The TwoDads Podcast

For ninety episodes the two of us have sat at this table and told you stories about our lives. The people who actually live those stories have never had a microphone until now. Bill’s wife Hali and my fiancée Natascha are at the table, and they finally get to share their side of what it’s like being with the two of us. Mercer County even got to send in some questions.

Dakota Magoto was just a number at her job, so she quit and bet on herself. Three years later it’s Dakota’s Sweet Treats, a real company with her name on it. She sat down in a cupcake costume to tell us what it actually took, next to an astronaut who swears we never went to the moon.

Scott Hogenkamp is a fifth-generation funeral director with Hogenkamp Funeral Homes in Minster, Coldwater, St. Henry and Russia. He sits down with us to talk about what actually happens when someone dies, who to call, how to plan ahead, and what 150 years of walking Mercer County families through their worst day teaches you about living.

Chad and Brooke from the Celina Moose Lodge 1473 pull up a chair to talk about what the Moose really does for our community and where the money actually goes. Turns out it’s a whole lot more than the local watering hole.

Become a member today: https://celinamoose.com/

Gary Cooper of Cooper Farms stops by to talk about the family business that started with his grandma's egg money in Oakwood back in 1938 and grew into one of the largest turkey and egg producers in the country.

www.cooperfarms.com

Levi Jones, General Manager of Eldora Speedway, sits down with us for two hours of racing, Tony Stewart, and what it takes to keep the World's Greatest Dirt Track growing in the middle of a cornfield.

Spank also pulls up a chair, which means a race made entirely of famous Tonys and a 2028 wish list Levi had to rule on one idea at a time.

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Two women in Celina turned a garage in Coldwater into a line down the street, and they did it with candles.

Angie and Ashley of Blended Collective Co. sit down with Bill and Mitch to talk about the day it started in a kitchen, why people wait hours for a candle drop, running a business as women in Mercer County, and the bread scent that cost them $1,500.

Plus we build a candle company with $100, and the girls play Scent It or Send It. Holiday Launch is November 5th.

Mike Gast is the varsity baseball coach at St. Henry, and this week we barely talk baseball. He visits dead presidents' graves, and we had to know why. We draft the fattest coaches in sports history. Then we get into the leadership class he just built at St. Henry and why he thinks leadership needs to get taught. If you run a crew, a business, or a family, there's something in here for you.

Mike Supeck has never met a stranger, and it built him a career. The Managing Director of the ⁠Ohio Angel Collective⁠ joins the dads to break down how a network actually gets built, why who you know changes everything, and what angel investing looks like in Ohio. Plus the Mount Rushmore of packed lunch snacks gets carved.

A coffee trailer built by hand in their own driveway. Derek and Micah Pease of The Hive Coffee Co sit down with the dads to talk about what it actually takes to bet on yourself.

The build, the business, and the why behind it all. Plus Family Feud, drinks invented on the spot, and a finale that forces two coffee people to choose between coffee and everything else they love. Grab a cup. Episode 81.

Coldwater's Coach Chip Otten sits down with the dads. Taking over for a legend, leading teenagers in a world short on accountability, and what six state titles actually weigh in a county where Friday night is everything. Plus your Community Mailbag questions and the great snack-versus-dessert debate.

Greg Schweizer, third-generation owner of the Celina Music Store, joins the dads. Why fewer kids are playing music, what phones are doing to the next generation, and how Mercer County parents can help their kids start — or stick with it.

Jeff Myers grew up at the Starlight Drive-In in Maria Stein, and when his family had to choose between letting the screen go dark or rebuilding it all, they rebuilt.

Go see a their newly renovated theater this weekend.

This week we sat down with Zach Albert of Albert Sporting Goods in St. Marys & Coldwater.

Third-generation owner of the store his grandpa started in 1980, and the guy who bought it with his dad sixty days before the world shut down. We get into how a regular person actually buys a business, what it's like negotiating with your own grandpa, and how a small-town store stays standing in the age of Amazon.

Music Attribution: Call To Adventure - Scott Buckley– released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au

This week the dads sit down with Joe McClurg, owner of Rooster Joe Coffee in Coldwater. Joe shares how he and his wife Michelle dreamed about opening a coffee shop for twenty years before finally pulling the trigger, what it was like opening right before the 2020 shutdown, and the story behind his second location, going into the old Versailles firehouse alongside Made Apparel.

This week we sit down with Dave Meyer, Ohio Area Coordinator for Operation BBQ Reliefand a member of the OBR family since 2019. From competition barbecue to the middle of disaster zones, Dave tells us what it really takes to serve "The One Hot Meal That Matters" — the meal that shows up after the tornado, the fire, the flood, when people have lost everything and need one thing that feels normal again.

Are we still letting kids be kids?

Speech therapist Lauren Timmerman (TimberNook West Central Ohio) joins the podcast to talk screens, boredom, why every kid's got letters behind their name now. Plus, we dive into the free fixes every parent can start tonight.

Sign up today: https://timbernook.com/providers/ltimmerman/

Music Credit: Call To Adventure - Scott Buckley– released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au

Born nearly blind in Celina, Mindy Cook spent years trying to hide the thing that made her different.

Fresh off a plane from the World Championships in China, Mindy sits down with the TwoDads to talk about what she really sees, the failures that shaped her, and how Mercer County learned to see one of its own.

Mindy Cook is a Paralympic Silver medalist in the Tokyo Games in 2020.

Austin and Kayla Adams bought a gym nobody wanted.

Snap Fitness in Celina — tucked in the Chief parking lot, written off by half the town, a reputation already hurt before they ever got the keys. Everybody had an opinion. Most of them weren't good.

But this isn't really a gym story.

Before these two ever took on a business people had given up on, they almost gave up on each other. This week they sit down with Mitch and Bill and get honest about the hard years, the near-end of their marriage, the faith that pulled them back, and the second chance that turned into something neither of them saw coming.

Around here, the church is the center of everything, but that doesn't always mean it's the center of our own minds. This week, we fix that.

Father Ethan Moore of isn't the priest you grew up picturing. He rides a motorcycle, he's got the hair, and he's out to reach a generation that quit listening.

We sat down with one Father to get into the life he gave up to take the collar, the loneliness nobody asks about, doubt, and what he'd actually say to the folks who drifted from the pew years ago and still feel weird about it.

We run a community mailbag stacked with your questions, then close with a game where we make a real priest decide whether your everyday shortcuts are sins. Some of you are in trouble.