

MR. PAI: Well that's --- I think you obviously raised her right, because she was a mom in her own right.

MR. HUNT: Right.

MR. PAI: And I was wondering if you could describe how many kids she had, what kind of mom she was.

MR. HUNT: Three kids, a little boy, Zane, little girl, Kylie, and then Brianna, the oldest. And she was not very strict unless it came to pretty bad infractions that children might make. She made sure that they did not hang onto pacifiers and bottles past a certain age. She wanted them to grow up, and grow up properly. That's the way she would say it. And she was --- she was just a loving mom, and she loved those children with all her heart.

MR. PAI: You know, one of the things I've noticed since I have known you is just the way you talk about your daughter is the way I think of my own daughter. There's something special about that daddy/daughter bond. And that bond, as we've all discussed, was broken in December ---

MR. HUNT: Correct.

MR. PAI: --- 2013. And for the benefit of the listeners who might not know the story, and understanding, obviously, this is a quite painful experience, but I was wondering if you could walk us through that day, what it was that happened and how you found out about it.

MR. HUNT: Well, she had --- she had enough of the marriage. It wasn't physical abuse that I know of, but there was an awful lot of emotional and verbal abuse. And treatment was just --- I had gotten into several verbal conversations with her husband about the way he treated her. And she had gone to a wedding, I believe it was, and --- which was in Marshall, about 70 miles from where they were living. And after it was --- the wedding was over with they came back to her sister's house, they had spent the night, packed their clothes. And the kids said they didn't want to go back.

MR. PAI: The kids said that.

MR. HUNT: Yes, the kids told us they didn't want to go back.

MR. PAI: Yes.

MR. HUNT: And she said okay. So she stayed. And they were there for about three weeks and he had asked if he could see --- visit with the children. And she said, yes. So he got a hotel room there and she took the kids to him, which she was not supposed to do. And if she was here now I'd bean her in the head. But she took the kids there. He had been threatening to kill her, which was scary to all of us. I never dreamed, never in my life did I dream he would do what he did. But she dropped them at the hotel, and he talked her into coming into the room, and then talked her into going into the restroom to talk and smoke a cigarette. And when he did he locked the door behind him. And when she told him that she still had intentions to leave that's when he started attacking her.

MR. PAI: So the kids were in the main room ---

MR. HUNT: Correct.

MR. PAI: And she and he was in the bathroom with the door locked.

MR. HUNT: Correct, correct. And when he started attacking her that's when she yelled at Brianna to call 911. And Brianna pushed her little brother and sister out into the hallway of the hotel. And she proceeded to call 911 and couldn't. I think she said she called twice and she would go and kick and knock on the bathroom door and tell him to stop, scream at him to stop and things like that. It was a --- she heard it all. She heard everything. So her imagination still gets to her every now and then. But she tried her heart out to get her mother help.

She left the room, and there were two housekeepers in the lobby there and she was telling them and they just walked on like nothing had happened. Come to find out they didn't speak English. So they didn't know what was going on. But if you look at the videotapes this child was in distress. This is a 9-year-old little girl, and anybody, even another 9 year old would have known something's wrong.

And eventually he came out. Let me back up real quick. Another guest in the hotel heard what was going on. She went over there and Brianna had opened the door and she banged on the bathroom door and told him that the police are on their way.

MR. PAI: And was he still stabbing her?

MR. HUNT: He was still attack --- actually at that point I think he was trying to clean up, okay. And he opened the door and actually told her we'll be through in a minute, okay.

MR. PAI: Oh, my God.

MR. HUNT: And she said there was blood on his shoes, Brianna knows that. She saw all of that. And the lady left, went back to her room. And he came out, took Kylie, the middle child, she was three at the time, and he fled with her. Brianna hid her brother, pushed him back and was yelling at him we're not going with you. So she kept her brother and herself back at the hotel, and he fled.

And it was about four hours later that they got him approximately 60 miles away, 60 miles north due to an Amber alert. Amber alert, we had Amber alerts out for --- you know, the worst thing you can ever get is an Amber alert on your phone and look down and it's your granddaughter, or your daughter. That's an empty feeling, helpless feeling. And anyway thank God he didn't hurt her.

But a lady sitting at a red light had heard it numerous times and kept silencing it, and the third time it went off she said she picked it up and looked at it and saw the description of the vehicle and was sitting right behind him at a light. And she called 911 and told them what was going on, and she followed them for about four or five city blocks, I guess, and said she was getting scared that he might do something to Kylie if he saw her. And they said don't worry, we know exactly where you are. You can go on home, or whatever, or break off.

And there were eight --- I believe there were eight agencies from around that area within about a hundred square mile area converged on this guy. And they were going after my granddaughter. And I cannot thank them enough for that. It was unbelievable what you can see in the videos. And --- but there were communication breakdowns all along this whole story, and that's what Kari Hunt Foundation is trying to stop, starting with Kari's Law.

MR. PAI: Yes.

MR. HUNT: And when we were at the police station that afternoon she told me that it didn't work, and when the police detective sitting next to us heard Brianna tell me that 911 didn't work, we figured out it was because she was at a hotel. She didn't know to dial a 9, or whatever it might be. The police detective went up and I said that was a multi-line phone. We have to press line one, two, three or four or a nine. And she went back to the police station and she came out and said --- just shook her head. She couldn't call 911 from the police station unless she dialed a nine first.

So I told Brianna that papa was going to fix it, and as soon as I said those words I had no idea what I was going to do. I got scared because she looked at me and she said okay. So that sealed it, and thank God I found the right people that said yes.

MR. PAI: See this is what I find so amazing about your story is, you know, I've had some loss in my life, or, you know, knocks that just go against you, and nothing compared to what you've suffered, but whenever that happens, I mean, the natural human instinct is to sort of withdraw or just become really pensive about things, but you actually took it in a different direction. You said I want to take action. I want to change this so no one else goes through what Kari, what Brianna, what Kylie, what Zane had to go through.

MR. HUNT: Correct.

MR. PAI: What made you decide to take action? How did you know what action to take, in those days and weeks right after?

MR. HUNT: Look in that little girl's eyes,---

MR. PAI: Yes.

MR. HUNT: -- when I told her that I would fix it. She knew I just made a promise to her. And there was no way --- looking around that police station and see all the family members there, and knowing that Kylie's off with this idiot, no telling what's going on with her, what she's going through. No, I don't want that to happen to anybody. And removing --- being able to call 911, come on people, it's got to be simple. And it turns out it is simple. It was just a matter of people doing it on their own, and finding out that they didn't and it had been like that for a while.

MR. PAI: And I understand that one of the first steps you took was to start a change.org petition.

MR. HUNT: I did, yes.

MR. PAI: What was that petition, and what were you expecting that petition to result in?

MR. HUNT: Well, someone --- I didn't know what to do, how to start it or anything. I was on the Facebook and someone said change.org. So I went to the site and saw it's a petition website. I said, give it a shot. So I filled out a petition. I did some research about 911, and how much money had been collected over the past several years on your phone bill from cell phones and things like that for the 911 fund, and finding out that maybe one percent of it is being spent on 911. The rest of it's on roads in Illinois or whatever it might be. And it made me mad. And so I targeted the petition to U.S. Congress and the Senate. And I guess key words in that petition showed up on someone's computer that had --- I don't know what you call it, if certain words come up you get an alert.

MR. PAI: Right.

MR. HUNT: Google alerts, or whatever.

MR. PAI: Yes.

MR. HUNT: And I guess a few of the words that I used in the petition came up on Mark Fletcher's email notices and he contacted me. And took him long enough. I think it ---

MR. PAI: And just so people --- who is this random character, Mark Fletcher? Who is this?

MR. HUNT: I don't know. He's really hard to describe.

MR. PAI: We can agree on that.

MR. HUNT: Yes, he's a gentleman from New Jersey to begin with.

MR. PAI: He's a Yankee, which is one strike already, so, yes.

MR. HUNT: And --- but he had the wherewithal and the backbone to call me within a week after my daughter had just been murdered and tell me he can help me fix this. And I don't remember the full conversation, all I know is I made him explain to me how he was going to help me. And I believe it was just days later he contacted you.

MR. PAI: Yes.

MR. HUNT: And the ball started rolling. And when he told me --- he posted a picture on Facebook of the front of the building here, and he said here we go. And I wasn't sure exactly what he was talking about at that time, but a few seconds later I'm going no way, already? And, yes, it was. And the rest is history, brother.

MR. PAI: It really is, for my part of the story it is just amazing, you know, I get a lot of random feedback on Twitter, as you probably have seen. And I saw this one, and I thought, boy, this is a really tragic story. I've got to dig into this. And the more I started digging, the more I wanted to dig more and understand why it was this way. And that's why when Mark came and sat down with me I thought we've got to do something. And then he, as you know, put us in touch and we talked on the phone, I think, a few weeks after, you know, Kari was murdered. And I just remember very distinctly telling my folks we've got to do something. I mean, I don't know if we're going to be able to effect change, we've got to do something.

MR. HUNT: But when we teach our children something as adamant and as common as dialing 911 for help, and we put it on our police cars, we put it on our ambulances and fire trucks police officers, firefighters will teach you if you're ever in trouble call 911. The little girl did. She did what she was taught to do by her mother, her grandparents, the police, the fire department, teachers. She followed instructions, and it was adults who let her down, and adults have to fix it.

MR. PAI: Exactly.

MR. HUNT: That's what we needed to do.

MR. PAI: So I have to ask, I mean, it's several weeks after you and I talked I sent out a letter to the CEOs of the top ten hotel chains in the U.S., to the American Hotel and Lodging Association asking them about the state of 911 calling in their phone systems, and seeing if they hadn't taken steps to allow direct access, and if not, why not. But the question I have to ask you is were you skeptical about me? Why on earth is this random federal bureaucrat stepping in. I don't think he's actually going to be able to effect change, or ---

MR. HUNT: No, I had full faith that we started off at the top. It was the way I felt. And I remember we spoke on the phone. You called me at home one night. And that made me --- that made me feel like there's somebody where it counts that cares. And because we had a --- we had a pretty good conversation.

MR. PAI: Yes.

MR. HUNT: A lot of it centered around kids, and it was --- it meant a lot to me, it really did. And I think that --- and I --- I think it was at that point, that conversation, when I said okay if you ever make it to Texas I'll buy you a barbeque and some beer, and you said okay.

MR. PAI: I'm still waiting to collect, you cheapskate.

MR. HUNT: Oh, give me a break.

(Laughter.)

MR. PAI: No, it really hit me too, I mean, my son at the time was two, my daughter was a newborn just two months old, maybe, ---

MR. HUNT: Right.

MR. PAI: --- if that, and so ---

MR. HUNT: Yes.

MR. PAI: -- I was thinking about what your grandkids must have gone through in that room, I mean, I just --- I told my wife after I got off the phone that night I just can't --- I can't go to sleep. I mean, it just sort of --- you know, the very definition of empathy, right, is putting yourself in someone else's shoes and imagining ---

MR. HUNT: Right.

MR. PAI: --- what their life must be like. And then ---

MR. HUNT: Well, I think --- I don't think it's about Kari, because nobody knows Kari. Nobody here has met her, but her story is captivating to a lot of people. But the majority of the people that take an interest in it and want to fix it have kids. And I think that is the common factor that makes it so compelling, and makes people want to fix it.

MR. PAI: Absolutely.

MR. HUNT: Because look at what my daughter went through and what my granddaughter went through. I don't want my kids going through that. And that's what I was trying to target.

MR. PAI: And that's one of the things --- I think I might have said it when we had our event in Marshall in 2015 when we announced some of the results of our initiative when we had, you know, Congressman Gohmert there, and Mark and a bunch of other good folks who had been supporting this effort. To know Kari's story is to want to make change. And that's another thing I find impressive, you know, a lot of people want to make change, but you actually did it. I mean, you started initiatives in all of these states, and even at the federal level. And I was wondering if you could discuss the federal legislation that recently passed, and what the process was like and what it was like when that process ended.

MR. HUNT: Watching paint dry.

(Laughter.)

MR. HUNT: That's what the process was.

MR. PAI: Yes.

MR. HUNT: It was slow, a lot slower than I expected, but made several trips to Washington, and met with the senators and members of congress in their offices. And I started to learn pretty much how Washington works. And at that point you have to take different angles and do things differently. And, no, I do not want to run for office in Washington. But I know some tricks and curve balls that they can throw, and I know how to throw them back now. And that's okay. If that's the way I have to do it. It wasn't anything that was bad, it's just people are different. And you've got to explain things different to some people who had more --- different concerns than you might about --- some it was costs, some it was technology, some it was they want more to it than what Kari's Law is.

The main thing I wanted was for Kari's Law to not break somebody. I don't want someone in a mom and pop hotel that's got a 40-room hotel having to spend $10,000.00 to upgrade their phone systems. And that's what I was trying to avoid. And once I learned more about it and the technology that was there, especially where I was working was a building that was --- 1974 was when it was created. We still had the same phone system that was --- when it was created, and that --- the tech company came out and in 15 minutes the whole building had been changed over. So I knew it was easy to do.

MR. PAI: Right.

MR. HUNT: And when he asked why they didn't charge us. And then I said, okay, there's good people out there. I know there are. And when a lot of people think --- like on the location services for the multiline telephone systems, I'm not real smart about that. But I do know that if we have --- it's just --- if we do that for landline phones, is the word I'm trying to look for, I just feel like the cost will be overbearing for the smaller companies, and things like that. So I don't know how to get around that. I would love for it to happen, but I don't think it would help. Being a former first responder I can get the same information that the dispatcher does, but it means nothing to me until I get there and someone shows me what this is.

MR. PAI: Right.

MR. HUNT: So knowing that 123 Main Street, Third Floor, Room 14a, whatever, I still got to know how to get to it. So --- and ---

MR. PAI: Yes, that's the other thing that struck me when I started looking into this and said, in many cases the fix is pretty easy. I mean, even here at the FCC we didn't have direct access to 911.

MR. HUNT: Correct.

MR. PAI: It essentially just was a case of my predecessor, the former chairman, saying we want to change this and there it was. It was done. And so I think that's part of what struck members of congress too, saying this is a common sense fix.

MR. HUNT: Right.

MR. PAI: Now, Kari's law ultimately did pass thanks to your efforts. And ---

MR. HUNT: Oh, no, thanks to a lot of people's efforts.

MR. PAI: Well, but you're first among many, and on February 16th you and I shared a special moment, and I was wondering if you could describe that. What we did that day, and --

MR. HUNT: It was surreal for me. I was looking at the --- I was fixated on the Resolute desk. We were in --- you know, we were all brought in before President Trump came in. So there was a ---

MR. PAI: Well, just back up a little. What exactly happened in the lead up to that? So Congress passed Kari's Law, ---

MR. HUNT: Yes.

MR. PAI: --- and ultimately it came to the president, and he was going to sign it, and I think they invited a bunch of ---

MR. HUNT: Yes, there were ---

MR. PAI: --- you and a bunch of characters like me to come along.

MR. HUNT: Yes, there were a lot of characters in there.

MR. PAI: (Laughter.)

MR. HUNT: And there were people from Alabama. There was the dispatcher of the year, nationwide, was there. I know --- I think Marsha Blackburn was there. It was all a --- I know it took probably 20 minutes, 25 minutes maybe, but to me it lasted 60 seconds, ---

MR. PAI: Yes.

MR. HUNT: --- so --- in my memory. But the lead up to it was it finally passed the Senate at 5:30 in the morning, which I stayed up all night.

MR. PAI: I remember that night.

MR. HUNT: Yes, and it happened to be Kari's birthday. And it was -- the only reason it was at 5:30 in the morning was because a filibuster had been started the night before, so they kept going all night long. And then finally it came up and it went through so fast I didn't understand what they meant, and I actually had a reporter text me, "What the heck was that all about?" And I said, "I don't know." So I went and looked up certain words and I said, "Okay, it passed." And then it went to --- a week later it went to the White House, it went to President Trump's desk to be signed on the 50th anniversary of the first 911 call. And when we were led in there the Resolute desk was just awesome to me. I love that desk. But I was looking around at the rest of the oval office. This is where my brain was here. And I noticed out the back window, it was glass there, that there was manicured lawns, hedges, everything. I thought that was great. And there was bird poop on the window. And it really bothered me. And I kept looking and I wanted to tell my wife, D.J. there's bird poop on the window. Somebody's got to fix this, this is the White House here.

MR. PAI: (Laughter.)

MR. HUNT: And the next thing I know is I heard my wife say, "Oh, my.", and I turned around and President Trump is standing there. And he's looking at me like I'm an idiot, which I was. And --- but, I mean, he was so cordial and inviting and he introduced himself to everybody there. Bless my granddaughter, Brooklyn. She was scared to death. And she kind of broke the ice with her oh my God answer when she stuck her hand out to shake his. But he was very nice to my family. He was very welcoming. And I wanted Brianna to see him, whoever it was, I wanted Brianna to see the president sign that into law and get the pen.

MR. PAI: Yes.

MR. HUNT: And not only did that happen, but he hugged her and told her he was proud of her, and that her mother would be proud of her. I could not have asked for any more. I stood back and told D.J. promise fulfilled.

MR. PAI: And this is why --- you know, look I'm not blowing smoke just because you're here, but this is why I think you represent the best of citizen advocacy. To go from where you were in December of '13, a dad grieving who had made a promise to a granddaughter, just a few years later standing in the most powerful office of the most powerful man on earth. Having him thank you for your efforts and hand your granddaughter a pen that he used to sign legislation named after --- I mean, only in America, ---

MR. HUNT: Right.

MR. PAI: --- and only because of your efforts, and it's really just --- like I said, a testimony to your courage that we were in that room at that point.

MR. HUNT: I'm a testament that if you work hard enough it'll happen.

MR. PAI: And the other thing I remember from that day is, aside from looking at you like a hawk to see your reaction, is just watching Brianna, and she was so poised, so dignified. You know, when I was chatting with her just so happy it seemed. And to have gone through what she's gone through I can't even imagine, so I guess my other question is how's she doing? How are the other kids doing, and how are you all doing?

MR. HUNT: Kids are doing fine. Brianna's smart as a whip, I mean, just perfect grades. She's in football dance team, and wants to be a cheerleader, please no, ---

MR. PAI: (Laughter.)

MR. HUNT: --- but the money already is unbelievable, but the cost of putting them through those things. But she's doing okay. When we travel, it still to this day --- we went to --- we went to Six Flags a couple weeks ago, and we stayed overnight, and the first thing she does when she goes in hotel room is go to the phone and reads the faceplate on the phone. And she never says anything it's just a thumbs up or a thumbs down. And I know that when she does that I'm going to be talking to a hotel manager before we leave.

MR. PAI: And what happens when you talk to that manager.

MR. HUNT: They --- some of them don't know about it, which is still my job. We're still trying to get the word out, and it's an awareness problem at this point. And some of them say it does work. We just haven't changed the cards on there, and I will ask them if I can check it. And they said sure, and I will call the local PSAP, tell them I'm going to test the phone. And it may not work on every phone in the building, I understand that, but if it works on the one I'm calling from, and they say that it's been changed then I have to --- I have to believe that it's done. And it's a law. And I explain it to them. And if it's not done 100 percent, and something happens, you know, it's going to be their responsibility for it.

MR. PAI: Yes.

MR. HUNT: So they can no longer say they didn't know.

MR. PAI: Exactly. You know, to close one loop on this story, one of the favorite messages I got, and I can't remember if it was you or D.J., was updating me on the criminal process that he went through. And just for our listeners can you tell us what the state of play is with respect to the man who murdered Kari?

MR. HUNT: Well, we went through a week-long trial. He pled guilty, which I never could figure out why we were going through a week-long trial. But ended up the sentencing part was what took the most --- of course everybody wanted death penalty. Everybody wanted life sentence, and the prosecutor that we had there was a smart man, and he went for 99, 99 years, and that's what the jury gave him was 99 years. But with 99 years you don't get possibility of parole until after 60 years. And we offered him many --- I think we offered him four chances to take an agreement, you know. We will offer you this if you plead guilty, all this other good stuff. In the beginning he turned them all down. And, no, he actually thought he would do his time and get out in about four or five years. And he ended up getting 99, so he's not eligible for parole for 60 years, which put him in his 90s, so.

MR. PAI: Justice was served.

MR. HUNT: Yes.

MR. PAI: You know, the last question I've got is a pretty controversial one. You and I have been friends now for a number of years, we've broken bread a few times, including the very first time I actually met you in person, it was down in Texas.

MR. HUNT: Right.

MR. PAI: This might be the end of our friendship, depending on how you answer this question, so I'm just going to set it up that way, better barbeque Texas or Kansas?

MR. HUNT: Oh, crap.

MR. PAI: (Laughter.)

MR. HUNT: Texas of course.

MR. PAI: You got to be kidding me, man.

MR. HUNT: Have you ever invited me to Kansas to try it?

MR. PAI: Well, standing invitation.

MR. HUNT: Okay. Then we'll have to ---

MR. PAI: Kansas City Barbeque. We'll take you to a good gas station on 47th Street.

MR. HUNT: I tell you what, why don't we meet in Oklahoma, you bring some, I'll bring some and we'll invite somebody from Oklahoma to test it.

MR. PAI: (Laughter.) I think so too.

MR. HUNT: And then we'll --- but it doesn't matter where. We can have barbeque anywhere you want, I don't care.

MR. PAI: Well, sounds good to me. You know, I know we'll been ---

MR. HUNT: Texas.

MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Have you guys had New York City barbeque?

MR. PAI: I mean, see, this is the problem.

MR. HUNT: Let me tell you something we ---

MR. PAI: I saw that on Twitter, I thought this has got to be the biggest trolling effort of all time, New York City Barbeque.

MR. HUNT: I was in New York City with Mark Fletcher, and we went to a --- I can't remember the name of it, said they were from Laredo, Texas. And I went all right, this is going to be some Texas barbeque up in New York, no.

MR. PAI: Grilled tofu or something.

MR. HUNT: It was --- no, it wasn't that bad, but it was --- it wasn't a prime cut or a select cut, it was a cut. And --- but it was --- it was okay. The atmosphere was a little --- just different that's all. It's just different. When I go in to eat barbeque I see blue jeans, boots and cowboy hats. Up here it was briefcases and neckties, and, of course, it was still barbeque.

MR. PAI: Yes.

MR. HUNT: And it was good, but it wasn't Texas.

MR. PAI: I think that's one thing we can agree on, it's just one of the greatest innovations in civilization has been burned meat with some good sauce on the side.

MR. HUNT: Got to be.

MR. PAI: And it just really --- I don't know how you can get any better than that. Plus a nice cold beer too.

MR. HUNT: Right, exactly, or some chili.

MR. PAI: Well, that is about it for me my friend. I just want to say thank you again.

MR. HUNT: (Unintelligible.)

MR. PAI: I really do mean it. You've been an inspiration to me. I think of you all the time, think of Brianna, I think of the whole family. And whatever the next stage in the adventure is, just know that God's always going to be with you as well as ---

MR. HUNT: I appreciate that.

MR. PAI: --- me an all of the colleagues here at the FCC.

MR. HUNT: I appreciate that.

MR. PAI: So thanks for all you do.

MR. HUNT: Well, you'll be a part of it I hope.

MR. PAI: Absolutely. And I'll see you in Oklahoma.

MR. HUNT: All right, man, you got it. I'll bring the sauce.

MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Thank you both very much.

MR. HUNT: Thank you.

MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Find this podcast in the iTunes Store, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you hear or don't, feel free to leave us your view, or help others find the show. Thanks for listening.