Grant regular feature on UK podcast
Anyone with an e-mail address knows they get plenty of spam and unwanted message.
So when the Grant Tribune-Sentinel got an e-mail with “Greetings newsdesk!!” in the subject line, staff figured it was just more spam.
Even after reading the e-mail, staff remained skeptical.
“I thought that you might like to know that for several weeks now a podcast based in the UK (and Japan) has dedicated a section of air time to the city of Grant, Nebraska.
“We know about the operation tournament, the wish for a new electronic cemetery board, Suzy the dog being flown to Winnipeg, and we’ve all fallen in love a bit with your city and Perkins County.”
Skepticism then turned into curiosity. Office Manager Sammi Goff searched the name of the podcast, “Show Yourself Mr. Jasmine” and found that it really did exist.
She pulled up one of their first podcasts and indeed, Grant, Nebraska had a featured segment in the conversation.
After numerous e-mail exchanges, the trio of podcasters set up a zoom call with the Tribune. Two of the Brits live in the U.K. (only one was able to make the zoom call) and the other lives in Japan. So a 3 p.m. MT call was set up, which meant it was 10 p.m. in the U.K. and 5 a.m. the next day in Japan.
The most important question—why Grant, Nebraska?
As the three friends were laying the groundwork for their podcast, they thought it would be fun to feature a smaller, lessor known place in the English speaking world.
“We were looking for a place that felt a million miles away from our lives,” Chris Marsh, one of the trio, said. “And yet, actually, the people there are no different, leading their their normal lives in a way that we would never have an insight into.”
Marsh said the U.S. was a natural choice so he went to Google Maps and went to the center of the country—Nebraska.
He said he started following I-80 west and spotted a town with a unique name—Ogallala.
That was his original choice until he followed the map south to Grant.
Using street view in Google Maps, he looked around town and the buildings and names.
“And then I thought, what do the people in Grant do? Have they got a newspaper? Yes.
He said he looked through the stories and the first one he saw was about Susie the dog, who was flown to a new home in Winnipeg, Canada. That sealed the deal. Grant was it “from that moment going forward.”
About 20 minutes into each podcast, a jingle begins—foreign affairs from afar. That’s when the focus shifts to what’s going on in Grant.
“It’s a comedy show so please don’t take offence to anything we might say. It’s all in jest and good natured.” Marsh wrote in his initial e-mail.
Yes, the story of Susie the dog made it into the podcast. They had fun with PC Vet Hospital employee Christy Bacon’s name, referring to it as “crispy bacon.”
The hospital foundation’s “Operation Tournament” drew their attention as well. Their minds and tongues ran wild with the thought of a life-size operation game.
The trio became acquainted in college and it was Peter Lyons, who lives in Japan, who threw out the idea of the three doing a podcast together.
“We didn’t really know what we were going to do to start but we had a few kind of online meetings and we kind of discussed content ideas, and then, yeah, the first episode went out in October of this year,” he said.
They are joined by Tom Byrne.
All three of them have beards and a portraiture, drawn by Marsh’s 10-year-old daughter that appears on their Instagram and Facebook pages and on the web. They put out new podcasts about every 10 days. Those can be found by searching Show Yourself Mr. Jasmine.