MidDays with Gerard Gibert 2026-07-31

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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Get ready to go beyond the headlines and join a meaningful conversation with people from around the state. You're listening to MidDays with Gerard Gibert here on SuperTalk Mississippi.

**Dave Hughes** (0:51)
Good grief.
Good morning as well and welcome to MidDays here in the Element Well Studios. Dave Hughes in on this Friday. And I got to tell you, normally I have this sheet and I write everything out. I've talked about it before. It's basically a tickler list. It's a bullet-pointed list to remind me of various stories that I have researched and prepped, and I'm ready to go. I normally have about 12 to 15 things. I've got like 25 on here this morning. There's a lot of stuff to talk about today. And we'll get to maybe half of it. That's the way it usually works. Rhino over in the booth, I am very, very proud. My chest is puffed out to report I have a longer beard than Rhino today.

**Rhino** (1:42)
It's that time of year.

**Dave Hughes** (1:43)
Yes, this time of year, every year, I get to claim that. But it's coming back in nicely, as usual. You grow a beard quickly.

**Rhino** (1:53)
It's a blessing and a curse.

**Dave Hughes** (1:54)
Yeah.

**Rhino** (1:56)
If I had a job where I had to be clean shaven, I would hate it. But since it's for a good cause, I like it.

**Dave Hughes** (2:02)
I would suspect you're one of those people that you would get up and shave in the morning, and then you'd have to shave again in the middle of the day somewhere. That just seems like a bit much to me.

**Rhino** (2:15)
Yeah. The five o'clock shadow is about 2.30.

**Dave Hughes** (2:21)
The 2.3 shadow. Oh, yes. We're familiar with that.
The heat, we're going to get a little bit of a break from the heat. That's good. We'll take that, definitely.
Yesterday, we had a storm that came in and sat for a few hours down here in southwest Mississippi. I don't know if you saw the weather maps. The feels like temperature yesterday afternoon in Pike County was 81 because of the storm. I'll take it. I'm hoping we pull that again today. That would be nice. I'm not betting the rent money on it, but it would be nice. Anyway, how have you been doing, man?

**Rhino** (3:03)
Oh, not too terribly bad. I mean, it's been kind of a sad week here at the studio with the passing of Lance. And it feels like that's kind of been a drain on the energy. So I was thinking as I was walking in this morning, I was like, I haven't really worked that much harder this week. I haven't done that much more show prep. But I am exhausted. I am so glad we've made it to Friday.

**Dave Hughes** (3:29)
Yeah, I know what you're talking about. It was when I got the call Tuesday morning, letting me know what had happened.
Wasn't too long after that. I went home for lunch. I thought I was perky. I thought everything was fine. I walked in the door and my wife looked up and said, hey, baby, what's wrong? Because I don't know about you. Let me ask you this question.
It just feels like, how do I put this? My brain has been going in weird directions for the entire week because of losing Lance and just contemplating things and thinking about things that, you know, you normally don't. I've been distracted, I think would be a fair way to put it. What about you?

**Rhino** (4:22)
Yeah, because it was so sudden and he was still so young and we still don't know very much. So it was just, it was one of those gut punch and rug pulls all at the same time.

**Dave Hughes** (4:35)
It was sudden, completely unexpected. I mean, you know, Lance went 24-7. He and I talked about it all the time. He never stopped. He never slowed down and that's the way he liked it. And he had been that way forever, his entire life from what I got to him, from him. And like you said, just out of nowhere, it's like you're walking down the street and somebody hits you in the back of the head that you didn't know was there. And it takes you a little while to get your equilibrium back. So I would like to say, and this is going to apply to most people on the air, everybody on the air, on both sides.