Barry Habib

Every day, including Saturdays and Sundays.

Yeah, I work every day.

Got it.

But yeah, no, definitely it expands the amount of things I'm able to do so much.

Like I'm able to probably do like a whole day's worth of work within one hour or two hours because of it.

Some people might find it hard to understand how Delcia Bear can turn away a $26 million offer to buy some of her land until you spend a little time with her walking the dirt road she grew up on and in the house her daddy built.

Delcia is one of dozens of landowners approached by an anonymous buyer, one of the major players in artificial intelligence, likely Google or Meta or Amazon, to purchase their land.

The market value for land in Mason County is about $6,000 an acre.

The realtor that came to her door last April offered her and her mother about 10 times that.

Delcia's mom, Ida Huddleston, is now 82 years old.

She says she does not need the money or the hassle.

She was born on this land, and she plans to die here, and she certainly does not trust the promises made by the AI companies or the people who want them to build here.

So what do you say to the people who are in town that say, hey, this is going to bring jobs, this is going to bring economic prosperity?

For Delcia, scam or not, she says she's connected to her home like Scarlett O'Hara was in Gone with the Wind.

You know, I think that in an age of technology and everything that's out there, you know, it grows up around you and everything that's going on.

And sometimes you miss – you can miss the human side of it.

And Paul Harvey – I remember listening to Paul Harvey.

I was in college and –

I would go over to see my grandma like twice a week right around lunchtime just to check on her and say hi.

Never mind she'd made lunch, you know, and I'm a college student.