(upbeat music) - There's two occupations in this world that are very vital, of course, being a farmer, because we need to eat and we need clothes and we need to drink, and also if we need protected, we need police officers.

Well, today's guest, I kind of hit both of those.

Scott Gaffner, how you doing, Scott?

- Good, Rob.

- Yeah.

Now, where are you from?

- Greenville, Illinois.

- That's getting down there, isn't it?

- It is, some of God's country down there, of course.

- Is that like close to St. Louis?

- It is, about 45 miles across the river from St. Louis.

We can see the golden arches from there.

- Can you really?

It's the arch, not the golden arches.

(both laughing) - The golden arch is the only thing we can see, but we know the other arches are there.

- Oh, okay, well, it all makes sense.

You are a farmer, correct?

- Yes, I am.

- All right, but you also have spent a career and now retired from being a police officer.

- Spent 29 years with the Illinois State Police.

- My gosh.

- So had a little bit of experience with them.

- Yeah.

- Had a lot of great opportunities with the state police, but also I've had the farm the whole time while I've been with the state police too, and then upon retiring in 2018, came back to the farm.

- You grew up on a farm.

- I did, on a diary, it was a grain and dairy farm too.

- Oof.

- Yeah.

- A lot of work?

- Yeah, I remember on the dairy farm, having two vacations as I grew up and I'm sitting there thinking, "Do I wanna have only two vacations for my family whenever we have kids and stuff?"

So I kind of started to pivot a little bit.

- Yeah, was that, you know, I got outta hogs and I know when I got outta hogs, my dad, he didn't really say anything, but he was kind of disappointed.

Was there some... Was there a want for you to come back in diary?

- I think like any farming operation, there's always a desire to have the children come back into that occupation as well and so they had five kids to ensure they had plenty of labor.

- Yeah, smart.

- It was smart.

So the two boys, the purpose of the two boys was so we could be there and do physical labor, milk the cows, buck the hay.

The purpose of the three girls was, we needed help to buck the hay, and so they would get the high school boys who wanna come out while they're driving the tractors with their bikini tops and stuff like that, so they would buck the hay for free.

- Okay, it's your sister, so I can't make the joke I wanna make, but.

(both chuckling) - You better not.

- Yes, officer.

(both laughing) You wanted to become a pastor, though?

- Yeah, so growing up, you know, one of the main foundation, of course, in my life is my faith in Jesus Christ and it's been the pivotal thing that really reinforces everything else that I do and as we talk about the different things, that's just been a key component and so in that, I went to Lincoln Christian College, went there for a semester thinking I was gonna go into the ministry, and while I was there, actually I met somebody from the Illinois State Police and had a conversation with them and I just felt God lead me in a different direction and I went in law enforcement.

So, the advantage of law enforcement, though, Rob, is we have a captive audience there and so if I wanna witness to somebody, they're right there, they really can't leave my car very easily 'cause usually they are somewhat captive.

- [Rob] Handcuffed.

- I like to say captive, you know.

(both laughing) Restrained.

- But you probably were seeing people at their worst.

- You know, we see 'em when they're at the lowest point a lot of times and they really need somebody that can just speak some, hopefully some positive and some truth into their lives and so it wasn't something that where I actively, I mean, I did it in the way that I treated them.

I treated them with respect, I treated them with kindness, and hopefully that showed through and that my demeanor with them, and so sometimes that's all they needed to know, that people cared about 'em as well.

- So I watch these videos on YouTube and that where they're arresting people and the attitudes and the demeanor, I'm so glad that I would not be an officer in that situation because I would've brought, what the rubber hose, what you guys use?

I don't remember.

- I can't deny and confirm any of that stuff, but... - Well, how do you do that when someone's just being, not just mean, but like evil to you?

- Well, and that is a thing.

So when we walk up to, whether it's a traffic stop, or most of my career was spent in investigations, when we're coming up to a house, you never know what's in store for you.

You never know if they're gonna be violent or they're gonna be accommodating and so you're always on guard.

And sometimes people think that you're just being over paranoid, but you're not, you're being prepared.

- Yeah.

- And so this is one of those things where within that, you just learn to take the verbal abuse.

The physical abuse is not something that you need to take because you never know when that can turn into something very violent.

- [Rob] It's when that taser comes out.

- It could be helpful, for sure.

- Yeah.

- Good tool.

- It's such a fine line, 'cause again, all I see, these videos, of course, are like the worst of the worst, right?

- Yeah.

- But it's always like, I can't believe the restraint because like if they came at me once, I'd be unloading everything I had at 'em, but y'all just are like, "No, just step back.

Let's figure this out."

- It's all about communication.

It's all about being able to diffuse the situation, hopefully verbally first, and if verbal doesn't happen, then we're prepared to go down a certain threshold in order to not, we don't wanna go to the very top of what we need to utilize like a weapon, like a gun, but there's other instruments that we can use, whether it's a taser, whether it's a baton, or whether it's, or just our hands, and these hands are somewhat deadly.

(Scott chuckling) - Okay.

- See, don't worry about it.

I won't flail 'em around here.

Actually, and so, one of the things I was able to do too, just from the training I had with state police, is I taught at Greenville University, which is located in my town, for about 15 years.

I started in the criminal justice program and then went to self-defense and so I was able to teach a lot of college students how they could be of their surroundings, how they could make sure that they are protected, they're secure, and so those are some of the things that we can take past even being a police officer to help educate people on a different sense as well.

- You were on TV as a police officer.

- Yeah, I've actually been on TV a few different times.

They saw my face, I think, at one point in time.

They thought, "Man, that guy is made for TV."

- [Rob] Is that what they thought, huh?

Yeah.

- I like to tell myself that.

(chuckling) So one of the actual, what they go through, they go through a lot of our reports and if they find a report in there, Hollywood will go through 'em, if they find a report that they feel, hey, this could be good for TV, they'll make one, and so one of my situations, I had been working a DUI patrol.

In fact, your previous guest before me, they had alcohol in here, didn't they?

So if you feel a little uncomfortable, I could actually do a horizontal gaze nystagmus on you to help make sure that you're able to finish this interview out because I kinda wonder sometimes.

If you were to start getting slurred, that's an indication too.

Your driving could be an indication.

- That's just s-stupid.

(Scott laughing) How do you do that with the finger thing?

- So the horizontal gaze nystagmus, keep your head still.

What I'm gonna do, you're gonna follow my finger.

As you follow my finger, I'm able, don't move your head.

- I'm not moving my head.

- Well, you- - Officer.

- Are a little bit.

- I'm not moving my head.

- That people on the TV can see your head moving.

- They're totally, they're watching.

(laughing) - So what I'm looking for is your eyes, if they're doing a jerking, and especially the degree of jerking it's doing, it tells me how much alcohol you've had usually.

- [Rob] Pretty jerky?

- Well, the other thing I'd wanna do is get you out here and do a walk and turn to some other stuff, but we don't have time for that.

- The guy had a brewery and the beer was really good.

- I know, I know, I was watching you closely.

I think you're okay, but anyway, Emily can drive you home.

But back to the patrol thing.

So they were looking for, I was out doing a DUI patrol, which is driving under the influence of patrol, trying to target people that may be driving late at night.

And so this guy comes over into my lane, runs me off the road actually, I was in a patrol car, so I turn around and start to go after him.

It's a small S-10 type vehicle, which I don't even know if they make S-10s anymore, but- - It's Ford Rangers.

Those things can go through anything.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- But this one had four people in it, four somewhat large people.

- Only the front seat?

- Only the front seat.

(Rob laughing) Yeah, just the front seat, four people.

- It's probably a stick shift too.

- Yeah, probably.

So they take off and run down going through Calhoun County.

They go take me through some roads.

I'm calling it in, requesting backup to come my direction.

The county's starting to head my way as well.

And as they're going through this curvy road, he doesn't negate it well, navigate, I'm sorry, navigate.

- That either.

- I almost like feel like I'm drinking, yeah.

- Don't move your head.

(both laughing) - He was unable to navigate the road well, went right into a tree, and then when he did that, one of the passengers goes right through the windshield, lands right on the hood.

- Oh.

- The other people are in there and this was made for a movie, I'm telling you what because as that happened, I looked underneath the truck and I start to see little droppings of flames- - Oh no.

- Going below the truck and so we know what's gonna happen here.

It's made for Hollywood.

And so I call it out, I get outta the vehicle, the deputy comes in behind me, he grabs his fire extinguishers, I'm going out there to start pulling people outta the truck 'cause I didn't want them to be burned.

And so he tries the fire extinguisher, the first one doesn't work.

So always try your fire extinguishers ahead of time.

The second one, he grabs mine, goes up there, starts to extinguish the fire, but it doesn't get it out, and so I'm pulling the people out, by that time, I've got the last person out from inside.

I left the one on top of the hood last because I'm thinking, man, if she survived, she's fortunate.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- So got everybody else out, grabbed her with the other deputy helped me, we were able to slide her off the truck, and as we took her off the truck, the truck gets fully engulfed in flames and just... - It's like the hero shot when you got the fire behind you and all that.

- Basically.

We have her, grabbing her, pulling her in that direction, and you can see the sweat coming off my brow and stuff like that, it's just, it's amazing.

- Bet the chicks Love it.

(both laughing) And they had that on a TV show?

- Yes.

- Like a remake, or?

- Well, it's called "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol."

And back then, that was the "Cops" back then and I like to say that was one of the most highly-rated segments of the "Highway Patrol" segment.

- [Rob] You like to say it, but was it?

- Well, as long as I believe it was, I think, we'll stay like that.

(both chuckling) - Well, that's cool.

Did you get an award for that?

- I did get an award.

- You should.

- I got a life-saving award for it.

- Nice.

- I only got one.

I think I should have probably gotten three or four.

- Okay.

(both laughing) Do you have the keys for these?

- The cuffs?

- Yeah.

- Well, that is a good question.

Yeah, I do have the keys for those, yeah.

- Okay, because I never, I'm always passive with everybody.

- You've never been cuffed?

I find that hard to believe.

- No, I have not.

Because you always hear people complaining that it's too tight.

Is it, or are they just whining?

- Well, if you keep 'em on a little bit longer, they actually become a little bit more comfortable.

That's not true, but (Rob laughing) we tell 'em that.

- Boy, they're hefty.

- We try to keep 'me pretty sturdy.

- Anybody ever break 'em?

- Yeah, there are guys that know how to break 'em too.

If you do 'em a certain way, you can break em.

- Oh, really?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- I have an interesting story to tell too about, no, that's okay.

I think it's look good there.

So, you want me to tell you another cop story?

- [Rob] I would love for another cop story.

- So, I was on patrol another night and I was working Grafton area and so it was down the river road and it's a really beautiful scenery in that area, but sometimes guys have a little bit too much to drink down there too, and so- - [Rob] Well, yeah, it's Grafton.

- It's Grafton, what else do you have to do?

So I got called to a 10-50, which is a car crash, and it was a Corvette, which was sad, but I get down there and there's two guys that are down there and neither one of 'em was driving the car, of course, and so- - Shocker.

- Yeah.

It's a two-seated car, so one of 'em had to be driving.

And so anyway, I took, ended up figuring out who the guy was that was driving, took him to jail, and this guy is big.

I mean like 6'6", maybe 300 and some pounds, big guy.

He actually was taken in another squad car, so I didn't pat him down or anything and so when he got gets up to the jail in Jersey County, I wanted to make sure before we put him in there and I was gonna have to grab some information from them that he was, didn't have a weapon on him.

And so I took my weapon off 'cause you can't bring a weapon into the jail.

I also had my belt and some tools and a handcuff, go in there, I start patting him down, and you know the number one spot to carry a weapon?

- Probably down by the captain.

- Down by your crotch area, yeah, if that's a captain area, sure.

And so I felt down there and right when I felt down there, I felt a weapon in his crotch area and so immediately I said, "Do not turn around."

I said, "Stand right there and look face the wall."

And he kind of turned around and looked at me.

I said, "Face the wall."

And I'm sitting there thinking, freaking out 'cause I'm in an enclosed cell with this guy, and unless these he's got- - And he's huge.

- And he's huge and so I'm just using my command voice, which I'm sure was very aggressive and commanding at that time and knocked on the door, it's like hurry up and get me outta here.

As I'm watching him, they opened the door, get him out, grabbed another trooper that was bigger than me and I said, "Hey, we're gonna go in there, we're gonna pat him down."

I put a gun on, of course, just in case.

So we go back in there and one thing I need, when I was patting him down and I asked him when I got to the gun, I said, "What is that?"

And he turns around and he looks at me and that's what set my heart racing a little bit, and that's where I told him to sit there, so we go back in the second time, the second officer gets in there, starts patting him down, comes back to me 'cause I'm patting him down and says, "It wasn't a gun."

(Rob laughing) - If I had a nickel every time that happened to me.

(both laughing) - We never did find the weapon.

I think he hid it from us before we got back in there.

(both laughing) - It's PBS, man.

(both laughing) Okay.

- It was a concealed weapon.

- Yeah, it was, yeah.

- Anyway.

I like to say I'm a very professional police officer.

I'm very thorough- - Yeah.

- In what I do.

- Yeah.

I'm sure he thought so too.

So, let's move on.

- Yeah.

(both laughing) What else can we talk about?

- You went back to the farm after you retired, 29 years.

- Went back to the farm.

My dad and brother were still on the farm.

We have a farm that's over 100 years old and designated that.

And so it's been a great legacy.

My dad was on the Illinois Soybean Board at the time.

He was actually getting ready to come off as I actually went onto the Illinois Soybean Board.

We represent the 43,000 soybean farmers in the state of Illinois.

- [Rob] I'm one of 'em.

- You're one of them.

- Yeah.

- You're one of the 43,000.

I think you're the 42,999.

- Hey, as long as I'm one of 'em.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And it's been a really great joy because think about this.

29 years I worked with a lot of people that, as we talked about, just not, I mean, I put a lot of guys in prison for homicide, worked a lot of criminal investigations, violent crimes.

And it was one of those things where you dealt with people that always heard the negative of everything and so when I transitioned to come more with the farming operation and working with Illinois Soybean Association, you got to work with the just the salt of the earth people.

People that fed and fueled people, not only in the state of Illinois, but within the world.

And I just opened my eyes to a lot of good that's going on here and some of it, which, you know, I was able to visit a lot of great people worldwide that just are trying to do their best to help others.

- Yeah, tell me about Cambodia.

- So one of the things we do with the Illinois Soybean Association is we export 60% of our soybeans, so the great majority of 'em don't stay here in Illinois.

- Yeah.

- And part of that process of exporting, they'll go to other countries.

And so back in 2018, the US Department of Agriculture provided a grant for Cambodia to increase their aquaculture production 'cause they're one of the leading consumers of aquaculture per capita is in Cambodia.

And so they wanted to educate 'em, they wanted to help train them to make sure that they knew how to feed the fish properly with United States soybeans.

- [Rob] Yeah, best in the world, by the way.

- The best in the world, and so- - You heard me, Brazil.

- Best in the world.

And so as part of that process, I was there with the ambassador at the time to award the grant to the Cambodians and I got to see the operation that was over there.

And so just this year returned again, because this is the final year of the project, and so we got to see all the things that had taken place.

And so what we saw was a location that was able to create In-Pond Raceway Systems, which are systems that help circulate the water in these ponds to keep the fish growing faster so they consume the soybeans better and become healthier, and then- - What kind of fish?

- So you're talking snake fish.

- Ooh.

- Yeah.

It's a fish we don't necessarily eat over here, but over there it's a well-known fish.

- Actually, I know all about the snake fish and like on the east- - I think it's called snakehead maybe, snakehead or snake something.

- Okay, anyway, that's irrelevant.

- But yeah, so there's like three or four different kinds of fish that they are growing over there, and of course it's always hot over there, so they have a longer growing season than we have here.

And so through the In-Pond Raceway Systems, one of the farms over there created a educational center to where she brought other farmers into her center to help educate them with our help of how to feed the soybean properly to the fish, get the right feed rates and all that kind of stuff.

- Which makes a huge difference in how you feed an animal.

- Oh, absolutely.

- Everybody thinks it's so easy, just throw something out there.

No, the rations are... - It has to be the appropriate rations, otherwise you're wasting a lot too.

It's going down to the bottom and they're not even eating it and then they want to have the proper amount for the fish.

And so the neat thing about this was we met a man over there from Canada.

- In Cambodia.

- In Cambodia.

He had actually started living in Cambodia with his wife because he felt convicted that he wanted to help the people over there that he had learned about that would go to the city dump, and they would go into the dump and they actually lived on the dump.

And every time a truck would come to dump their garbage there, they would go through the garbage and sift through it and try to find what would be valuable to them.

You know, whether it's a can, whether it's maybe some food.

It was stuff that they had to survive was doing that.

And so he brought a ministry over there to help educate them on, first of all, building our In-Pond Raceway System, how to construct them, how to weld them, how to construct them out of metal to give 'em an opportunity to build those.

And his wife came over and she started helping the females how to sew, to do garments, to do shirts, to do all these other things, so it provided a livelihood for them, not like we do sometimes in our country is we just give people a handout.

They wanted to help them, help them to be better, help them to not always be relying upon something free.

- Could you imagine, though, like having to rely on the dump for a living to eat all that stuff?

- Yeah, it makes you realize, when you come back to our country, it makes you realize, and it kind of convicts you on how much we waste, how much we just throw away, and so I can't imagine it, but people like him that are doing this, and this is some of the things that our money from the association is going to help, and so one of the things we're looking at is how can we help him?

Because Cambodia's not a mostly protestant or Christian location.

They have very few Christians over there, but the government reached out to him and said, "We want you to come into our prison systems and start teaching our prisoners how to construct these In-Pond Raceway Systems, give 'em a skill so that when they leave, they can actually be productive."

And he goes, "Well if I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna tell 'em about Jesus Christ."

And they said, "That's fine with us."

- Really?

They didn't care?

- No.

- Okay.

- They've seen what he's doing, they know he's living the life that he should be living there 'cause he is in their community.

He's not just coming in and dumping money and leaving.

He's staying there and he's helping them grow this industry.

- [Rob] Do you remember his name?

- Um... - I gotcha, didn't I?

Yeah.

- I had it on my note thing.

- We could bring your wife in here and then edit all this out.

We'll put his name down at the bottom, they can do that.

Yeah, because you wanna give a guy like that some credit 'cause he never gets credit.

- Absolutely, and I wrote his name down, and in fact.

- [Rob] No, it's okay, they've already read it.

- All right.

(laughing) - All right, let's switch gears because I do wanna get to this.

You have bought yourself a Scooter, Scooter's.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

And people in Peoria unfortunately do not know what that is.

- Yeah, so you guys, once you get a Scooter's here, and it's not something you ride, it's actually a coffee shop, so Scooter's coffee is from Omaha, Nebraska, is where it was started.

They're becoming a lot bigger out here in the West, or in the, actually it'd be east of them.

- Kewanee has one, Princeton has one, so I don't know, but Peoria, what's the deal?

- Well, I'm sure somebody has the region, it's just them trying to find a location probably to get one built.

So mine is in Jerseyville, so if you wanna come to one, it's already built and up and going, just come to mine.

- They're good.

- I agree.

- And I think they're more manly 'cause sometimes you go through Starbucks and, you know, you're the only truck in the drive-through and all that, but Scooter's is like Midwest.

And then when you order, what do they say?

- Scoot on around.

- Scoot on around.

- Scoot on around.

- Scoot on around.

It makes you feel so good.

- I tell you the core values are in are integrity, love, humility, and courage.

- Of Scooter's?

- Yeah.

- Really?

- It's I love hot coffee, integrity, love, humility, and courage.

That's how you remember it.

- Huh, we got a little insight there on the old Scooter's brand.

Why buy a Scooter's?

- My wife was teaching, had been teaching for 15 years, she was looking for something to do.

She loves the kids, she loves all this stuff, but it became so much, (coughing) excuse me, within the environment that you're doing more of doing state mandates than you were teaching the kids and she just felt that she could be doing so much more and so we were looking one, well, Scooter's was getting built in our hometown and she said, "Hey, how about a Scooter's?"

And I said, I'm not interested in Scooter's.

I mean, it's a coffee shop.

What do I know about coffee?

I know about- - But you knew what it was.

- Yeah, I knew what it was, I mean, I've been doing one bean, soybean, so I thought, well, maybe we can do another bean, I don't know.

- Dizzy and intellectual.

(Rob laughing) - So, (coughing) excuse me.

So we decided to, I kind of put it out of my head and then my brother calls me and says, "Hey, I got the Scooter's in our hometown."

I was like, "Oh no, if he's got the Scooter's in the hometown, I'd better find out what it's all about."

And so we did our research, we found out about the company, good core values, good company.

One of the fastest, it actually is the fastest-growing privately held franchise in the United States right now.

- I believe it, they're popping up everywhere.

- So we moved forward with it, opened our store in Jerseyville last August, actually in '23, August of '23, and I've been going fast forward since then.

- It's kind of what Starbucks used to be.

- Yeah.

- You probably don't like to hear that, but that's kind of what it is.

- I've never been in a Starbucks where you get your service really quick.

- [Rob] It used to be like that.

- I've never been there, you're there 20 minutes or so, and so in our lines, fast, friendly service is what you want.

High-quality drink, fastly served to you.

Can I say fastly or should it be quickly?

- I- - I think, yeah, let's go with quickly.

- Whatever Scooter's thinks.

They probably took your store away by now.

(Scott laughing) Where's that in Jerseyville?

- Jerseyville.

- You get a free cup of coffee and a free pat down.

- Okay.

(both laughing) We're here to serve.

- All of a sudden that line got a lot longer, didn't it?

(both laughing) - The safest Scooter's around, is what they like to say.

- Once you invest in something like that, though, I mean, all of a sudden you're part of the community.

- Oh, absolutely.

- Is it a full-time gig?

- Yeah, it is a full-time gig, but let tell you about this though.

So recently we did a charity for, there's a 4-year-old girl, her name's Stella Schultz.

And we've talked to her parents so we have permission to talk about her, but she needs a heart transplant.

- [Rob] Oh.

- She was enjoying Thanksgiving, the family got sick, she couldn't get over this illness and all of a sudden it went from being sick to needing a heart transplant and she's been in the hospital since November.

- Ah.

- So we did a, he's a police officer in Jerseyville, her dad is, and so I had a bunch of police cars line up in our Scooter's and they did a drive-through as they were getting their drinks with her lights on, video recorded it for Stella so she could see it at the hospital, but we did a fundraiser for her, but that's part of being the community.

That's part of being, reaching out, being the hands and the feet really of Christ, hopefully, and should be able to impact hopefully somebody's life and you know, been praying for her so she can find a heart.

- Yeah, four years old.

- Four years old.

- Ooh.

Are you on social media anywhere?

- You can find me on LinkedIn.

I need to get on some more social media.

- You're on LinkedIn.

- I know, I know.

- Grandpa's on LinkedIn, folks.

Scott Gaffner, G-A-F-F-N-E-R, LinkedIn.

Maybe experience some more social media than LinkedIn.

- All other law enforcement people will know exactly what I'm talking about.

When you're in law enforcement, you stay away from the social media as much as you can because too many people have lost their jobs or not gotten hired because of what they post on social media.

- That's good advice for the kids out there.

- So, and it never goes away.

Once you post it, you can't retract it.

So I need to go a little bit farther into social media, I guess, don't I?

- Well, now you got a Scooter's there, so at least your Scooter's store should have something so you can show stuff like what you just did.

Absolutely.

- Okay.

They kinda like to control some of that at the corporate level, but if they knew how important I was, I think they would let me do it.

- Believe me, if they see this interview, they'll let anything go.

(both laughing) - Especially my store, probably.

- It's best just to have your wife, Amy, take it over and, yeah, it'll be fine.

Scoot on around.

- Well, actually, she is the owner of the store.

- Oh.

- So she could take it any point in time.

- That's another interview.

(both laughing) Scott Gaffer.

Scott, it's been fun to get to know you.

- Yes.

- We've been talking, we've interviewed, you've been on a SharkFarmer Podcast, so if you wanna hear an elongated version of this, go to there.

Scott, it's always a pleasure to talk to you, so thank you for coming to Peoria.

Thank you for all you do for agriculture, and everybody else, we hope you catch us next week.

(dramatic music)