Hey, I Live There! We're Famous!? No.

The following are true late 1970s and early 1980s references. And for that, I half-apologize.

"Hello, Fayetteville!" There's nothing like growing up in rural Arkansas and having the lead singer of Air Supply say the name of a town that you live in or live near. Wow, how cool is that for 1981 me? Sure, they sang "I'm All Out of Love" and all of the other insanely popular and quite awful songs at the time. But it was the "Hello, Fayetteville!" said in a loud Australian voice that stuck with me, along with the extremely loud reaction roar of the concert crowd at the University of Arkansas experiencing the same "Hey-they-said-the-town-name-that-we're-in-right-now" excitement. After that, it was just a show with some short guy singing and a taller guy with feathered hair playing guitar.

There's a reason we get excited about things like that. Because we're invested in the area we live and work.

In 1977 there was family, a large family: Tom, Joan, David, Mary, Susan, Joanie, Nancy, Elizabeth, Tommy and Nicholas. Eventually, the mom Joan died and Abby stepped into the picture. Yes, the TV family from Eight is Enough.

As the series went on into 1979, the character Merle "The Pearl" Stockwell came in as Elizabeth's boyfriend and eventually her husband. The thing was, on one episode when they introduced his character, he said in a country-twang accent that he was "from a small town. Siloam Springs, Arkansas."

Our family, sitting in front of the TV, lost it and screamed. You see, that is our hometown. Our hometown was said on one of the most popular TV shows of the time. Holy crap!

We lived a few doors down from our mayor, Moose Van Poucke. Yes his name was Moose; cut me some slack – this was rural Arkansas. His daughter, Patty, was good friends with my sister, brother and me. We all went to school together and the immediate reaction from us and our small town of roughly 8,000 people was to write letters. Yes, loads of us from Siloam Springs wrote letters to ABC and to the producers of that show to just say how awesome it was that they included us in their story.

Not once after that episode was our hometown mentioned again. Yet, we all watched until it was canceled in 1981.

Watching GAC on the sidelines this year, while I was stuck back at the home office working on some hefty projects, was … interesting. It's been awhile since I haven't been to GAC and it felt like many of you were watching Eight is Enough and your hometown was mentioned.

"Look! #CUNAGAC is a top trending topic on Twitter!" It went on like that for a couple of days. And to be fair, I believe excitement like that is warranted for an industry you live, work and believe in. Also, to be blunt, your Twitter trends are based on who you follow and your location. For instance, even on our CU Times Twitter account, I never once saw #CUNAGAC or any variation of it show up as a trending topic. Sorry.

But, again, I enjoyed the excitement from 1,000 miles away.

Flash forward to the most recent "Meet the Press," which was on while I was cleaning the kitchen, and Chuck Todd brought up the deregulation issues as an introduction to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as a guest, where he included the words "banks and credit unions."

As you might or probably do, I stopped what I was doing once I heard those words and tuned in for the entire segment.

Not once were the words "credit unions" mentioned again. It felt like Eight is Enough all over again. Except this time, little Nicholas (Adam Rich), wasn't on to help the issue wrap up into some cute 1970s soft-fade-to-black-end-of-scene. Nope. It just peaked my newsy excitement of what the political experts might say about credit unions, but they never actually say anything.

("Say Anything." Great movie!)

Air Supply, Eight is Enough and GAC – all crowd-pleasers and some good drama and surprise guests. But are these just empty calories?

As a town, we wrote so many letters. Mayor Moose even made a town proclamation about the show. By the end of the show's run, it just felt empty.

Air Supply. I mean, come on. There's nothing there. My only wish by mentioning them in this column is that they're stuck in your head for the rest of the day. "I'm all out of love/I'm so lost without you/I know you were right/Believing for so long." Hilariously empty.

GAC is not empty calories, I believe. It has a true purpose and mission for those credit unions officially connected to CUNA. That's a good thing. From the media side, this year kind of sucked with media bans for a handful of, what could have been interesting, sessions and speakers. Putting that particular issue aside for a second, CU Times, our reporters, our staff and even our pets are pulling for credit unions and the industry as a whole to find that voice and that success you are all striving for. And we want to report on it all.

Our staff and reporters, who I adore, were there looking for and wanted to report on the meaty and heavy and possibly fat-fried calories of stories to bring to you from the event as we do from all events.

But we/they left there feeling hungry. We've now had discussions about how to approach shows and events like this in the future, especially if there are going to be new media blackout rules put in place. And that's the event-holder's decision that we will respect.

In my non-powerful-yet-weirdly-have-access-to-a lot-of-inside-information-position, I hope CU Times can do better for you and cover these industry events with clearer eyes and even more objective reporting.

And I hope next year that I can actually attend GAC again to help increase all of our news calories to a healthier level.

Until then: "I'm all out of love/What am I without you?/I can't be too late/To say that I was so wrong."

Sorry. Not sorry.

Michael Ogden is executive editor of CU Times. He can be reached at [email protected].

NOT FOR REPRINT

Editor-in-Chief at CU Times. To connect, email at [email protected]. As Editor-in-Chief of CU Times since 2016, Michael Ogden has led the editorial team in all aspects of content strategy and execution, including the creation of the publication’s exclusive and proprietary research database of the credit union industry’s economic landscape. Under Michael’s leadership, CU Times has successfully shifted to an all-digital editorial product with new focuses on the payments, fraud, lending and regulatory beats. Most recently, he introduced a data-focused editorial product for subscribers that breaks down credit union issues into hard data, allowing for a deeper and more factual narrative for readers. In 2024, he launched the "Shared Accounts With CU Times" podcast, which offers a fresh, inside-the-newsroom perspective through interviews with leaders from the credit union industry and the regulatory world. He dives into pressing credit union issues, while revealing the personalities working behind-the-scenes to push the credit union world forward. His background includes years as a radio and TV anchor/reporter and a public relations and digital/social media manager, where he covered the food and music industries, as well as cooperatives and credit unions. Over the years, he has launched numerous exclusive video and podcast series, including a successful series of interactive backstage interviews with musicians at music festivals, showcasing his social media and live streaming production skills.