VERIFIED QUOTE · reported 2026-08-24
“His leadership and presence has been absent.”
Zeb Smathers · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-24
Smathers said Whatley's leadership and presence has been absent and that he has never heard from him.
This quote was mechanically extracted from the cited article and verified as an exact substring of the source text before publication. Attribution follows the article's own wording.