Something you should go something you should know is brought to you by Genesis gooldira dot com. That's also something you should know. You can put your retirement plan. I'm the gold standard. Learn more and get a free gold and silver guide at Genesis goold ir dot com. Exciting to visit right now with Jim Ashenbaum. He is the state chairman of the Republican Party. And you've been now the chairman for about a year? Is that right?
Not quite a year, John, it'll be a year February twenty second.
Jim, let's talk about the last year. You've had some fun wins that have happened over the last year, So let's kind of do a quick little recap.
Well, the thing I'm most proud of, John, is our new South go to gop dot com website. That was one of the things I campaigned on. I said, in this day and age, we've got to have a website that's you know, active, kept up to date. The previous website, the most recent news on it was over two years old, you know, and that's just not acceptable for any kind of an organization to have a website that that's that far behind. And so that was one of the things
I campaigned on. Deb Elliott lifelike Creations out at Belfousche built our new website and it's absolutely amazing. I tell people, I said, it's so much more than what I expected. I just knew we needed something better, but I didn't expect to have a website like we have. Deb just knocked that thing out of the park and didn't charge us very much to do it. And the leadership from the RNC, the Republican National Committee, said that that's very possibly one of the nicest, if not the nicest website
of all fifty states in the nation. So that's that's something to be proud of.
I guess absolutely. It is a phenomenal website. And let's share the domain name so folks maybe that haven't seen the website can go over and check it.
Out sdgop dot com and there is so much information. There's news, commentary, Our bylaws are our platform right there on the front page. That's something that had been actually taken off of the previous website so people couldn't see it. And if you have to hide your bylaws in your platform from the citizenry, something's wrong. And we're proud of
the website. We're proud of the work we're doing our first My first full State Central Committee meeting was July nineteenth, this last summer, and I got so many compliments about how I conducted the State Central Committee meeting. They said you were open, honest, fair, and made sure that everybody knew what they were voting on. I mean, I would I clarify stuff for people. Several times I make a person that made a motion repeat their motions so we
are sure that we're clear what we're voting on. Sometimes the previous State Central Committee meetings were kind of rushed through and tried to force issues, and I'm I'm not going to do that. I've stated when I campaigned for chairmen that I'm going to work for all Republicans and make sure things are done fair and equal for everybody.
And Jim, I think clarity is always a good thing, yep.
I just rushing through a meeting when you're making decisions as important as maybe amending your bylaws, you know, or or that sort of stuff, there has to be clarity about what what it is, what's the business we're doing, what are we taking care of right now with this vote? And I want I always want that to be clear and help me open and understood.
I love that. Again. Visiting with Jim Ashenbaum, State Chairman of the Republican Party for the state of South Dakota, and we're talking about some wins and year one. So do you have some other wins?
Oh, there's been a lot. There's so so many exceptional people that are they're working out, you know, you know, working for the party, helping us out with so many
different things. Penning County Chairwoman Amy Wagner has agreed to chair the Convention Committee for the twenty sixth convention, which will be June twenty fifth, sixth, and seventh out and Rapid at the Monument and Penning County Chairwoman Amy Wagner and then our regional director Regient sixth Director Mike Mueller from out there Rapid is the vice chair of that committee. And they're doing such an exceptional job. I just haven't I haven't had to mess with hardly anything in regards
to convention other than signing contracts and stuff. There. They've they've literally grabbed the reins and they're running with that thing. And I was somewhat concerned after I was to German, you know, whether I would be able to get people that would step up and volunteer to help with suffer if I was going to be incredibly burdened with things to do. But I still got plenty of stuff to do.
But man, there are so many good volunteers working on a GROW program, and which is a program that we're working with with the RNC about growing the state party and improving a lot of volunteers working on that, and just such an exceptional group of people that are willing to, you know, put in the effort and do what it takes to make the party better.
That's wonderful. Let's talk a little more about the GROW program for folks that are not familiar with it. Give us the details on that, and also let us know how we can get involved.
So the GROW program is a it's a like I said, it's a program that's designed to make our party better for the citizenry and Republicans statewide, and it's a we can earn fifty thousand dollars by completing this program. It's
in three stages. You get five thousand for completing the first stage, you get ten thousand for completing the second stage, and then thirty five thousand for actually making Once we get a plan put together, we have to make a certain percentage threshold of that plan to get the last thirty five thousand dollars, and that will come late spring early summer of twenty six. So we've completed the first stage, got five thousand dollars. We've got everything pretty much in
order to finish the second stage. That's part of what this interview today is about. It's media relations. So we're talking with people. We're communicating with the Republicans across the state about what's going on, letting them know that we're working for them and looking forward hopefully earning the payments of all three stages of that grow program. Fifty dollars goes a long ways for paying monthly operational expenses, the cost of convention. We've got a gun raffle going on
right now. You can get tickets for that right on the homepage of ASDGP dot com. Giving away fifty three guns in fifty two weeks. So that's proposed to be a great fundraiser. We got to get the tickets sold. I keep getting on my people with the tickets saying, hey, get out there and sell them tickets and Some are just knocking it out of the park. Some are pretty lazy about it. They're not getting it done, and I
got to stay on them. But as far as that goes, that's another another deal that that's a fundraiser for the state party. But for each one hundred dollars ticket that's sold for that gun raffle, whichever county sold that, ten dollars of that one hundred dollars goes back to their county operations. And the first, the first drawing, we had our Hand County Party right here at Miller had sold board tickets. Then all the other all the other counties in the state combined, and I'm not too sure that
we weren't. We just had our second drawing here a few weeks ago, and I'm not too sure that we weren't still ahead of the entire sty combined. But at this point we've raised almost fourteen hundred dollars for our Hand County Republican Party.
And again, if you're listening and going, hey, I would like a chance to win, I'd like a bunch of chances to win. You can do that on the website right now, SDGP dot com, and there are a bunch of chances to win guns between now and when this program is over.
Yep. The tickets are one hundred dollars each, five for four hundred, or ten for seven hundred if you want to buy multiple tickets and these We're doing a drawing every four weeks on Sunday night at eight o'clock. The drawings are done live. We put them on our South Got a Republican Party Facebook page and then they're archives so everybody can go back and watch the drawing make
sure everything was on the up and up. But anyway, the the first fifty two tickets, the first fifty two prizes, those tickets stay out until the final drawing, and then those fifty two tickets get thrown back into the tumbler, so everybody's back in for the final drawing for our grand prize rifle and that is a TS Customs right here from TS Customs Rifles in Miller, South Dakota. That's
about a fifty five rifle for our grand prize. Really really nice, got customized with the South Got To Republican Party logo on the side of the butt and on the side of the forearm. We the South Cota state motto Under God, the people rule. So that's a sweet gun, carbon fiber stock, carbon fiber barrel, six y five DRC and really really nice gun for our grand prize. That'll be almost a year from now before we draw for that.
And if somebody would like a ticket to win that gun and all of the guns between now and when you get to that final drawing, they can do all of that with one ticket or as many tickets as they want. I guess right now.
Yes, you go right on our website sdgop dot com and get your tickets. The list of all the prizes are there in detail. We've had the first two drawings. The first one was in October, the second drawing was November. The next drawing is coming up on December fourteenth, So if you want to get in and have a chance at those four prizes, four prizes every four weeks, and then a grand prize at the end.
Again, our guest today has been Jim Ashenbaum, State Chairman of the Republican Party for the state of out Dakota, and Jim, thank you again for taking the time to chat with us about your first year in office. You had mentioned that you're a big fan of Clarity. I'm also a big fan of clarity and transparency, and one of the best things about that is just communicating like this to let folks know, here's who I am, here's what I'm up to. So, Jim, thank you for taking the time to do that.
Yep. And we do get on our website SDGP dot com. There's always news and updates there. You can find out what's going on. You can find out who we are, what we believe in our Facebook page that's updated. You know, there's posts on there all the time. We've got a page on X and I think Instagram, I don't know. I don't take care of all those. Some other great volunteer takes care of that stuff, and so I don't have to worry about it. But plenty of information out there.
The South got to GOP is definitely different than what it was. We're active. We're working with the people and communicating with the citizenry and helping them elect good constitutional conservatives.
I love that. Jim, thank you so much for your time, sir.
Yep, thank you again.
Jim Eschenbaum has been our guest today. The website we were talking about, and this is where you go if you'd like to buy a raffle ticket to win a gun or a bunch of guns. Actually, that website is s d go op dot com. And Something you Should Know. Something you Should Know is brought to you by Genesisgold ira dot com. Put your retirement plan on the gold standard. Get a free gold and Silver guide now at genesisgoldira dot com