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Date: 1/22/26
Duration: 23:37
Guest: Mike Morgan
Website: https://www.hendersoncountync.gov/
Listen on Spotify:
Summary:
Special Guest: Mike Morgan, Henderson County Chief Communications Officer
In this episode of Living Local with Frisbee Real Estate, Ed sits down with Mike Morgan, the Chief Communications Officer for Henderson County, to talk about what really happens behind the scenes when a county is keeping 120,000+ residents informed, especially during major events like Hurricane Helene.
Mike shares his unique path to county government, including a long run in local media as a former WLOS sports anchor, years in radio, and time in banking and mortgages before landing what he calls his “perfect fit” role with Henderson County. With decades of broadcasting experience, Mike brings a storyteller’s approach to public communication, focusing on sharing clear information and highlighting the positive work happening across the county.
Ed and Mike dig into how Henderson County communicates with residents today, including a growing three-person communications team that manages county updates, social media strategy, public information, and livestreamed board meetings. Mike talks about how the county’s social reach exploded during Helene, hitting millions, and how that visibility helped fuel community support and supply efforts when it mattered most. He also explains how disaster communication forced the county to go old-school at times, printing updates and physically delivering them to fire stations when power and service were down.
One of the biggest takeaways: Henderson County is actively reviewing what worked during Helene and what needs improvement. Mike highlights new efforts to better reach non-English speaking communities through a program connected to UNC Chapel Hill, along with expanded social channels for departments like Parks & Rec, the Health Department, EMS, the Library, and Emergency Management.
The episode also covers some exciting local development, including the future of the Ecusta Trail and the next phase with a highly anticipated bridge that’s expected to become a picture-perfect landmark. Mike also shares details on a major new sports project at Berkeley Park, featuring four full-size FIFA soccer fields, plus tennis courts, a softball field, and updates to the stadium space that supports local schools and events. The goal is to bring in bigger tournaments, boost tourism, and support local businesses through increased visitor traffic.
Keeping it light, Ed throws Mike into the show’s “Finish the Lyrics” segment, and Mike delivers, nailing classic rock favorites and proving he’s still got that radio energy.
If you want a clearer picture of what Henderson County is doing, what’s changing since Helene, and what big projects are coming next, this episode is packed with local insight and community updates. To find county resources or contact Mike, search Henderson County NC online and visit the county communications team page.
Watch on YouTube:
Transcript:
Thanks again for tuning in. So our special guest today is Mr. Mike Morgan. is chief communications officer with Henderson County. That's a long title, Mike. And Mike's been around the area for a long time in many different hats. So he's like a celebrity legacy something. So Mike, thanks for joining us. Give us an overview what you do and let's try to keep this. I'm a something that's a good way to describe it. I'm not sure what I am, but listen, I've been with the County for a little over three years now. and love every minute of it. You know, did mortgages for long time. You and I connected there. Matter of fact, last time we did a podcast, the credit union shut it down because they said, I said something I shouldn't have said. And I just appreciate you, uh, you know, bearing the hatchet and bringing me, let me come back and do one with you. It was intense. intense. It was kind of weird, but you know, but you know, Mike, Eddie is a good friend. I was playing a golf tournament with him several years ago while I was still at the credit union and said, man, if you ever know of a communication job, just let me know. And then John Mitchell, County manager came up to me after the round. So we need to go get a cup of coffee. And John always wanted to have somebody in my position. And again, I think having worked in television for 15 years, doing radio in Asheville for 20 years. I'm now doing the sports freak hour on WTC queue on Monday nights, doing high school basketball and high school football on the queue as well. think just knowing the media, still being a member of the media that's helped in a long way, because as we tell stories about things in the County, we want to tell good, positive stories, make sure we push out good content. And I think that as our communications team as a whole, I feel like we're doing a pretty good job of that. And I'm lucky. It's like, it's almost like a perfect job for me. Took me like 57 years to find it. Cause I'm 60 years old now and I made a career change late fifties and that may sound crazy. It is unheard of, I think in what I do, it's sort of a, it was just a perfect fit. The good Lord has a plan for everybody. And that job was just sitting there waiting for me and the timing was good. And ⁓ I'm very blessed and very honored to be able to do what I get to do. I'm stuck on when you said the queue is that. That's WTZ queue. Yeah. WTZ queue. What channel is that? That's a 95.3 and 1600 here in town. That's how know that. Mark and Paige. Yeah. Been doing that for a number of years. And I'm actually on with Randy Houston on WHKP every morning. We have a segment around seven 30. started doing that right after Helene. Is that live? It's live. Yeah. He calls me every single morning about 7 30 and I just update him. it's over the phone. The County. Yeah. That's nice. don't have to be typically I'm drinking coffee, laying in bed when he calls me. I haven't gotten up and had a shower yet. And, ⁓ cause I'm a government man. I'll have to show up to work whenever I want to. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. No, but they, no, I just, it's a perfect fit. I love what I get to do. And I love telling the story about good stuff we have going on in the County. And there's never a dull moment. If you work for a local government, bet. Yeah. So before I forget, uh, people, if they're watching on YouTube, they might recognize you cause you alluded to it. You worked at W L O S. What did you do there? was there from 87 to 2003, a weatherman. from 93 to 03, I did sports. I was weekend sports anchor. Yeah. So sports the whole time sports the whole time. Yeah. Lee Beeson, who works at United federal credit union. Now he and I worked together at mountain first. I accidentally told him one day that people thought Gary Stevenson, the weather guy was me. And so he always introduces me as the weather person. And that sticks with more people around here, but I did sports for 10 years, worked with Stan Pamphilis. Stan wouldn't go anywhere. Brantley, our son was born and I'm like, you know, this working every weekend and never being home is not, I didn't like it. So left, sold sporting goods for a while. was in banking for 15, 16 years between Mountain First and the credit union and then been now at the county for almost four years. So it's, it's been, it's been perfect. are you from the area? Grew up in Marion. So I'm a county boy. I went to school at Wingate. And, grew up in big NC state fans, ⁓ being a sports freak. love the Dodgers. love the Wolfpack. I was a cowboy fan until they lost to the packers a couple of years ago. And I said, okay, I'm done. Actually threw away a bunch of cowboy shirts the other day. I'm, seriously done with the Cowboys. But, yeah. So my son lives in Raleigh. Daughter lives, ⁓ or Susan college in Anderson. She'll be graduating in the fall and the spring and getting married in June. yeah. So never a dull moment in the Morgan family either. Yeah. Not at all. So. If you're NC state Dodgers, how come Dodgers not braze? If you grew up in the area, Steve Garvey was my hero growing up. was captain America. love comic books. So, you know, Garvey Lopes, Russell say, and I've been true to my teams because, uh, David Thompson era, know, uncle went to NC state. So I just kind of like, you know, I'm not a bandwagon jumper. love Roger Stalback. mean, cowboys and redskins, you know, I chose the cowboys. but I gave up Jerry Jones needs to retire or sell or just go away. don't know. But if he ever does, I may come back to the Cowboys, but yes, I've been true to my teams. love the Wolfpack love, love the Dodgers did not go to NC state, but my son graduated from there. So yeah, I made some tuition payments that solidified my fandom right there. So what do do with the County? Yeah, really over the entire communications team. So, so what we do, we now have a three person team. ⁓ Kathy Fanati is our PIO public information officer. She was there when I got there. And then as I came in, I took on a lot of the media stuff and then doing a lot of videos for the County and trying to really build up our stuff. And one thing we learned during Helene, we saw our reach and Facebook hit like two and a half million at one time. And I think the thing was we could get information out, you know, we didn't have power around here, so maybe we didn't see it, but it went out all over the country. And there's no doubt that through that reach, that's what helped us fill up that warehouse, you know, that we had right there with all the supplies. So We saw the need for social media. So, uh, so we hired a social media coordinator, uh, back probably about eight months ago now. And Tiffany Lucy's doing a great job of that. So we're a three person team. So our main job is to communicate what's happening within the County. And of course, social media is a whole monster all by itself. We always said we did plug and chug social media during the storm. Cause I've been through two wildfires and a hurricane in the three years I've been here. And when those things happen, you just got to get the information out. You know, you're not worried about the algorithms and posting at certain times, all that stuff. It's just getting information out. So that's why I kind of called it plug and chug. Now with the actual Tiffany doing social media, we can really pinpoint when we post stuff, post it at the right time, make sure it's a real instead of a video and get the most stuff. know, that's way too bad that my brain can't handle all of that. So she does a wonderful job doing that. And then I still, you know, work on projects. ⁓ pretty much what falls on me is anytime we have a groundbreaking ribbon cutting. board meetings. I do a lot with the board meetings. We've got some great stuff that we stream and record and post videos, stuff like that. So, and then I'm just sort of in a lot about right away. I'm sort of the, ⁓ I don't say I'm the face of Henderson County because that makes me sound more important, but I am the person that loves to do stuff, loves to talk. I'm on TV a lot and dealing with the media and doing these things. So again, it's a perfect fit. I love what I do. So is it hard to, ⁓ help people realize the difference between Hendersonville city and Henderson County? like you do get that sometimes leading over and stuff. Probably the biggest thing is the parking. People ask me all the time about parking or they get a parking ticket and they ask me if I can help them get out of it. I'm like, Nope, that's the city. Nothing I can do with you there. Uh, but we have a great relationship with, with them too. And as matter of fact, John Conant, his, his daughter and my daughter danced together. it's a JC is a affectionately call them a con and our good friends. And, really there's, there's really a good collaboration between the city and the County. think sometimes, you know, You've heard some stories about some other stuff, but everybody gets along here pretty well. ⁓ yeah, but really it's, know, we may run into that every now and then, know, Hennessyville is within the County. So, you know, they actually, you know, are a part of us too. And we're a part of them. Well, I mean, from a, a citizen's perspective, you never, it's seamless almost really. So, yeah, I mean, again, to everybody. And that's where we try. When I first got here, the stories I want to tell the stories. I want to tell the stories that are positive. that, you know, the good things that we do. And I'm, I've started just a new segment that we're posting on social media. I posted our first one this week, just called a minute with Mike. Well, I'm taking just one minute, almost kind of like the Jay Billis thing. If you're a basketball fan, he used to walk the court with a player and ask them a question. That's what I'm doing is just taking a minute just to get to know different people. So those have been fun. Tiffany's doing a lot of cool history lessons. We've now got a Facebook page for our parks and rec for our health department, for our library. We got all these different EMS started one emergency management where we're just trying, trying our best just to get as much information out to our folks as possible. So if you're not following stuff yet, I'm not sure which microphone is looking, you need to go Facebook and find us, follow us, Instagram, Twitter. What's the address? Henderson County NC. Okay. It's different ones. If you'd search Henderson County NC, it typically will come up. Okay. And there's links on our website too. You can find that as well. Awesome. Yeah. ⁓ Since Helene, what have you seen the biggest changes? Well, I'll tell you, God, there's so many of them. I think the one thing that we've done a lot since Helene happened is we've really taken time to go back and look at what we did and see how we can be better and see what areas we were good in and what areas we need to improve in. Our emergency management team is just phenomenal. Jimmy Brissy does such a great job. He's actually my direct boss. I answer to him. Kind of made sense because we're connected at the hip when there's a wildfire, when there's a hurricane. So I think really coming through that, you know, it's really just kind of showed, okay, there's certain areas we need to be a little bit better. One thing that we're going to be doing, we were chosen by, I think there's five other counties in the state, going to be a part of a class at Chapel Hill, UNC Chapel Hill. And, uh, we're, going to do this building integrated communities. We're just reaching out to the non English speaking communities better, you know, and just trying to find out the best way to get information out, especially during disasters like this. Now, what we went through with Helene, mean, it's been, John Mitchell was talking about it went from a 1970 storm. mean, we could at least talk to each other on the phone to an 1870 storm where we can communicate anything. I mean, we're printing stuff off and driving it, you know, down to fire stations to put up information. You know, we went old school for about two or three weeks in certain areas. ⁓ so again, it's just, it's just finding those ways to make sure, you know, we communicate to everyone in the County and that there's various other areas we're trying to be better at. And if you haven't seen it yet on our YouTube page, you can find, did, I did a three-part, a three-part documentary on the storm did before the storm, during the storm, after the storm interviewed, probably 50 different employees in the County. So, didn't even come close. to touching all the stories that are there. I mean, I talked with Marcus Jones. I know who you've going to have on one of these as well. You Marcus kind of broke into the warehouse. He didn't, he didn't go in. That's a whole story all by itself. You know, he broke the law and got into this warehouse, but it was okay. They, they, they, everybody was fed. They were fine with it, but then he ended up doing debris stuff too. So we had so many different people at the bottom of everybody's contract that says other duties as assigned. And you know, the day after the storm hit, we pretty much reached out to everybody. could say, Hey, you need to come to work on Monday. I don't know what you're going to do, but we need you. to come work. And man, our county employees stepped up, did a great job. So to check that out. I think it's, again, we learned a lot and I pray every day that nothing like that ever happens to us again. But if it does, we'll be better prepared for it. So do you know the population of the county? I haven't looked at that in a while. 120,000, I think. It's kind of right in that ballpark. It fluctuates a little bit, but we're up over 120. And employees for the county? We have right at 1,000. Wow. That's a big, group. And we'll have like, you know, Christmas gathering or something. I'll just come in the room and I'll just stand there and go, okay, I know him. I know her. I know him. And the other 500 people, I don't think I know who they are. Are you Santa? No, I'm not Santa. I used to do Santa back in the day, but no, we, we actually get real Santas and not fake Santas anymore. At least they have a real beard. had the fake beard. I forgot you. Yeah. think, I think we have a, it's funny you said that. We can't go down that rabbit. So tell me real fast. Yeah. Any favorite restaurants that you recommend or like to go to in the area? You know, well, the first one is I'm an Applebee's guy. I know that sounds terrible. They're everywhere. I love Applebee's, but that's just me. Brooks Tavern is one of my favorite places in town. I love Brooks Tavern. You ever been down there? I have. Yeah. It's really good. The very, very small place. love it. Tipsy taco is me and my wife's one. We used to go to the one in Greenville all the time. I was excited when they opened this one up here. I just, and I'm like, chicken and barbecue sauce in a taco shell. What a great idea. That's usually what I get. Mike. I'm quite surprised. You and I might've chosen some of the same restaurants. Really? Compared to other people. Tipsy taco is probably one of my faves. There we go. And well, let's go there. Let's you and I plan a lunch sometime real soon. That'd be great. ⁓ my other people like white duck taco, which is great, when we're done here, I'm going there with someone today. It's funny you said that. Yeah. Uh, how about you have people visit the area and say, Hey, you gotta go check out X, Y, Z. Listen, the Acoustic trail. mean, I tell people all the time, you know, if you love to do that, just, just walk it. I mean, you could literally start right here at your office, which you're pretty much at the trail. I like to tell people I'm a church street and Acoustic trail. And just get to at least, you know, trailside that area and go in there to the market. They have a burger, by the way. Oh, they got great food all over there. I'm so excited about that. Cause again, I came in, I've only been here, you know, a little over three years, but. That Acoustia Trail was years in the making. And so so excited. I'm excited about the second phase. Cause once we get, whatever we ended up having to do with the bridge, goes over, goes over the river right there and the Etowah, the Orchard area. I tell you what, there will probably be more engagements made on that bridge and more pictures that that that's the one area I'm really looking forward to. And I've walked across the bridge a couple of times, which I don't, you can't do that. I would recommend you not to do that. Is it a swinging bridge? It's not swinging bridge. It's a bridge bridge. But that's going to be, that'll be the picturesque scene. can't wait for that to be built. yeah, that's great. And I'm super sad about the sports complex we're building in the county. And where is that? I've heard about it. park. And yeah, as matter of fact, the Astro turf for the soccer fields are already going down. be four full size FIFA soccer fields. Wow. And so you talk about just the area. mean, once that's up and running the events we can host there, the tournaments, I mean, the ability to bring in, uh, you know, tournaments from all across. things from all across the country. It's going to help, you know, with our TDA folks, with all of our restaurants and hotels. I mean, it's really going to be just a ground. It's going to be a, it's going to be an awesome thing for the County whenever it's open. And it's probably not going to be open until at the earliest in the fall, definitely by next spring, it'll be up and running. is that, did that affect the baseball stadium? No, what we're doing, we're building four soccer fields there. We'll have six tennis courts as well. We'll have a softball field there. And we will be rehabbing a little bit the old Berkeley stadium too. does that still play there? Well, the not currently they will again, more than likely that's where the honeycrisp has been playing. They probably will return when it's back up and running. Gotcha. The Bearcats will play their games here. Hendersonville will play softball and baseball and tennis, but it'll be open to other people to use too. Not, just them, but the soccer fields. Cause again, having those four fields, full-size soccer fields, you can bring in big time tournaments for that. And then you can play three games on each field, like youth soccer. So you can have, you know, what's three times four 12. I'm from McDowell County. So do the math for me. I was told there'd be no math, but you can play 12, you know, youth games right there too. So it's a game changer. That's going to be so great. And being a sports freak that I am, I love that place. And you brought up sports fields and all that. think about it, but I've noticed the past year you've highlighted different parks in the area. ⁓ community parks that are going through renovations and stuff. I think you've added pickleball courts because those are popular. Or I think, ⁓ I haven't played pickleball, but anyway, that looks great going around different parks in the County. the pickleball people are passionate. They are very much so. And, and they're old, but I haven't met young people that like pickleball. My son, ⁓ like to play it. He actually took a class in college. Yeah. ⁓ was actually kind of hard. He had to like pass all these had to hit a serve certain things that he was kind of worried about his final exam. They wouldn't go pass it, but, I haven't played it. I got a bad elbow from dropping my dog years ago. I can't play basketball anymore. So yeah, it's like tennis elbow. I have a hard time. I you could work through that. ⁓ probably so I'm old. Remember I'm old. Yes. ⁓ before we weren't at a time, Mike, ⁓ we might have to have you back for other. So we have this, we have this new segment called finish the lyrics. Oh, oh boy. I'm pretty sure you like music. I love music. So I'm to let you choose the genre. Your options are pop, country. got classic rock. Rock rock, rock, rock. Maybe we have a few Christian songs listed. So if you choose rock, then you get to choose. would. should choose Christian being a good Baptist, but I'm afraid I won't know the lyrics and I look bad. So why don't we do rock? All right. So you get to pick the decade 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s or 2000. Or something current, wow. Well, I'm a kid of the 80s. Let's go with the 80s. Maybe there's some Journey and Foreigner in there, we'll see. So we've done this a few times. I only read the lyrics. I'm not a lyric guy, so it's my heart. have to sing it? No, you just finish the Because I'm a singer just like you are, I'm singing tonight, actually. I'm This should be fun. Just a small town girl. Living in a lonely world. Good job. So see if I would have done just a small town. It'd been easy to fill it in, but I'm just reading the lyrics. Took the midnight train going anywhere. That's not on Just a city boy. Hold on. Born and raised in South Detroit. If for the longest time, I did not know what he said. one for one. Okay. Good job. Here's the second one. Whoa. We're halfway there. Living on a prayer. Yes. I'm not going to sing that either. Good job. Two for two. This you should know because it was mentioned earlier. I got my first real six string. Bought it at the five and down. Wow. You're doing awesome. Last one, I think. Oh, sorry. We've jumped to a different. That's all right. I have a bonus one. I'm three for three. If I go three for four, that's any function. We'll jump back. You'll do better at this. Um, she's, this is too easy. Sweet home, Alabama. where the skies are so blue. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. There we go. You're like in my playlist here, man. Good job. All right. That was pretty cool. Yay. We'll go to the pop category. Oh, okay. Oh, we're just continues. Oh, okay. Let's see. All right. All right. Uh, this is too easy. Okay. Sweet Caroline. Exactly. Good job. We had another guest who said, I think instead of Bob Bob Bob, we want to cruise several years ago, Pat school of dance. I, They played that song everywhere we went all the time. And it's almost like going to, to a Tennessee football game and hearing Rocky top. I never care to hear Rocky top played ever again. And sweet Carolina, every time we play it, my mind goes to that cruise. And I'm like, I went to bed singing that song every single night. uh, but listen, Hey, I love journey foreigner, Boston. You're the first to go four for four. I'll have to get you tipsy. And actually it's funny. know, Marcus Jones and I drove over here together on the deal, recorded a separate segments. And as we got in the car, Marcus may not have noticed this, but Prince Purple Rain is the CD or the CD that's in my car. I still have a CD player in my car. And so that's in there. I shoot Purple Rain and Prince and I love classic rock, love Christian music too, of course. But when do you think car then if you have a CD player? It's a 2015 Sorento. Yeah. I know. Well, I gotta pull this back. You just said. He's gonna try and stump me. This is my favorite one. Okay. It's in the Christian music category. no, gosh, I hope I do. Lord help me here. This is a current song. Okay. Life may give you lemons. ⁓ no. I wish I could cue up the music. I don't have that ability. You want me to finish it for you? Go ahead and finish it for me. But my Jesus be making lemonade, lemonade. I actually love this song. It's really fun. My four is Frank. And see I'll go. I sing more of the praise and worship type stuff. We do a lot of Gather. You throw some Gather vocal band at me. I'll be able to finish all those. you could throw that song into your Gather concert one night, that'd be a lot of fun to see. We just did a big Christmas thing. I have a Santa Claus rap that I did years ago that, uh, and then Dale Pickens and I, who I sing with, we have ghost chickens in the sky. We actually sang that at our volunteer bank for the county. And I still got people come up to me and I can't get that song out of my head. Anyway, there we go. Wow. This has gone off the rails. We're not editing this at all. I would hope not. This is perfect. I think we've exceeded our 20 minute limit. Oh, well, listen, is, appreciate you too, Ed. You've been a friend for a long time and I'm happy for what you got going on. Best of luck. And I love this cool setup. Anytime you want me come by, I could talk all day. Anytime. Just on Fridays. That's when we record. rest of the time it becomes an office. I'm not allowed in here except on Fridays. That's what Ed just told me. All right. Thanks again, Mike Morgan with the chief, not chief financial officer, officer for Anderson County. If somebody had a question, how could they contact you? It real easy to find all my information right there on the communications team page. And I'm Thomas Michael. My email is T Morgan. Cause apparently in the government world, they have to use your first legal name for your email. So would have never found you. And here, yeah, you do Morgan. It'll go to someone in our DSS office. I've gotten hers before and she's gotten mine before. So yes, that's happened. And then my cell phone's on there too. People can call me all the time. And yeah, I'm very reachable. Always, always one thing we do at the County. We're here to help anything we can do any questions you have. And people, people will call me because they see me out there about things I have nothing to do with. They're like, I've tried to find this answer. I can't find it. Can you help me? And I'll, I'll try my best to help them. And majority of time I can sometimes I'm like, ma'am, I'm sorry. I'm not one lady called me. was trying to call Henderson, North Carolina. And she swore up and down that she had the right number. like, promise you I'm in Hendersonville, but Henderson County. Yeah. So that happens some too, I'm, I'm easy to find. That's awesome. Thank you again, Mike. Thank you. And to all of her, but everybody listening or watching keep living local.