Q. Steve, you host a Southern Heritage Conference annually in Monroe. What is the focus of this conference and how did it begin?

A. We were concerned, as Jefferson Davis once told the Southern people, that we should not allow Northerners to tell our history. We were concerned that the truth about our Southern forefathers was not being told and that our children might grow up ignorant as to what their great grandfathers fought for and stood for. We believe we have an honorable heritage that should be preserved and defended. We recognize that not everything that the South did was honorable or sinless; but, by and large, it was a culture founded upon Christianity, and that reality ought not to be forgotten by coming generations.