Hi everybody, Cheryl Ackison here. Welcome to another edition of Full Measure After Hours.

Today, a true life, grapes of wrath playing out in Tennessee and how country music star John Rich stepped in to save the day.

I started covering the story a couple of months back on my podcast, interviewing country

music star John Rich about how he'd inserted himself into a controversy in Tennessee in order

to stand up for residents and farm owners against the government agency, the TVA. I think I learned

a little bit about the TVA at elementary school or maybe junior high,

and then never really thought much about it after that. But it has stirred up a lot of scandal over the

years. It's a secret of multi-billion dollar federal agency, a power company servicing seven states,

that answers only to the president, led by a CEO who was making 26 times

more than the president of the United States. That salary was $10.5 million a year, making the recent

former CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority, likely the highest paid government employee in the U.S.

This will be the topic of my cover story this week on full measure, but today, in this podcast,

the full interview with John Rich.

John Rich, J-O-H-N, R-I-C-H.

And then just can you summarize how you got interested in this issue?

So I've been a resident in Cheatham County for a very long time.

I actually went to high school in Cheatham County,

9th, 10th, and 11th grade when we moved here from Texas.

I grew up in Amarillo, Texas.

But my family originated a lot of them in the Middle Tennessee area. So my teenage years right here in Cheatham County, and

knowing the neighbors, knowing the culture around here, these are blue-collar, hardworking,

lower-to-middle middle income type farmer communities.

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