Announcer: From the first female to hold the title as an Eagle Scout to Martin Luther King Jr.'s family, we are discovering amazing firsts and updates that you'll want to hear.

We'd just be throwing the football and people would be like, "Wow, you have such a great arm."

And they were just shocked that oh, because you're a girl, you're capable of doing those great things.

And I don't want that to be like that's such a shock to people.

Announcer: The Whitney Reynolds Show is made possible by O'Connor Law Firm.

When it comes to your injuries, we take it personally.

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Happy to Meat You: Prime.

Fresh.

Fast.

Leigh Marcus: Stop looking, start finding.

Children's Learning Place.

Ballroom Baths & Home Design.

Pedalheads.

UFC Gym Wrigleyville.

My Buddy's Chicago.

Brendon Studzinkski with State Farm.

Goldfish Swim School.

Ella's Bubbles.

The Kid's Table.

Hi-Five Sports Chicago.

The Metropolitan Chicago.

Fresh Dental.

Kevin Kelly with Jameson Sotheby's International Realty.

Mitchell Black.

Jewelry & Coin Mart of Schaumburg.

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Love Your Melon.

Deluxe Cleaning Services.

STI Moving & Storage.

Tutu School Chicago.

And by other sponsors.

Did you know females are now Eagle Scouts?

The Wienermobile didn't stop during the pandemic.

Martin Luther King Jr's family is continuing the legacy.

Plus, we are on the brink of a cancer breakthrough.

[theme music] [applause] They made national headlines as the inaugural class of Eagle Scouts.

A title previously held by males, except these title holders are all females.

Let's welcome out one of the firsts all the way from Michigan.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm excited to be here.

Well, having one of the first Eagle Scouts, which just to let you know, I was once a Girl Scout, but did not have the opportunity to even dream about holding the title you have.

So, to have an Eagle Scout here today that is a female is really incredible.

What has this journey been like for you?

It's definitely been very exciting.

Like, going into it, I did not know what to expect.

The way I got into the troop or just became a Boy Scout is that I started at a new high school my freshman year.

So, I met one of my friends who I'm now like very close with.

She said, "Hey, I have some people "from my home high school.

"They're starting a little Boy Scout Troop, "but it's all going to be girls.

Would you be interested?"

And I thought it was just going to be camping.

I've always been raised to enjoy the outdoors.

So, I went thinking it would be just a good way to pursue camping and just being outdoors.

What did your parents think when you came home and said, "Hey, I'm going to join a Boy Scout Troop?"

They were excited.

My mom was excited.

She was like, "That would be an awesome thing for you to do.

And it just would probably look great on college apps too."

Did it seem almost unreal when you first got approached about it?

How did you know this was going to actually be official?

I was kind of surprised because I was like, Boy Scouts?

I would've never thought that I would be a Boy Scout or I'd even be an Eagle Scout going into it.

I don't think we had the idea that, oh this is our end goal; we want to become Eagle Scouts, we want to female Eagle Scouts.

But you know the more we learned about, we were like this is actually achievable.

And if we work hard the next two years, I think we can reach that goal.

Yeah, I was wondering about the momentum that built up to the Eagle Scout.

Because not only are you breaking barriers by saying, we're Boy Scouts now, yet we are females.

Did the name almost ever change?

Are they looking at changing the name from Boy Scouts to Scouts?

My hope is that it will become Scouts and it'll just like kind of open that horizon for like anyone who wants to join regardless of gender or whatever, you know.

Yeah.

So, with that, when did the momentum happen to say, we are going to take this all the way and really break some finish-line things in becoming Eagle Scouts.

It was at this very first meeting, I think it was like my freshmen or sophomore year, and we had a group of girls.

I met my amazing Scout Master for the very first time.

And then we also had a previous Scout Master and they were talking about how difficult it was going to be.

It's a huge commitment and we were doing it in kind of a time crunch because we have some older girls.

And you have to reach Eagle by the time you turn 18.

Wow.

So, we had girls who were like maybe 16 or 17.

So usually the span of reaching Eagle takes more than two years but we were like we have to earn all these merit badges.

We have to achieve all these ranks by the time someone turns 18.

The other Boy Scouts or Scout groups in the area or around, were they welcoming to this whole new concept?

I think they were welcoming.

We never really faced like, I guess backlash.

And I think some people definitely doubted us.

I think we did have some people that were like, "You don't have any knowledge of Boy Scouts.

How are you going to be able to do all this?"

It's a lot more commitment per se than like what you have to do in Girl Scouts because we are used to just snack time after school in elementary school-- Easy now.

Like I said, I was a Girl Scout.

I thought we worked pretty hard there.

Yeah.

Of course.

I mean the new bar.

Yeah, it's a lot-- Yeah, it's different.

It's different.

And it is a learning curve.

So then when you found out what it would take to become an Eagle Scout, when did you know I could actually do this?

They said that it would-- A lot of people they were like it was too hard.

And I was like, I think we can do it.

Just because we're girls doesn't mean-- I know that everyone I'm with in this room is going to be determined, is going to have that perseverance.

I think it's going to be possible for us.

I think it'd be a lot of fun and I'm excited to take on that journey and just see where it leads us, I guess.

Okay, so the journey started, and it is hard.

And there's a lot of things you've got to check off that list.

What was your final Eagle Project that pushed you over the line just get it?

So, during your Life Rank, which is right before you reach Eagle and you have to complete your Eagle Project.

And for mine, I made an equipment car and donated gym equipment to my school because we were definitely lacking gym equipment just like basketballs or volleyballs.

And I always had a lot of fun just throwing frisbees or whatever.

And that's how I met a lot of people was just you know, playing on the field, playing kickball or football or whatever it was.

So, I wanted to give that same opportunity to underclassmen so that they could just connect with each other, and just kind of support being physical at school.

Love that.

And so, then that was your final project.

Did you get a call that's like, you did it?

You checked off and you're going to be the first class?

Yeah.

So, during your Eagle Board of Review, I was super nervous for that because that's like your-- Each time you advance a rank, they review, they go over a set of questions.

It's basically like an interview and assesses you on skills and just talk to you about what you've learned during your time in that rank.

But the Eagle Board of Review is a lot bigger because it's about your whole journey as a scout up until that point, how you gotten there and why you feel you deserve to earn the rank of Eagle.

Because it's such a huge honor to be an Eagle Scout.

Yeah, so then when did you get that?

It was in February.

So about like three months ago.

I can't remember the exact day.

I should probably know it, but I was on a Zoom call because you know the pandemic and I talked with one of the Scout officers and then there were parent chaperones on the call and they kind of just talked to me about what did I get out of this whole two-year experience, and just what an amazing opportunity it's been to be like an Eagle Scout and part of the female inauguration class.

Yeah, so who actually told you this is female inauguration, it's happening?

So, my Scout Master, Mrs. Krine, she's like, "You guys are Eagle Scouts."

We have a group chat and she congratulated each one of us because the four girls who were Eagle Scouts at that same time as me, we all had our interviews within that same week.

And she was like, you guys did it.

It was a really big celebration.

To know that you changed something that has been the way it's been for years and to help little girls dream a new dream, what is that like for you?

It's definitely very surprising.

I just, there's a lot of excitement because I feel very proud that I can change that stereotype.

Even at summer camp whatever it was, I was shocked because we'd just be throwing a football and people would be like, "Wow you have such a great arm."

And they were just shocked that oh, because you're a girl, you're capable of doing those great things.

And I don't want that to be like that's such a shock to people because they should know that girls are fully capable of doing the same things that guys can do.

And we bring a lot to the table.

I think that our Troop especially has shown what amazing qualities such as maturity that girls can bring to the table.

Yeah, a different set of skills but yet building kind of this bigger, longer table together.

Yeah, for sure.

What's next for you?

What's next is, I just hope to still be connected with my Troop because I've been lucky to meet such a great group of people there.

And now we have more troop members.

So, it's really awesome that we're able to get more people to join, more young girls who we can like inspire to pursue that scouting journey, because you can learn a lot of valuable things through scouting.

And hopefully I can help them with their own Eagle projects too some day.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much for coming on.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

[music] And speaking of women changing the world as we know it, we sat down with the daughter-in-law of Martin Luther King Jr. who is not only continuing the legacy but putting her own spin on it.

Let me present my wife, my partner, the mother of our child and a great activist, Arndrea Waters King.

Whitney: Speaking for justice, standing on equality and charging the crowd with the spirit of activism.

The family of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is continuing the legacy and actually believe it's something we all have a piece of.

The King Legacy belongs to all of us.

It doesn't belong just to my family or my husband.

What I feel is that we're charged to let people see and understand their place, their inheritance in it and find their part in helping to create the beloved community.

Whitney: And in today's climate, she says the message is crucial.

Particularly this past year as we have looked at everything that's going on in our world, and looked at all of the protests, our country has had a reckoning and there's been a lot of interest in Martin Luther King Jr. and kind of a resurgence.

I think in some ways he actually predicted the times that we're living in.

You look at a year before he was assassinated he talked about the movement and where it was, and he talked about Civil Rights and he predicted that the next phase of the movement would be for genuine equality.

And that's what people are saying.

That's what Black Lives Matter is about.

That's why people were connected in ways in which we haven't seen is that people are standing for genuine equality.

So, in some ways, I think he predicted where we would be.

And he also gave us the tools and the techniques and the vision of how to resolve these problems and what it is that we're trying to accomplish and we're trying to build.

Whitney: Arndrea's platform is love and action, which involves non-violence.

It takes a strength in us in order to love.

This way of life is not always-- it's not a way for the weak.

It's not always an easy way.

But I don't believe the world in which I'm working for is just some ideal and not something that we ever can reach.

With every fiber of my being, I know that we will one day achieve what Martin Luther King called the Beloved Community.

And as I'm looking at all of the young people and people in the streets now, it certainly seems like it will be sooner rather than later.

But to me it is a knowing that we as individuals, that we as a society will absolutely create the Beloved Community that he wanted.

We've been learning a lot today about amazing stories, fun facts and people.

The next one is actually on the brink of what we call a breakthrough.

Let's take a look.

For me personally, I lost my grandmother to ovarian cancer.

She died at a young age.

She was my father's mother.

And my father was only about 29 years old when she passed away, so, I was never able to meet her.

And it's such a sad thing because he just talks about her like she was an angel.

And I really feel like I missed out from knowing a wonderful person because she was lost at such a young age.

And then also personal to me is my husband.

He lost his mother to ovarian cancer.

And again, another amazing woman that I never got to know.

Whitney: For Katherine Jones, ovarian cancer is personal.

And it's also professional.

She is the Executive Director of the Ovarian Cancer Institute and they're on the cusp of a potential medical miracle.

But the most exciting one that we have been working on for 20 years is a stage 1 diagnostic test for ovarian cancer.

This is an amazing test.

It's going to be very easy.

It's just a simple blood test.

The hope and idea for it is to be able for every woman to go to their annual exam and just simply have their blood drawn.

And then you later get called back and your doctor tells you whether or not you are developing stage 1 ovarian cancer.

And in which case of course you would have a 90% chance of surviving five or plus years.

Whitney: Right now, however, it's a different story.

Roughly 22,000 women every year are diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

Now if you are diagnosed in stage 1, you have around a 90% chance of surviving five or more years.

But sadly, only 15% of ovarian cancer cases are diagnosed in stage 1.

So really the key for ovarian cancer is early diagnosis.

With that being said, being that the remaining 85% of women who were diagnosed after stage 1, of the 22,000 that are diagnosed every year, 14,000 women die of ovarian cancer.

Whitney: Her hope is that this test is ready soon and can be a key component for saving lives.

Gosh, it would be such a great opportunity for women like myself who have a family history of ovarian cancer.

You know, ovarian cancer is not as predominant as some other women's cancers.

But for those who do suffer it or the family members of the women who do suffer it, it makes a world of difference.

And for me as a hopefully future mother, it would give me peace of mind to be able to have something like that for my daughter who may some day also develop it.

So, for those 22,000 women every year who are diagnosed, it would be a better peace of mind and better treatment options.

Our next guest is known as the youngest woman CEO to step into a publicly held company.

However, there is so much more to her story.

Let's hear the life journey of Lifeway's Julie Smolyansky.

You've seen Lifeway's food in grocery stores, but you might know the face and story behind it.

When Julie Smolyansky inherited her father's company, she became the youngest CEO of a publicly traded firm at the age of 27.

What was it like in those first days of needing to step in in what some would consider a boy's club?

Well, my father passed away suddenly almost 20 years ago, and I was 27 years old.

I'd been working with him for about five years, so he was definitely kind of training me to take over.

But I thought I'd be well into my elderly years of where I had to do it.

You get thrown into the river and you either have to swim or you sink, and I really consciously made a choice that failure was not an option.

I had at the time 70 people who were employed by our company.

And so 70 families, 70 people that depended on us for their livelihood.

I would say I was running on pure adrenaline and in a really heightened sense of cortisol.

And it's an elevated level of stress that I was on for a long, long time.

Definitely remember working 20-hour days and really being completely exhausted for like four years.

I did have to really kind of pull that back and practice self-care.

Self-care really did save me.

We are very hard on ourselves.

Self-care I think is the thing that helps us get through these very challenging times.

That's something that I learned and really loved to practice.

Now I think we have a choice to live more joyfully with purpose.

We are the captains of our own ships and once you're empowered with that kind of information, then its liberating, it's freedom to really live out your real purpose.

And I've certainly struggled a lot with my own mental health.

But I do feel incredibly empowered today.

That's an interesting part of the culture we are living in is like I don't know, growing up, if I heard CEO's talking about mental health, talking about being a first generation, talking about being the youngest woman to step in as CEO.

I mean, this is kind of this new wave of time.

Yes.

Well, I think it's important that we have role models.

You can't be what you can't see.

I hope that anyone watching realizes that no matter who you are, where you come from, what you look like, you have an opportunity to thrive.

Whitney: Julie isn't the only inspiring story behind Lifeway.

Her father founded the company through resilience and innovation.

We were refugees from the former Soviet Union.

We came to the United States when I was one with $116 in our pocket, no English.

My parents were in their middle twenties.

My father realized that there was everything in the United States, but there was no Keifer.

And you know he just had this idea that it's a gap in the marketplace that he could fill.

Keifer is a 2,000-year-old superfood beverage that is from the region where my ancestors live.

So, it's in the Caucus Mountains near Ukraine and Russia.

And in Russia in Eastern Europe, it's a staple.

And it wasn't until we came across the ocean only 46 years ago, 45 years ago and brought this superfood with us did it ever come to the States.

You know it's loaded with all the good bacteria, the good probiotics that we're now learning is so critical for our overall immune system, for mental health.

Gut health is the hottest conversation happening right now around wellness.

And the fact that we can empower ourselves, our families, our communities.

Whitney: Looking at Lifeway one wouldn't know the story of survival and hardship that paved the way for the company to be born and for Julie's own success as CEO.

What Lifeway stands for is resilience when you think about this live, friendly bacteria that existed thousands of years ago.

It survived famine, war, poverty.

It survived quite a bit, this bacteria.

And I think about that a lot.

And I also just think about my family relatives, the ancestors on the shoulders of whom I stand on.

And you know my grandmother survived the Holocaust and war.

She was hidden for most of the time during the war.

My great grandparents were murdered in their homes.

And the region where I came from it takes a lot of resiliency, and I know that that's really within my DNA, and those are the stories that I grew up with.

And the fact that I can use those skills to help lead our business, to help lead Lifeway, to help lead our communities to use some of those lessons to really try to inspire others to have hope.

Before we go, the last "Did You Know" will leave you with a smile, or at least that's been their mission for the last five decades.

Okay.

Well, we are here with what ya'll call yourself Hot Doggers.

That's correct, Hot Doggers.

The Hot Doggers, and we are talking, Did You Know?

So, tell us some fun facts about the Wienermobile?

So, the Wienermobile was actually created in 1936 in the peak of the Great Depression by Carl Meyer who's Oscar Meyer's nephew.

And since then, we've been driving across America bringing miles of smiles to every community that we visit.

Miles and smiles.

Oh, my goodness.

Can you imagine?

I mean, you really do bring smiles everywhere you go.

So how big is this hot dog?

Our Wienermobile is 27 feet long, 11 feet tall and 8 feet wide.

And we also measure in hot dogs, and it's 60 hot dogs long and 24 hot dogs high.

Okay, let's go take a look inside.

All right.

Come check out our Lamburweinie.

Yeah, so you can come on up here and when I'm driving, Ketchup Katie will be sitting right here.

And this is actually called our Shot Bun Seat.

And then whenever we drive, you have to fasten your meat belt.

And if you look up instead of a sunroof, the Wienermobile has a bun roof.

We keep all of our wiener whistles in our wonderful bun box.

And then if you look up, it's blue-sky ceilings because even if it's a cloudy day it's always blue skies in the Weiner Mobile.

So, I'm sitting in one of our six ketchup and mustard-colored seats.

If you look down, we have our condiment floor.

We were a little bit messy, we spilled some ketchup and mustard.

Yeah, so Oscar Meyer has always been a brand that was about optimism.

Ever since the beginning of the company and the Wienermobile, we were all about optimism and bringing smiles and making people happy.

And I mean, who doesn't bond over a hot dog.

It brings everybody together.

And so, we made a 27-foot-long hot dog to make people bond over.

Yeah so, this year, we've actually had a really great opportunity to do a lot more smaller community-based events, kind of grassroots events.

And we think that now Americans need a smile more than ever, so that's kind of what we've been doing since June.

Like we said, it started in the Great Depression and now it's just continuing the same initiative that we had back then: delivering miles of smiles.

[music] Did You Know: a show on updates and amazing stories?

Now you can fill in the gap, but remember you too have a story that matters.

[music] Announcer: The Whitney Reynolds Show is made possible by O'Connor Law Firm.

When it comes to your injuries, we take it personally.

Sciton because results matter.

Theraderm Clinical Skin Care: committed to developing skincare products designed to restore skin health and promote natural beauty.

Happy to Meat You: Prime.

Fresh.

Fast.

Leigh Marcus: Stop looking, start finding.

Children's Learning Place.

Ballroom Baths & Home Design.

Pedalheads.

UFC Gym Wrigleyville.

My Buddy's Chicago.

Brendon Studzinkski with State Farm.

Goldfish Swim School.

Ella's Bubbles.

The Kid's Table.

Hi-Five Sports Chicago.

The Metropolitan Chicago.

Fresh Dental.

Kevin Kelly with Jameson Sotheby's International Realty.

Mitchell Black.

Jewelry & Coin Mart of Schaumburg.

CI Med Spa.

Love Your Melon.

Deluxe Cleaning Services.

STI Moving & Storage.

Tutu School Chicago.

And by other sponsors.

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