Morning Edition; Audrey Richards

It's morning edition on KRPS, I'm Fred Fletcher-Fierro. Campaign election season isn't full swing in case you haven't noticed, and while many of the names on the ballot are familiar, there is at least one candidate whose name will not appear on the ballot. First time candidate, Audrey Richards is running as an independent in Missouri 7 Congressional District. I spoke with Richards last week at the Joplin Public Library, both of us wearing masks. I first asked Audrey to introduce herself to potential voters, and while she is running for Congress. So my name is Audrey Richards, and I'm a boring and raised southwest Missouri, and I was born here in Joplin, and I was raised in Kimberling, Ziggy. So small town life is my vibe. I decided to run basically, because it was pretty obvious that the two-pargy system is more interested in maintaining power than actually solving people's problems, and especially in small town America, there's not enough votes or enough money for a lot of them to care, and so it kind of became one of those things where someone has to step up to the plate, and nobody else was, so it's going to be me.

And it's not like I'm not qualified, because I went to George Washington University, have a degree in political science. I worked six years at the U.S. Treasury Department, so I've got very hands-on bureaucratic experience as well as an academic understanding of things, so I figured we'll do it because somebody needs to step up. So what are some of your priorities, or what do you hope to get accomplished if elected? So are the three pillars of my campaign are education, infrastructure, and getting big money out of politics. So education is my number one thing, as I've said before, I went to school at Reed Spring, but even like down the road, half an hour in Branson, their school system has so much more money and access to resources because of the tourism, silver dollars, Ziggy, all of that, so it really kind of, it's a stark contrast, and I knew that whenever I went to GW, I was kind of behind the rest of my classmates who would go on to charter schools, maggots schools, really fancy public schools, boarding schools, and like, oh god, like I don't have the same logical comprehension or anything, because I was kind of a nerd, I didn't have

to work really hard and we were going to understand things that we were being taught, and so I never learned how to learn, or learned how to like understand things. So when they're presenting me information, I'm not familiar with at the college level, I was like, oh god. So ASU again, secondly became C-student, and that was with effort, and so I didn't understand how to learn things, and I think that's the product if they're not having been enough small class sizes, so there's more individualized attention, or more resources, dual-cracket courses, AP courses, things that can push you further, a hug when you're still at the high school level, and so that's my number one priority. Infrastructure is another huge priority that affects everybody in the district, so roads and bridges, we have the eighth worst in the nation, they're bad, and I don't think I have to tell you that, so if anybody is ever driving on a farm road, they know, and it's really one of those things where I don't have to tell you that it's an issue, because it is, but our representative has exhibited zero interest in solving that problem, so I also want to talk about Wi-Fi, right, because that's a key part of infrastructure.

You see businesses, again, going back to small town communities, they in order to keep up with just the business atmosphere of the country, you have to have angering access. Well, a lot of places, even in Kimberling, Sagi, where I go up, they don't, because there's not a reliable, affordable way to get access to it. I talked to the Chamber of Commerce down there at Table Rock Lake, and they were like, yeah, we had to seriously invest a lot of money, pay a very high monthly fee to get angering it that is reliable, not even super fast. It's like a ridiculous fee for basic stuff, because there's no infrastructure, and we need to invest in small town communities, don't have the resources, the money, the tax coming in to invest in themselves like that, so they need help. And then finally, getting big money out of politics, it's basic. You know, you compare me and Billy Long in terms of where we get our money. I am a fundig, 100% by my own cash flow, which is mostly my retirement savings, and then small dollar donations.

My biggest donation was $500, and I like basically shot through the roof of the car whenever I saw that email. And I was like, oh my god, someone really likes me. And that was very much appreciated. That was a donation from a school teacher, and you know, that's the way the beautiful things about, I think, small dollar donations, people don't have a lot of expendable income, but what they have, if they're willing to put that toward me, honestly, that is the biggest honor. And I think, I don't think you find a lot of people doing that for Billy Long, because people, everyday Americans are in August, committed to him, because he's not committed to helping them. And yet you look at Billy Long, and we go back to angering it, right? Billy Long's biggest donors, Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Charger, it's like, why can't we get angering it? Maybe it's because these big companies don't want to invest in our communities, so instead they're investing in our representative to say, hey, don't make us do this. Don't, you know, don't pursue it. And he hasn't, because Billy Long can be bought, he has been bought, and you can't say that about me. I'm not taking a single money from a pack, from a corporation, from a parking.

All of my money comes from me, and small donors. Audrey Richards is running as a writing candidate in Missouri 7th Congressional District. You can learn more about her campaign at AudreyFromAzory.com, and here are extended conversation at krpsnews.com.