NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — If you've been in downtown Nashville on a Friday afternoon, you might have noticed the energy around Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville. That's because of a huge SiriusXM broadcast that goes out of there every week. A special tradition tied to the broadcast has been growing for years.
On this particular Friday afternoon, the broadcast kicked off by show producer Nick Elliott, known to the crowd as Nick Ultra.
"Let's gooo!" he shouted, hyping up the crowd.
Joining him was host Buzz Brainard.
"C'mon, hug it out, Nick," he laughed, then turning to the crowd. "There we go! Cheers, guys. Welcome to Nashville! This is the Music Row Happy Hour on The Highway on SiriusXM! We're going to do a radio show for four hours which means we have to entertain all of North America."
Now, the show has this tradition.
"What are your names? Donna and Mark from Iowa?" Buzz asked a couple joining him on stage.
"Idaho!" Donna laughed. "People do that a lot!"
What the crowd was about to learn was Donna's nephew served with a fire department for 20 years. Donna brought his patches to join the wall.
"We are over 3,000 patches from all over North America," Buzz said, standing next to the collection stretching a wall at the SiriusXM studio.
"We have military patches," Nick added. "We have first responders. Everything from police, fire."
"We have magnets on the back," Buzz continued. "We have metallic paint on the wall. I think it's been about a decade. One day, somebody brought one in, and we talked about it on the air and next thing you know, they started to bring them in on a regular basis."
On the Wall of Heroes in the Sirius XM Studio, some of the patches just leap out at you.
"This one right here, Zeus riding a seahorse with a trident, I just love how unique that patch is," Nick said. "There's another down here that looks like an angry pegasus. I know there's a highway patrolman over here. I'm like, 'Oh, that guy's pulled me over before.'"
Some of the patches are quite powerful.
"Some of them are to honor people who passed away," Buzz said. "There's a little bit of everything and everyone has a story."
In fact, a patch of a flag is Nick's.
"I was a Marine from '07 to '15," he said. "I did three deployments to Afghanistan. For me to be part of the family and be part of the community will always feel like it's special."
The guys said that is what the tradition of collecting patches is all about.
"Every single patch on this wall is our community," Nick explained. "Community, that's what this wall always is and what this wall will continue to be. I'm hoping to fill this wall eventually, so we can put more on the wall behind you but one patch at a time. I hope it's not just a wall, but it turns into the Hallway of Heroes."
During CMA Fest, there will be four days of back-to-back live Music Row Happy Hours. That will start on Thursday, June 6th.
Fostering Hope provides Christmas for kids in foster care. I'm delighted to see Fostering Hope expand this year to expand their reach to now include kids in Foster care in metro AND foster kids in East TN hard hit by Helene.
-Bree Smith
