Andy Hopkins And His Love Of Cake

Andy Hopkins (00:00):

At somewhere on the, the homework I wrote, I like cake and I'm not kidding. So like three or four years in a row, there's Andy. And I'm like, man, I don't remember liking cake that much, but apparently I did. <Laugh>

Ron Lyons (00:12):

Welcome to CelinaRadio.com recorded right here in Celina, Texas, a quiet little dusty sleepy town that has absolutely nothing going on guys. Welcome to another episode of CelinaRadio.com. And of course, as always, we know there's so much going on in Celina, Texas. I love that intro because it's exactly the opposite of the truth and I'm not gonna change it because I think it's awesome. But check out this music, it's, it's kind of this vibe I've got going on right now with like beach vacation stuff. And this is some beach vacation music and I just dig it and you're gonna dig the show we've got today because we've got Andy Hopkins. And if you don't know, Andy you're missing out on a lot. Andy is absolutely awesome. So we did a little interview with him. We talked a little bit kinda like we always do.

Ron Lyons (01:20):

And then we, we did some special questions and he gave us some well, very special answers. So you're gonna like that part, but we're gonna do something also a little different today in the sense that the whole real estate market right now has just kind of, you know, jumped through its backside, so to speak. And a lot of people are concerned about what's going on. So, you know, it's easy to think of CelinaRadio.com as just like an interview show because I've done so many interviews, but it's not just that I said, I'd talk about real estate every once in a while. Now, as one of those times when we kinda need to kind of circle around and talk about what's going on in the real estate market, because it is absolutely critical to Celina, Texas. So we're gonna briefly touch on that. And then we're gonna hop into the interview with Andy Hopkins. So we've got a fantastic show and let's get into some of that real estate stuff real quick. And then let's have some fun with Andy Hopkins.

Ron Lyons (02:28):

So clearly, you know, that the real estate market has just changed and you know that, and probably know that interest rates have gone up the market has started to slow down just a little bit. And you're probably wondering what exactly does that mean for real estate in Celina, Texas, and, and maybe you don't care. You're not looking at selling, you're not looking at buying. So all of this is kind of insignificant to you. So in that sense, I'm not gonna spend a whole lot of time on this, but I do wanna just give you a little bit of insight because this is what I do for a living on a daily basis. It's what I've done for the last 10 years. And prior to that, I did it back in the eighties. It was one of the first real jobs I ever had was doing real estate.

Ron Lyons (03:17):

My family is all in real estate, so I just live and breathe this stuff, but we're not gonna get into all that stuff right now. What we are gonna talk about is what has just now happened and what happened was interest rates went up the market, slowing down just a little bit, and it has shifted from more of a seller's market to a more balanced market. So it, it's still not a buyer's market. And real estate is still a hot commodity and people are paying still over market value on homes and things like that. But let me explain to you very quickly what this means for each side of the coin buyers and sellers for buyers. It means you've got a little more leverage now. There's not quite as many buyers in the market. There are

more homes for sale right now. And we're talking about just kind of a snapshot in time right now, cuz this again, it's a very fluid market and it will change again soon.

Ron Lyons (04:21):

But as of right now, you don't have to get into a fist fight in front of a house with 10 other people in order to get an opportunity to buy a house. That's not how it is right this second. So it's a, it's a good time. It's a healthier time in the market right now. If you're looking to buy, that has been very different as we all know in these previous months. And you know, it's just been insane. That's, that's not how it is right now, but on the other side of that coin, if you're a seller, it's changed a little bit for selling too. And, and again, in a healthy way, it was getting so bad and there was so much greed in the market. People are automatically going on listing homes and they were just jacking those prices up like crazy, taking big time advantage of a lot of people.

Ron Lyons (05:15):

And it was a, not a good time, not a good time if you don't like things like seeing all that greediness and stuff like that. And I, I don't like that. So things have shifted a little bit. Now you can still get a very, very good price for your home, for your listing, for your ranch, for your, whatever it is that you have, because it still shifted slightly in the favor of the seller. But what you're not gonna have is 700 people beating each other up, trying to buy your listing. So you've gotta take that into account. Unfortunately, right now there's still a lot of real estate people out there who believe that the market is still the way it was. And so, so they're gonna help you or not stop you from listing your home for way too much money. And of course the reality sets in that it's not exactly the same market anymore. Your home sits there and has to get a price reduction. And that's not a good thing right now. You don't wanna start out so high and then have that price reduction because that's just fuel. If I'm the, the agent working for the buyer and I see that you've lowered your price, maybe that's what I'm looking for. IM ready to, to work on that deal. You don't want to be on the other side of that deal for me. So don't do that to start

Ron Lyons (06:41):

Price your home properly. As a matter of fact, I've always been a fan of slightly underpricing. Your home create a huge amount of demand for your property, for your home. And then it's automatically gonna go up higher. So we're, we're not gonna get into all the details, but just understand the market has changed. It is not the aggressive sellers market anymore. It's shifting to a little more healthy market. It's a little more balanced right now. It's still good for both sides. It's, it's actually better right now probably than it was. And thankfully I've seen some of that greed getting flushed away and we, we don't have room for any of that stuff right here in Celina, Texas. So that's all I'm gonna say about this right now. And we're gonna focus instead on Andy Hopkins guys, I am here right now with Andy Hopkins and if you know him, then, you know, he goes by the N name of hop. And can I call you hop through this

Andy Hopkins (07:45): Interview? Oh, please do. Yeah,

Ron Lyons (07:47):
Absolutely. And if you can't already tell just from five seconds of him talking, he's got the most amazing

radio voice. So Andy, how are you doing today? Andy Hopkins (07:59):

I'm great. Thank you. Appreciate you having me.

Ron Lyons (08:00):
Absolutely is my pleasure. And, and for people who may not know who you are, which is, which is, is

probably like three people in

Andy Hopkins (08:08): The

Ron Lyons (08:08): Entire town,

Andy Hopkins (08:09):
They need to get out more. They

Ron Lyons (08:10):
Need to get out more because you are on Celina city council and you also own a local business. What is

your local business?

Andy Hopkins (08:18):

The ups store Andina right out in front of Carter ranch. That's probably where most people know me because there, there, there may be three people who don't shop on Amazon and therefore don't return things. So they'll see me and my great staff there at the ups store.

Ron Lyons (08:33):
So is that something like, I know my wife orders a ton of stuff from Amazon and I'm guessing we don't

do a lot of returns, but is that, is that like a big deal right now? Is that what

Andy Hopkins (08:43):

They do? Yeah. Huge. And I'll tell you that I've, I've been in other businesses, small businesses where I'm a sole proprietor type thing. And I would have killed to have so many people walk through the door on purpose you know, to, we get seven to 9,000 returns a month. And then it's up to me to, to alert people, Hey, we do these other things and all that kind of stuff. So we're number one in the area in returns, but we're also number one in, out of all of Dallas, Fort worth, almost 130 stores and all things, printing mailboxes customer average, all these things. And we're barely three and a half years old. And we topped the charts in many of the most important, you know, metrics that they look at, which is why we're looking at store number two, I'm saying,

Ron Lyons (09:30):

Wow, that's amazing. So how did you find your way into a ups store franchise? How did, were you looking for something you're like, Hey, this looks really good. Or did you know someone else that had done it? How did you get involved with that?

Andy Hopkins (09:43):

I liked this story. My dad was visiting. My dad lives up north and I was, I had businesses in Plano, as I mentioned a little bit. And we would I had reason to go to ups stores and I loaded my dad in the car and said, let's go, we gotta run some errands. And one of which was through the ups store and there's one this way and there's one the other way. And we went to both of them. And the first one I said, these places are always busy dad. And he asked me well, how, how do we get into one of those? And I looked at him like he had a hole in his head because I don't know. And it's not even in the realm of thinking that I would, I couldn't even consider that couldn't wrap my head around it really.

Andy Hopkins (10:27):

And then the next day we were two or three days later, whatever it was, we went to another one and he said, man, these things are crazy. That was around Thanksgiving. Couple weeks later, he called me and he said, now I'm serious about this. You do some legwork and start reaching out to people. Maybe go look, go talk to the owners and see what you think. And let's figure something out. And by March of the next year, we were essentially under contract to build and finish out this place. And it's one of the best things I've ever done because it's a, it really is a culmination of all the things that I've done in my, all my varied careers with the exception of probably this radio thing. <Laugh> but yeah, from sales to printing, to management and all these things, it's really just wrapped up and it's really a, it's a God's plan more than anything. And I just, it took me a while to see it, but it's one of the best things that we've ever done. And it's my dad, my wife and myself, we're all partners in this.

Ron Lyons (11:31):
Well, I like that. What a great story. And I love the fact that you see it as God's plan. Yeah. Sometimes he

takes us down roads that we might not see for

Andy Hopkins (11:40):
Ourselves. It looks like Frogger. If you look back at the map, but it really is for, for you kids, Frogger is a

video game <laugh> that you would put a quarter in and for you kids, a quarter's 25 cents.

Ron Lyons (11:53):

And, and isn't sad that now we it's just exactly what we were saying a while ago that I had mentioned a TV show, green acres. Yeah. To a person that I know and their younger, younger generation. And, and literally they had no idea. Yeah. What that was. So I find myself explaining things a lot and getting this really puzzled look on my face when my little nine year old goes up to a gumball machine and needs four quarters to get something out of the gumball machine. What? Yeah, that's, that's pretty serious, but that's how it is now. I'm like, oh, you, you need a quarter. She's like, I need

Andy Hopkins (12:29): Four. Yeah.

Ron Lyons (12:30):
So yeah, things have changed just a little bit. Tell us, tell us how you got to Celina, Texas, cuz you know,

we all kind of get here over time. We all have our journey here. What's your journey to Celina, Texas. Andy Hopkins (12:43):

This is part of that same God's plan. And I didn't know it at the time, but we, my wife and I lived in a couple of different houses for quite some time. And right when Toyota announced that they were coming to Texas, we were the housing prices in that part of Plano really everywhere, I guess in this area were going crazy. And we wanted to take advantage of that but much like it is now where you could sell your house, but where are you gonna go? And we moved out here to, or we came out here to visit some friends for their kids' birthday party. It was over a Memorial day weekend and he was flipping houses as a side hustle. And we asked him, how's it going? How's this place, the current side hustle thing doing? And he said, well, it's a dump in different language, but he <laugh>.

Andy Hopkins (13:39):

He, he would, it was basically a dump in that we wouldn't get it. He would have to show us around it's it's right around the corner on Ohio street. Well, I don't know if I've mentioned today, but I'm, I'm a Buckeye. I was born to two students on Ohio state's campus and brought home to student housing. So when I heard Ohio street, I'm like, okay, this couldn't hit me in the face more. And we went over and looked at it and it was indeed a dump, but we were looking through our rose color at HGTV glasses. And we got out to the backyard and my wife, Debbie, and I didn't say anything just exchanged in knowing nod. And we said, we wanna buy this house. And he said, are you flipping kidding me? And turned out he was gonna be our contractor. And we put a sign in our yard the next week and sold our house over the summer and moved in right after that. It was. And so now we live on Ohio, two Buckeye fans living on Ohio street in a gray house with a red front Bo front door and now a block O shaped pool. So we're that kind of people.

Ron Lyons (14:47):
You're those kind of people. Yes. <Laugh>. And, and, and I'm curious you're, you're very, very invested in

the whole Ohio state thing. Am I saying it right? Is it, is it Ohio state?

Andy Hopkins (15:01):
The Ohio state? Yeah, the Ohio state. Okay. That that's also obnoxious and we were where to <laugh>.

Ron Lyons (15:08):
Yeah. Did you, do you have, I'm just asking, this is, this is a kind of a long shot, but are any of your pets

named anything related to Ohio?

Andy Hopkins (15:20):

Sort of we did dearly departed chocolate lab named Buckeye. Okay. Heat. But now we've got three soft coated wheat and terriers. And while they're not named Ohio state things, the two youngers are they're all Irish name, first names. And then the, the two younger ones, their middle names are variations of fraternity brothers of mine from Ohio state. So we've got Murphy. Who's not blessed with a really pithy middle name and then Grady, Buffington and Higgins O Doyle. So,

Ron Lyons (15:56):
Wow. That is impressive. That's awesome. I feel I just name a goat, Kevin or something, and I feel

Andy Hopkins (16:02):

Pretty good about that. I have a huge fan of animals named with like sort of straight up human names. I think that's really awesome. Like Steve, you know, that's

Ron Lyons (16:11):

Cool. There's something funny about that. Whenever you just, when you walk outside and you're and people are like, oh, look at this go or this donkey or this whatever. And it's like, oh yeah, that's that's Brian. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> you know, something like that. It's just kinda, it's really fun. Fun. Yeah. It is fun. So tell me this Celina right now is going through just this big boom. And we all know that and we all love Celina. That's why we're here. You've served on city council now for how long

Andy Hopkins (16:37):
I'm in my second year of my third term. So seven and a half years, somewhere in that range.

Ron Lyons (16:45):

And, and clearly you do that because you love this community. You love this city and that's, I don't, I don't even have to ask about that. Yeah. But tell me what you think about all this growth. I mean, it's coming it's, it's it's on its way. Yeah. How do you feel about it?

Andy Hopkins (17:00):

Well, when, when I first, when I first in invest, started investigating, I actually joked with some friends, I said, I love this town so much. And we had been here about a year. I said, I'd love, I don't be mayor this town. And I was just joking. And my friends said, well I'm related to the mayor, but you might consider running for city council cuz there's an open seat. And I ended up having an opponent, but I did. And, and the reason I ran and initially is because at the end of my street is downtown. And at that point, downtown was just a tumbleweed shy of being deserted and couple of restaurants and really very little us Jim Jimbo's pizza was there, but there was not much going on that would draw people. You know, we had some businesses down there, but it really in my it, my estimation could have gone either way at that point.

Andy Hopkins (17:59):

And I felt like it needed someone to help Marshall it in the correct direction and make sure that there was someone on city council. I didn't invent the idea, but I needed to know that there was somebody on city council that was gonna keep their foot on the gas with city staff in this, in the city manager. And we've had a few of them since then to focus on downtown. And we got complete buy in from the rest of city council. It was very easy to do because everybody saw the value in that. And so it became a focus of everybody and we got citizen input and all that sort of stuff. So that I, that doesn't answer your question about growth necessarily, but that's what got me interested in this. And then I realized that I didn't know a lot and it does take some time to learn what, what council's piece of controlling or managing.

Andy Hopkins (18:57):

You can't really control it, but you can manage it, I guess, growth. What, what our part in that is. And we do have a part in it, but it's not something where, you know, I hear stop the growth, cancel it, shut the, shut the gate. You know, a lot of times, you know, people just get here and say, okay, I'm the last one in, shut the door. And then we know, obviously it does. I'm being a little facetious. It doesn't, it doesn't happen that way. But we, I learned some things that, you know, we have to play ball in a, in a sense with developers because a land owner can sell their land and you can't do anything about it because it's com

it's capitalism. It's I lived here and my grandkids don't want it anymore. I'm selling it. And what's a developer gonna do with that land.

Andy Hopkins (19:44):

He's gonna develop it, but you have to make sure that you make deals with them. That will keep them in the city that will have them annexed so that, that they pay taxes. And so that they don't use all the infrastructure and all that kind of stuff and benefit from what we're doing in Celina and not pay for it. And it's not this big greedy government it's really just doing what is best for the citizens of Celina and how we do those things is the learning curves, I think, fairly steep. I did come from a bit of a background of that. My dad was a city manager for 30 some years. So it wasn't like I L I knew those things, but I was aware of how some of that stuff worked, but the growth is, and I, I equate it to a fire hose just laying in the middle of the street and you turn that thing on and it's gonna be like this wild snake. And you can't just have one person trying to hold it. It's still gonna go over there. You have to have multiple people pointing it in the right direction. Well, the fire hose, hoses growth, and the people holding it are the citizens. And they put us in charge of helping maintain control. And it's pointing that growth in the right direction because we live between the toll way and the, and Preston and she's coming

Ron Lyons (21:06):

That's right. Whether we like it or not. Right. Like you said, it's, it's a matter of managing it. You, that really struck me when you said that people want to be like, okay, I'm the last one and now close the door. Yeah. Isn't that right? Yeah. Because we all love it. And if we just kind of freeze it right here right now, that might be kind of good to some people, other people are a little more welcoming, but either way we don't, we don't really have a say, we can just manage

Andy Hopkins (21:31):

It. Yeah. And, you know, I, I think there's certain value in romantically at least to say, okay, we have got enough development, housing neighbor. I, I prefer to call 'em neighborhoods. And I, I, I I'd most likely, typically I do call them neighborhoods development sounds too developmenty. But yeah, I think it'd be cool to say, okay, from here on out, nothing but acre plus estate, lots, that would be great. But you can't tell a developer that, Hey, I do, you just spent 35 million on this ginormous acreage deal. You can only divide it up and sell 35 pieces of it. You, you you're limited to that. If that were the case, they'd go to Austin, get their own district. And then we're right back to where I talked about, where, where the sit, where they're using the city's stuff, but they're not in the city and they're surrounded by the city. We can't do that. So we've gotta really manage it. And we've got a great city staff. Our city manager does a great job. He's really superb at that. And the, the, the entire staff, everybody's just terrific.

Ron Lyons (22:44):
I would agree. I have some opportunities right now. We're, we're establishing some businesses in town

and I've been here since 93. Yeah. I've seen when it wasn't maybe quite as awesome as it is right now.

Andy Hopkins (22:58):
Yeah. Those that many years ago, you wouldn't have thought about opening up a business downtown.

Ron Lyons (23:03):

There, there was no chance. As a matter of fact, this is gonna sound hilarious. But the building right now, the brick building that is right here next to to Lucy's On The Square.

Andy Hopkins (23:15): Yeah.

Ron Lyons (23:15):

There was a very, very old building there at the time that's been demolished and, and believe it or not, all the bricks were sent down into Dallas and to Highland park, university park, and used on a home down there.

Andy Hopkins (23:26): Dang.

Ron Lyons (23:27):

I always thought, gosh, that big building right there one day, I should do something with that, but I couldn't think of anything to do with it now. Gosh, I wish I had bought it back then. Can you even imagine what it would be like to have that on the square right now with all of this growth, it would be amazing. But speaking of, of the square, yeah. We've got a lot of places to eat right there. Yeah. What do you like? Like if I walk into the square and I'm like, ah, there's Andy, where might I see you eating lunch on the square?

Andy Hopkins (23:57):

Oh, I expected this question and it's a real Sophie's choice sort of thing. I don't know how to do it. Cuz I have, and you kind of warned me that there was gonna be a question like this. So I have my favorites everywhere and I know that's the answer that you probably get a lot of times, but if you know gun to my head I've gotta, I've gotta, I get one thing, man. It's so tough. First thought is probably Joey Dawkins ribeye.

Ron Lyons (24:31): Okay.

Andy Hopkins (24:32):
Okay then that's awesome. Tell, tell you're more like, you're more than likely to see me walk into valley

V you know, the, one of the wineries Carmella's or valley vines. Right, right. But go ahead.

Ron Lyons (24:43):
Tell me about this. So you said rib eye over there. Yeah. Not something I've tried.

Andy Hopkins (24:47):

Oh man. It's super, it's super great. They and Joey does it in and I don't know. I, I, I, I fancy myself a amateur cook. He's a chef, but he prepares them SOV style so that when they they're main, they're mainly cooked to a temperature. And then that's, I guess you can keep 'em there and then throw 'em on the, on the grill to, to darken 'em up on the outside. But it's really good. And it's kind of unexpected, I guess, because you, you look at their weekday menu and it seems more casual sandwiches and salads and that sort of thing, but it's really great, but I can't, you know, I, we go everywhere. We go to all of 'em. So I, you know on my apologies to <laugh> to all the rest, because I have my favorite, you know at Papa Gallos and Tender Smokehouse and Bongos all and Lucy's. I mean,

Ron Lyons (25:40):
I'm gonna ask you about some of those. So if you're, if you're in Papa Gallo's, what are you gonna get?

Andy Hopkins (25:45):

I, I create my own, I do a crispy taco or two, and then Ench lot with Caso and, and you gotta order a side of flower tortilla so that you can smash all that stuff up together and mop it up afterwards. And a swirl margarita,

Ron Lyons (26:02):
A hundred percent. I'll tell you if there's anything that unifies the people of the line of Texas it's the Mar

is over at Papa Gallo's. I hear that so often

Andy Hopkins (26:11): For sure.

Ron Lyons (26:12):
And I have to admit that, you know, at times I have participated in that, in that unity of you know, choice

as well. So do you go into Lucy's On The Square very often?

Andy Hopkins (26:24):

Yeah, for sure. Couple times a month, we'll go in there maybe after church or do you just let you know? No, I'm not. I do the cooking at home, so sometimes I'm not interested and we'll just go down there and it's great food and I love Moises and his and his people are awesome. And it's a really fun, it's a, a really fun atmosphere.

Ron Lyons (26:44):
Give me an idea. What am I gonna see order at

Andy Hopkins (26:46):
Lucy's On The Square? Like a 10 year old. I order the, the chicken finger basket with white gravy.

Ron Lyons (26:52):
Hey, there is nothing wrong with that. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that at all. That's awesome.

That's very good. And, and the salon of square, what a transformation that's gone to.

Andy Hopkins (27:01): Totally

Ron Lyons (27:02):

Unbelievable. Is it not the best thing to just like, maybe walk out of Lucy's On The Square or walk out of one of these restaurants and hear the music playing, see the flags? Yeah. See all the nice landscape that they've done. See the kids playing in the square. There's nothing like it

Andy Hopkins (27:17):

There's there there's nothing like it in Texas because there's tons of squares in Texas, but they almost all have a, a courthouse in the middle of them. I, I bet dollars to donuts that there you, you could count on your one hand, how many other like Celina in the entire country, it's that unique? We've, <laugh> our, you know, we've gone from a dove soap budget to buff city soap budget. We, we don't, we don't do that. You know, so now we, we go in there and we, we, we buy that awesome soap and we, you know, we go get our coffee at summer moon and I, Deb, Debbie, my wife and I joke that we just are walking around with our Celina foam finger and penit all the time

Ron Lyons (28:03): <Laugh>,

Andy Hopkins (28:04):

But it's true. We don't want to go anywhere else. And there's other restaurants opening up and, or in the plans for that. And eventually the Square's gonna be expanded a little bit, actually up to where we're sitting now. And the council chambers is going to be one of the, I guess, the Western edge of the square eventually. And all that's not just something that the city council came up with. This was after many hours and thousands of data points that were given to us by the, by our bosses, the citizens.

Ron Lyons (28:36):

It's amazing. And it's, it's a, it's a wonderful time to be in Celina, Texas. It's amazing to be here. It's gosh, it's, it's everything that I would want it to be. We've got great leadership. We've got the, the business owners are all investing,

Andy Hopkins (28:54):

Man. You know what I think, can I, I'm sorry in please. The one of the coolest things and I, I was in communities of, with, like I said before, with small businesses, whether it's in a strip center or in a little office building or whatever. And even if these businesses weren't really in competition with each other, you still got that feel that they were in competition with each other. And while the bottom line is, you know, one boutique versus another boutique, they're all looking for that boutique money. I see businesses helping other businesses all the time, myself included. I look four ways to support the local businesses here. And I, I'm not the only one. This is it's something in the water. It really is. And it's this overwhelming feeling of community when you're, when you're downtown in particular, but not just downtown in Celina. I've told PE people this, if you want to know the, you want to know what welcoming feels like open a business in line

Ron Lyons (30:00):
100% and something that McKayla told me, I

Andy Hopkins (30:04): Can't

Ron Lyons (30:05):

Was that collectively a lot of the businesses downtown will get together and agree to go to one of the other businesses and, and say, let's say it's a restaurant, everybody orders lunch from there on that day. Or if it's a shop, everybody goes to that shop and does some shopping or whatever. And even if you're in

a competing business with that, you still go and give your time and your resources to support the other business. And I love that. That's amazing that that can't happen everywhere.

Andy Hopkins (30:38):
Yeah, just the stones on it on McKayla to op to be as young as she is and opening up a full on bakery

with a, with a dining area and all that kind of stuff. Just it's awesome.

Ron Lyons (30:52):
It is. And speaking of McKayla and her specialty cakes, are you a fan?

Andy Hopkins (30:58):
Of course, I like cake <laugh>.

Ron Lyons (31:00): I

Andy Hopkins (31:01):

Think you it's a long, it's a long family joke. I, when my, my mom was cleaning out all the crap that she collected of mine from kindergarten, first grade, second grade, all the papers and stuff like that, she didn't keep it all, but she kept some, and she said she gave it to me and I was just looking at it before I threw it away. And from when you first start writing in kindergarten to first grade, you start doing better and then you write, start cursive or whatever. I don't know what it was about it, but each, and obviously different teachers and all that kind of stuff. But every year at somewhere on the, the homework I wrote, I like cake and I'm not kidding. So like three or four years in a row, there's Andy. And I'm like, man, I don't remember liking cake that much, but apparently I did. <Laugh>

Ron Lyons (31:46):
That's greatness. That's awesome. So do you, do you have a favorite of one of McKayla's cakes? Is there

one that you you're like? Okay. I really

Andy Hopkins (31:54):
Love that one. Yeah. That was the orange dream circle. Oh, wow. Yeah, that was pretty awesome. I have

Ron Lyons (31:59): Not

Andy Hopkins (31:59):

Had that. They're all great. I think like she had like maybe root beer flow. They're all lemon. I, I don't even know what I'm thinking. Lemon cake is my favorite. My wife threw a birthday party for me a couple of years ago at little wooden penguin and McKayla made cupcakes for everybody. And wow. At least I didn't hardly, I didn't, I don't think I got any that day, but was reserved a couple of lemon ones. Right.

Ron Lyons (32:23): Cause that they're

Andy Hopkins (32:24): Really

Ron Lyons (32:25):
Awesome. And, and I just had a birthday here in June and I walked in and I see this cake sitting there and

I was like, it'd be so cool if that was from Mekayla, you know, I mean, I know it's not. And it was no,

Andy Hopkins (32:37): Yeah,

Ron Lyons (32:38):

Yeah. It was amazing. It was fantastic. So mm-hmm <affirmative> yes. And I can't wait till she gets her business open. It's gonna be awesome. That's gonna be fantastic. Another addition to the square basically. Yeah. And like you said, she's so motivated and she's she's I told her she's like an old soul, like she is wise beyond

Andy Hopkins (32:57):
Years. Her. Yeah. She's great.

Ron Lyons (32:58):

And she's kind of one of those people that makes Celina so amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So I love that. Let's, let's talk a little bit about you and your personal life real quick. So no kids, but definitely the four-legged variety. Yep. Living right over here, off this square. In what, what year is that home that you guys got

Andy Hopkins (33:17): Mid fifties,

Ron Lyons (33:18):
Mid fifties? How is it living in an older home like that?

Andy Hopkins (33:21):

Oh, it comes with its ups and downs, you know six months of the year you can shut the front door easily. The other six months of the year, you gotta really put some elbow into it. <Laugh> but it's great. We've got this, we've got a big lot and it's just, you know, we can stand at the end of our driveway and look down and see downtown. And I, I started calling it my toe tag house, cuz they're bringing me out feet first.

Ron Lyons (33:43):
Hey, I understand that. What do you what do you like to do personally, as you have any hobbies,

anything recreation wise, anything you like to do like

Andy Hopkins (33:51):

That? Yeah, we, we do. I, I, I have to, I told Debbie that I'm gonna, I'm gonna start saying no at some, at some point, cuz I, we, we, we both do a lot of volunteering around here. I, I and the commander of the

local American Legion, I was in the army. And so I do want to say real quick that towards the end of the month and I just put it on Facebook. I think it's Tuesday, the 26th, the July, we're having a veteran's meetup at roller town, just so we can touch all the businesses here in Celina during our little conversation <laugh> but it's calling all veterans in the Celina area, come have a beer, we'll have some food and that sort of thing. And we go to church here at the Celina Methodist church and I'm on the chamber board.

Andy Hopkins (34:32):

Just anything I can really do to be connected with the, the future of the city. But yeah, we Debbie's got aunts in her pants. We like to move. We like to get like to travel. We are we are close to getting to all 50 states together, which I think is really cool. I personally only need North Dakota and Alaska, but here in September, she'll catch up to me and we will get North Dakota. She's got a couple others for us to get to and then we'll save Alaska for our 20th anniversary in couple of years. Wow. But that's, that's, we love to do that. And we, you know, we just, we hang out, we do a lot of things. We do everything together, so yeah. And, and we stay, we try to stay inline as much as possible, but when we don't, we're we're going on little weekenders, right. Just, just her and I just to have fun, maybe do a little pub crawl in some random city, just that not even the best city of state has to offer just to, just to go

Ron Lyons (35:37):

Do it. But isn't it good just to be living life right now like that. Yeah. I mean, you're just living your life and enjoying it. Yeah, exactly. And it's fantastic. So you're a big part of Celina and everything going on here and you've gotta, you've got a great marriage to a, to a great lady and you've got some great animals. It sounds to me like you've kind of got it all wrapped up. You've got a

Andy Hopkins (35:55):

Business, I've got a business. Yeah. I got a pot filler behind my stove. I joke when you say we've gotta kind of got it wrapped up. I was like, you know what? I, when I, I, we should give people a tour of our kitchen and get this ginormous island. We did a renovation right. As COVID started. And, but I feel like I know I've made it now cuz I have a pot filler behind my stove and I, whenever I use it, I holler out pot and wherever Debbie is in the house, she'll say pot

Ron Lyons (36:22):

That's awesomeness. I love it. So you, you've got a very unique sense of humor about you and, and there's a little surprise that we've got for everybody coming up later. No, no, this is the one that you're in.

Andy Hopkins (36:35): Oh, I know about this

Ron Lyons (36:36):
One. Okay. Yeah. You know about this one though.

Andy Hopkins (36:39): Mom, mom's the word?

Ron Lyons (36:40):

Mama's the word until, well, people are gonna hear this podcast after that actually happens. But since I know that you've got that sense of humor. Okay. I happen to have a handful of questions. Okay. That I found that are very unique and different.

Andy Hopkins (36:57): Okay.

Ron Lyons (36:58):

Okay. I'm gonna be real curious to see how you answer these and then we're gonna, we're gonna probably wrap this up and, and, and get onto some other stuff. I've got a video to do. There was a challenge between the mayor and the chief of police. Yeah. And of course, by the time people hear this podcast, that'll be behind us. But let's just do, if you had to venture a bet right now and I ask you this the other day you went Switzerland when you were right in the middle. Yeah. But if you, if, are you still right in the middle?

Andy Hopkins (37:25): Yeah. I'm calling it a tie.

Ron Lyons (37:27):

You call it a tie. Yeah. I like it. I like it. So let me, let me ask you some of these questions and I'm gonna be honest with you. I haven't read all these questions. Okay. I've read a few. And I said, you know what? That looks just like Andy. Okay.

Andy Hopkins (37:36): This is perfect. Okay.

Ron Lyons (37:38):
Okay. So what would you do if you found a penguin in your freezer? <Laugh>

Andy Hopkins (37:44): <Laugh> is he alive?

Ron Lyons (37:46):
I don't know. I have no idea.

Andy Hopkins (37:48):
Well, first of all, I'd name him.

Ron Lyons (37:50): <Laugh>

Andy Hopkins (37:52):

Yeah. And if he's not wearing a bow tie, I'd get a little bow tie for him. Right. And then I probably call the police cuz someone's been in my house. I don't know.

Ron Lyons (38:05):
And I found a penguin and I named the penguin. What did you name him?

Andy Hopkins (38:09): Philip.

Ron Lyons (38:11): <Laugh>

Andy Hopkins (38:11):
No pink. I don't know. No offense. Philip Ferguson, this known

Ron Lyons (38:16):
<Laugh>. I has nothing to do. Nothing

Andy Hopkins (38:17): To do with you.

Ron Lyons (38:18):
Yeah. It's just some random ping when that showed up in my freezer. So if you were a tree, what kind of

tree would you be?

Andy Hopkins (38:26): Easy Buckeye.

Ron Lyons (38:27):
Oh wow. Very good. Yeah. I don't even have to say why.

Andy Hopkins (38:30):

Well, I can tell you why. It's a, it, it, it it's the state tree of Ohio, but it is also very tall, strong, but it also waves in the, it blows in the wind and it, it produces poisonous nuts that oh wow. Many squirrels can eat. And, and it's also the name of the name of a little football team up there. So

Ron Lyons (38:52):

A hundred percent. Yeah, I get that. I like it. So I, I asked this question to Holly Faroh and it was the funniest question to me. I don't know why it strikes me as so funny, but I'm gonna ask you the same thing just cuz it happens to be on the list. Would you rather fight one horse sized duck or a hundred duck sized horses?

Andy Hopkins (39:15):
Oh, I think it's the hundred.

Ron Lyons (39:17): So you take on the

Andy Hopkins (39:18):
Max. Yeah. And I think I, I, I just, I know that Holly went the other way, right?

Ron Lyons (39:23):
That's right? Yeah. She wanted, she wanted a horse size duck

Andy Hopkins (39:26):
Site when I was a kid, we, I got bit in the butt by a goose and it was a goose size goose and it was not a

horse size goose. So I feel like that would be, I think that would be tough, but a hundred duck size horses

Ron Lyons (39:42): Probably

Andy Hopkins (39:42):
Handle that. Yeah. I mean, it'd be like kicking footballs and stuff. It's like,

Ron Lyons (39:45):
It's like a bunch of little dogs or size just, it

Andy Hopkins (39:47):
Can't be that tough. Yeah. I know.

Ron Lyons (39:49):
But she had a plan. She was gonna poke the horse size duck in the eye.

Andy Hopkins (39:53): That's good.

Ron Lyons (39:54):
So, you know, she had her whole plan and she felt like she could probably win as long as she could poke

it

Andy Hopkins (39:59):
In. Oh, Holly's not a giant. I have a feeling that that horse size duck would just put her head in her, in the

Duck's mouth and she'd be done.

Ron Lyons (40:06):
<Laugh> oh man. How how would you sell hot chocolate in Texas? Today being as hot as it is

Andy Hopkins (40:18):

Frozen.

Ron Lyons (40:19): Wow. Listen to you.

Andy Hopkins (40:21): Yeah.

Ron Lyons (40:21):
Good call. Yeah. Very good call. Thanks. I like that. No wonder the ups store is

Andy Hopkins (40:26): So

Ron Lyons (40:26):
Successful. Listen to that. I would've been like don't know. <Laugh> that's awesome. How many

basketballs could we fit in this room?

Andy Hopkins (40:34):
Are they inflated? Yes. oh geez.

Ron Lyons (40:43): Come on. You

Andy Hopkins (40:44): Packed 14,000,

Ron Lyons (40:46):
14,000 basketballs. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Andy Hopkins (40:49):
You're assuming they're regulation. Right?

Ron Lyons (40:52):
Cause if they're not regulation's

Andy Hopkins (40:54):
It's a silly question. If they're not regulat

Ron Lyons (40:55):
A hundred percent. So you're, you're a new addition to the box of crayons. What color are you?

Andy Hopkins (41:03):

Oh, I've already answered it on Ohio state theme. So I'll say pasty <laugh> pasty white, which is kind of what I am. I don't, I

Ron Lyons (41:15):
Don't can, can I pull a crayon out and say, look, it's pasty white.

Andy Hopkins (41:19): That's Andy <laugh>

Ron Lyons (41:21):
Well, that's just the name of the color, Andy. It's called

Andy Hopkins (41:23):
Andy. You put it. If you lay it in the sun, it gets freckles and burns.

Ron Lyons (41:27):
<Laugh> it? It doesn't melt. It just gets fr it gets freckles. Yeah. I like it. So describe the color, color yellow

to someone who's color blind.

Andy Hopkins (41:37):
It's the middle color? On the winged helmets of Ohio. State's nemesis.

Ron Lyons (41:42): <Laugh>

Andy Hopkins (41:44):
It's the color of what yield signs.

Ron Lyons (41:48): Okay.

Andy Hopkins (41:50):
It's part of what makes green nice. And I think color can't color. Bryan people see green or brown and

that's

Ron Lyons (41:57):
I'm you're I do not know.

Andy Hopkins (41:59): Let's say yes

Ron Lyons (42:00):
I okay. Yes they can there go as a matter

Andy Hopkins (42:02): Of fact. Yeah. Yellow

Ron Lyons (42:03):
Along with 14,000 basketballs in this room. I, I agree. Yeah, they can do that. So if you were a pizza

delivery, man, <laugh> how would you benefit from scissors? <Laugh>

Andy Hopkins (42:18):
Well, I would be very handy with people to help them cut their coupons out.

Ron Lyons (42:22):
The next time you decide to do a business, I wanna partner with you. Okay.

Andy Hopkins (42:27): Because that's the kind of

Ron Lyons (42:27):
Thinking that that logic right there is what I need. That's awesome. I love that. Why, why is a tennis ball

fuzzy

Andy Hopkins (42:35):
<Laugh> if it, if it wasn't, it would be a lacrosse ball.

Ron Lyons (42:38):
Hey, you know what I think you're right. I think that's right. If, if you could throw a parade of any caliber

through your office, what type of parade would it be?

Andy Hopkins (42:49):
Cash bearing customers, cash

Ron Lyons (42:52):
Bearing. And it sounds like you may have that going on

Andy Hopkins (42:54):
Anyways. Yeah. Yeah. We're doing great in that respect. Yeah. So,

Ron Lyons (42:58):
I mean thank, thank you Amazon, right?

Andy Hopkins (43:00):

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And we have three people working there, like right this minute and I said, okay, I'm gonna go we're we we've got it covered. But there's this thing whenever I leave they're inundated. So that's the way it works right now. We probably got a parade of customers.

Ron Lyons (43:15):
You're probably buried in there right now.

Andy Hopkins (43:17):
It's you parade of customers.

Ron Lyons (43:18):
The good news is we're minutes away from being done. So

Andy Hopkins (43:21):
I don't really want it to end. So it's

Ron Lyons (43:23):
You can, you can go back and, and, and help those cash bearing customers in the parade, through your

office over there. So what would you do if you were the lone survivor of a plane crash? That'd be tough.

Andy Hopkins (43:35):
I know. Yeah. I guess I'd start walking.

Ron Lyons (43:38): <Laugh> start

Andy Hopkins (43:39): Walking. <Laugh> yeah.

Ron Lyons (43:41):
You're like, I've gotta get back to my parade. Yeah.

Andy Hopkins (43:44):
We don't have time for this.

Ron Lyons (43:46):
If you could purchase a machine that makes $100 bills fully, legally, how much would you pay for that

machine?

Andy Hopkins (43:55): 132 million.

Ron Lyons (43:58):
<Laugh> I hope it kicks out hundreds

Andy Hopkins (44:00):
Quickly. It better boos it's yeah. Hopefully it's not one a day.

Ron Lyons (44:03):
<Laugh> cuz it's gonna be, I, I am upside down on my money producing machine, but I've got 14,000

basketballs if you're interested in that. So

Andy Hopkins (44:12):
I guess I'd start selling basketballs to help pay for it.

Ron Lyons (44:15):
<Laugh> if, if you if you could answer this, how lucky are you

Andy Hopkins (44:21):
The luckiest and lucky also blessed. I think if let's like, I'll, I'll say that those things in this case mean the

same thing.

Ron Lyons (44:29):
Absolutely, absolutely. And that all has to do with your perspective and your heart.

Andy Hopkins (44:34): Thank you

Ron Lyons (44:36):

Guys. I hope you're enjoying this episode of CelinaRadio.com. We've got some fascinating guests coming up, including Melissa Gresham. She's got run Celina and run. Celina is doing an event coming up in January of 20, 23. She already has lots of big sponsors and tons of interest in her event. Now, personally, she served in the military. She's been to some crazy places on the other side of the globe and she's been in helicopters and combat zones and all kinds of cool stuff like that. So you're gonna love hearing my interview with Melissa. And also I have Jim scan coming up on the show and you know Jim, because he's got atomic t-shirts right here in town. And Jim is very much a fixture around Celina, Texas he's famous and popular because of his t-shirts. And he has a bit of a charity thing he does with t-shirts that I think are gonna really like that as well.

Ron Lyons (45:38):

He is very, very supportive of the firefighter community because he used to be a firefighter and some people don't even know that about him. So you're gonna love that show too. Now, when you're sitting around and you don't have a whole lot going on, why don't you look us up on social media? Because we're pretty much everywhere. We're on truth, social we're on Facebook. We're on Instagram and we're, we're trying real hard right now to get our TikTok kicked off. And yes, one of the forms of social media that I never thought I would do, but TikTok is kind of what you make it. So maybe check those things out. All of the links are in the show notes. So you can find those on Celina, radio.com. And one thing I would love to invite you to do is find that little blue button floating around in there at the bottom of the website, click that and leave us a voicemail. Tell us what you think about any particular episode. Tell us what you think about the show. Give us suggestions, just say hello. It's all good. And if your comment is not rated R anything like that, then guess what? We may just use it on the show. So guys, we're gonna get back to our interview real quick with Andy Hopkins.

Ron Lyons (46:58):
If, if you had to get rid of one state in the country, one state we're just going to, it's just no longer part of

the United States. What state do we get rid of

Andy Hopkins (47:05): Michigan? <Laugh>

Ron Lyons (47:09):
Oh my gosh. That is hilarious. I'm gonna go back to a pong question. Okay. If penguin walks through that

door right now wearing a sore, what does he say? And why is he here? <Laugh>

Andy Hopkins (47:22):
<Laugh> he's probably saying don't they stop feel it <laugh>

Ron Lyons (47:32):

This has been a very fascinating interview and I appreciate it more than you can possibly know. Thank you, Andy so much for this. And, and I would really like to come back around later on and do another interview with you. Would you be willing to come back again? Of course. Heck yeah. What I'm thinking. Well, okay. I said interview not necessarily an interview, I would like for you to co-host something with me, you've got the best voice. Oh, we didn't even talk about all of that, but you you've done radio stuff. I have. Yeah. And you've got a radio voice. So what I'd really like to do, I've got a couple of events that they're asking me to, to kind of MC and to do remotes and stuff like that. How would you like to do one of those events with me? Sign me up. Okay, awesome.

Andy Hopkins (48:17): Yeah, that sounds great. I

Ron Lyons (48:18):

Love that guys. This is what makes Celina so amazing. It's the people, it's the leadership. It's the, it's the love and, and passion that we have, not only for our city, but for each other. And if you don't see that in Andy Hopkins, then you're not looking. Thank you, Andy.

Andy Hopkins (48:34):
My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. It's been a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (48:39): Thanks this commanded.

Ron Lyons (48:42):

All right, guys. That is Andy Hopkins. And let me just say that, sitting down with him and doing that interview was an absolute blast. If you don't realize that we've got some of the best people in city, government running our businesses and making up our community in Celina, Texas, then I, I literally don't know what to tell you. This is an amazing city. We've got amazing people and you know what? Andy's just another one of those amazing people that we have here. He's a huge Ohio state fan and I

had no idea or I would have done something really crazy and awesome to him about the Ohio state fan. Now he helped out on the actual day that he came in and we did the interview. Mayor Terry was supposed to go over to the donkey rescue and name one of the donkeys after him because he actually won the little challenge between him and the chief between him and chief Cullison.

Ron Lyons (49:47):

But the mayor was out of town and I had to wrap it up. So I said, Hey, Andy, come meet me over the donkey rescue. I think this will be hilarious because people who don't know the mayor are gonna see someone hop out of a vehicle. I'll film just your feet and then get the back of your head. And, and your voice will be saying, Hmm, I'm not real sure who I wanna name this donkey app or what name I want to give this donkey. And then at the last second, you'll look around to the camera and it'll be you instead of the mayor. And I just thought that'd be hilarious. So that's the kind of personality he has. He's willing to do stuff like that. Very, very, very smart and just a good all around guy. So Andy, thank you so much for coming on the show and guys, thank you so much for listening. We have a listenership that is growing by leaps inbound. So I hope you love this. I love making this for you. Celina radio, baby Celina, Texas it's awesomeness. So guys, I hate to hate to turn down this music from 1984, but I'm gonna have to until our next show. So until then guys, God bless and I'll see you on our next show.