THE DIGEST
JULY 2025 VOL. 3 / NO. 7
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Sisters fight to pick up the pieces after catastrophic car crash Miracles and milestones marked their ongoing recovery
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Sisters fight to pick up the pieces after catastrophic car crash Miracles and milestones marked their ongoing recovery By Lois M. Collins Deseret News
Jessica Wilhite was so cold, as was the young pregnant woman kneeling just outside the open door of the crumpled car, trying to hold the 22-year-old Utah native still. “You are so brave,” the stranger, Kayla Sandoval, cooed. “You are amazing. How do you stay so calm?” “I need something to bite,” Jess gasped, her fingers digging into her would-be rescuer’s arm. Many, many weeks later, when they finally met again, Kayla smiled when she told Jess the fingernail marks were visible on her arm for a couple of days, a reminder of the terrible crash last Nov. 22 on a desolate Arizona highway near Cameron, where U.S. Route 89 bisects the Navajo Nation. In this moment, though, Kayla just bunched up the sleeve of the bulky sweater she was wearing and let Jess bite down. The crash scene was chaotic. Jess and her older sister and best friend Sabrina, 24, were driving north to Utah the Friday before Thanksgiving for their little brother Luke’s farewell as he prepared to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. A planned 10-day visit home in South Jordan for that and the holiday would no longer be possible. Instead, just before 7:45 p.m., a southbound truck crossed into their lane. It has been hard, even months later, to piece together all the details. Sabrina caught a flash of a truck just before they collided, crumpling the silver Kia she was driving so thoroughly that Jaws of Life were used to extricate her. Neither she nor other witnesses saw the truck’s headlights. That blue Silverado truck was now upside down, flattened among dirt and rocks that rim the east side of this road. The driver sat beside it, forehead bloody, his back to the unfolding scene. Kayla’s four children were in the Sandoval car a short distance away, doors locked, under the watchful eyes of Connor, at 10 the oldest, and an older woman they didn’t know. The woman and her husband had been heading to surprise their grandchildren in Oregon for the holiday and stopped minutes after the crash; he was outside the car describing the scene to the 911 operator, while she sat with the kids to distract them and to escape the bitter cold. It was 27 degrees and windy on this barren stretch of road. Kayla’s husband Desmond was reaching through the broken front left window of the Kia, trying to keep Sabrina awake. “Keep your eyes open,” he told her urgently as he cut away the airbag and seatbelt that impeded her breathing. The Sandovals had just passed the sisters
The Wilhite sisters' demolished car with good samaritans caring for them is pictured shortly after the November accident in Arizona.
when they saw a truck without headlights. Seconds later, when Kayla turned to check on her kids in the backseat, she saw a dust cloud and an odd flash as the Kia’s headlights mysteriously disappeared. So they backtracked. When he saw the mangled Kia and the flattened truck, Desmond, a former police officer, shouted at his wife: “Expect the worst. GO!” He nudged Sabrina urgently when she started to drift off and Kayla gently plucked glass from Jess’ face. Jess was panicking and big sister Sabrina rallied to comfort her. The sisters asked each other, “Are you OK?” They weren’t, but they didn’t know it yet. A young Baptist missionary and his friend from Japan who were on their way to the Grand Canyon were there, too. When they arrived seconds after the impact, Desmond told them to see if anyone had been thrown from either vehicle. The missionary, Max McMurry of Tennessee, later recounted how he wept as they searched the uneven ground using light from their phones, fearful they’d find a dead body
among the dirt and debris. After telling Desmond no one else seemed hurt, McMurry and his friend prayed aloud as they methodically gathered each item thrown from the Kia by the crash and piled it neatly. It was a small act of service in a situation Kayla Sandoval was positive only the prayer itself was likely to help. These strangers were united by a three-lane stretch of road, broken glass, twisted metal and the badly shattered bodies of Sabrina and Jessica Wilhite.
A sobering count
There are many ways to count the elements of a catastrophe. Months later, the reckoning of the wreck looked something like this: For Jess, at least three operations, a 12-inch scar and 39 staples in her abdomen, 11 staples and a 5½-inch scar on her collarbone and five staples in one toe. Surgeons also removed a section of abdominal tissue and she has two deep, nearly 8-inch scars from the seatbelt across her hips. Many other scars and staples are hidden inside her body, uncountable but potentially
Max McMurry
life-altering. She had two drains placed in her abdomen and suffered an aortic tear, a bladder rupture, one broken cervical vertebrae, two broken lumbar vertebrae and a hole in her bowel. To fix it, doctors removed 2 inches. Sabrina lost 18 inches of her left arm, amputated above the elbow days after the crash. Her count also includes two broken knees, two broken ankles, one broken toe, one broken heel, at least three compound arm fractures, four broken ribs, one severe crush wound, and kidneys and a liver that struggled to keep up. She has two screws in her foot and two plates in her right forearm. The family lost count of how many blood transfusions she needed. She was unconscious for 10 days, including two after doctors stopped all sedation, and groggy for days after that. She was unable to eat for 69 days. Machinery helped her breathe for 58 days. She had 17 different surgeries, two of which were to stop bleeding at the back of her head. Or you could count the days the sisters spent CONTINUES ON PG. 6
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Wilhite family
Sabrina Wilhite lays in bed in a medically induced coma as sister Jessica and her mother Jen sit with her in the surgical trauma intensive care unit at Flagstaff Medical Center in Arizona.
in the hospital. For Sabrina, the count was 117 total, including 48 in the ICU, and then time in a skilled nursing facility and a rehab unit. For Jess, the hospital inpatient count was 13 days, with an additional 14 days in rehab, plus one day later on for a complication. She couldn’t go back to work for 61 days. Sabrina still cannot work. She’s busy with outpatient rehab. Sabrina also turned 25 in the hospital. The count would include six weeks of oftensleepless nights and countless prayers before Brent and Jen Wilhite were certain both their
daughters would survive. That wasn’t a given. The first night, before they reached Arizona, an intensive care nurse sat with Jess in a dimly lit room in the Flagstaff hospital. “I didn’t want her to die alone,” she told them the next morning. It would be much longer before the Wilhites had any idea of what their daughters’ lives might look like. Even now, that is a work in progress.
A distressing call
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Brent and Jen Wilhite were with their boys, Luke, 19, and Max, 16, at a family holiday party in Kaysville when Desmond Sandoval called from the crash site. Brent didn’t recognize the number and, figuring it was spam, he didn’t answer. Desmond persisted. What Brent heard didn’t make a lot of sense to him; they’d been joking with Jess and Sabrina by phone just an hour or so earlier on their way to the party. Sandoval said the young women had been hit and were gravely injured. Brent motioned to his wife and they went outside to finish the call, then rushed back in to kneel with their deeply religious extended family for a group prayer before they were out the door and on their way to their South Jordan home to pack a bag, drop off the boys and head to Flagstaff. Jess had first been transported to nearer Tuba City for care, but her injuries were too severe, so both would be treated in Flagstaff. Max Wilhite later recounted how, after his parents left, he rode his dirt bike aimlessly for hours, feeling helpless and lost and sick with worry about his sisters. The teen who considers himself a problem-solver didn’t have enough information to tackle this crisis. He didn’t know what to do.
Anatomy of a crash
How do you rebuild after a cataclysmic event — and can you do it completely? Jen and Brent Wilhite were praying their daughters could rise phoenix-like from the ashes of the wreckage. Alcohol was likely involved, though it’s not clear how much. It’s worth noting that the Navajo Nation the road runs through is a dry nation, no alcohol allowed. According to the police report and eyewitness accounts, the driver of the truck, Herman Dugi, said he’d been drinking. Alcohol use on his part is listed in the Arizona Department of Public Safety police report as a contributing factor and it says he crossed into the Wilhites’ lane and hit their car. But Deseret News has not been able to clarify whether a blood-alcohol test was conducted or if he was ever charged. A search of state and federal court records in Arizona didn’t turn up anything. Because U.S. Route 89 is a national highway that cuts through the reservation, jurisdiction is a bit confusing, maybe even to authorities. The Arizona state trooper on the scene wrote the accident report, noting he handed the possible
criminal portion off to the reservation police in Tuba City. Later, the Wilhite family learned the case had been turned back to Arizona DPS because the reservation police lacked jurisdiction. Later still, as Deseret News tried to unravel what happened, a spokesman for the tribal police provided a chart that shows the tribe lacks jurisdiction under federal law because the Wilhites are not Native American. Were any charges filed? Deseret News has been trying to find out. It took more than three months just to get a copy of the police report, which only shows alcohol as a contributing factor. Multiple attempts to interview the driver, including a visit to his home in Arizona, were unsuccessful. Deseret News asked if the Coconino County attorney filed any charges and was told someone listed in the police report could get that information. But Sabrina said when she tried, she was informed they didn’t have a report naming her, despite the fact she was grievously injured. She was directed to call a different number, where someone directed her to call yet another number, for a total of four calls yielding nothing. That alcohol could have played any role is like a knife in Brent Wilhite’s side. He has spent the last 20-plus years of his career working on antidrinking-and-driving messaging for an ad agency.
Helpers begin to appear
Three days after the crash, with both of her daughters still unconscious, Jen Wilhite flew home to see her oldest son off on his mission. Luke felt strongly he needed to serve God as planned and there was nothing he could do for his sisters. He’d been promised he could FaceTime or call as needed. So Jen, who describes herself as a genuinely happy person almost always, was walking through the airport, watching other travelers and wondering how they could be so happy when her family was in such distress. She decided it would be important, no matter what happened, she later said, to come away from the crash with more empathy for others and what they might be going through. That path was made easier, because if you’re counting the hard parts, you have to see the sweet moments, too — all attached to humans, oftentimes strangers. Desmond and Kayla Sandoval had taken their children with them to Flagstaff to shop on the
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Laura Seitz, Deseret News
Jessica Wilhite feeds Sabrina Wilhite a chocolate-covered strawberry at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. The sisters, who are best friends, were both injured in a serious crash before Thanksgiving in Arizona. Sabrina lost one arm and the other was so damaged that it was many weeks before she could move it at all.
day of the crash. And as he left his house near Page, Arizona, Desmond absentmindedly picked up a special knife he’d used in his police career. It was designed to slice through seatbelts and other hard-to-cut materials. It was also heavy and not very practical to carry around, so he and his wife joked about the fact that he’d brought it, since he never, ever carried it with him. That night, as the clock inched toward
8 p.m. and they were northbound toward home, they stopped at the crash. As he stood beside the wrecked car, he could see that Sabrina’s arm was being crushed and she was having trouble breathing because of her seatbelt and the airbag. There’s little the average person could do about that, but he’d been packing the solution around all day. He cut her free and comforted her, then they stayed until both girls were on their way to the
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hospital, serving as a human lifeline connecting the sisters and their panicked parents. The sisters had planned to spend the night at the home of a dear friend’s mom in St. George. Jess Briggs is one of Jess Wilhites’ co-workers. She and her husband Henry left Mesa 90 minutes ahead of Sabrina and Jess on a different route north, via Las Vegas. The two Jesses had shared their locations with each other on their phones, and when Jess Briggs noticed that her friend’s had stopped moving, she figured they were just hungry. Soon after, she received a friend request on Instagram from Luke Wilhite, who told her there’d been a serious car crash and Sabrina was being cut from the car. She called CJ Harrison, one of their bosses and a partner at DecisionPoint Financial in Mesa, where both Jesses are financial planners. Though it was after 9 p.m., Harrison jumped in his car and began the 2½-hour drive to Flagstaff so someone would be there for them until their parents arrived. An elder in their shared faith, he hoped to give them a blessing. Later, he went to the nearest hotel, a Residence Inn, and got Brent and Jen Wilhite a room for a couple of nights. When he called the hotel owners the next day to tell them how great the clerk had been, he realized he knew them. He told Steve Shumway, who owns the hotel with his brother Shane, about the crash. The Shumways invited the Wilhites to stay for free. “We got involved like everyone else, the workings of God that put people together,” Steve Shumway said. “We are Christians praying to have the opportunity to serve. We told CJ we
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would be happy to have the family stay there during the time the girls recovered.” The Wilhites stayed about a month. Meanwhile, Harrison and his partners decided to pay Jess as if she were on the job until she was back on the job. It was a tangible way to help the employee Harrison described as “probably the most motivated person I’ve ever known.” Other angels appeared as news of the crash spread. Jess Briggs’ in-laws had a cousin who rented out cottages in Flagstaff and they invited the Wilhites to stay there. Jen and Jim Gilliland, the owners, became great friends and a real resource for the Wilhites; Jen Wilhite still calls them her angels. Meanwhile, members of the local Latterday Saint ward provided some meals, as did a local restaurant and another inn. Despair just couldn’t get a strong foothold on the family when so many people were helping them, Jen Wilhite said months later. And she guarded against anger at the other driver, though her husband and son Max were and are still mad. “I can’t go there right now,” she said. “I need Heavenly Father to heal my girls.”
The people who show up
Max Wilhite’s life was also severely disrupted by the crash that threw his sisters’ in chaos. First, he was left at home with his older brother while they awaited news. After Luke left for his mission days later, he was sometimes home CONTINUES ON PG. 8
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Laura Seitz, Deseret News Friends and family gather at Intermountain Medical Center on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, to wish Sabrina Wilhite well as she heads home for what she hopes is the last time. Third from left, her sister Jessica, who was also injured in the crash, celebrates with a hug.
alone, neighbors and friends checking in, but he was also often in Flagstaff with his parents. He liked to find a quiet corner of the dark hospital parking structure, where he’d retreat to shadowbox, pummeling an imaginary enemy that felt very real. It was a release for tension that had nowhere to go. A high-energy teen, he simply wasn’t built to sit around waiting for news. The siblings of sick children often feel overlooked. Max, a smart kid and avid reader who loves poetry and writing but is also very physically active, said he thinks “peripheral” is a better word to describe how he began to feel. His parents, he said, were focused where they should be, on his gravely injured sisters. But they could still see him out of the corners of their eyes. He became an essential part of so many practical things that had to be done as the crisis unfolded, like helping his dad pack up the apartment the sisters shared in Arizona and driving the contents back to Utah while his mom stayed near the hospital. He was both physical help and emotional support for his dad. “He was amazing,” Jess has said of her little brother, who put himself wherever he could be most useful and who embraced without complaint all the changes to make things easier for all of them. “He is the best of ’em. That’s for sure,” she said. Trapped for weeks in the Flagstaff hospital, the family was never without friends, both old and new. Jess’ co-workers visited en masse. Sabrina’s mission companion stopped by. A variety of relatives made the trip, as important to Brent and Jen Wilhite’s morale as it was to their daughters. One visitor brought gifts from members of their old ward in Sandy, Utah, creating an almost-Christmas: The care package included
twin bears, one cream, one brown, that each said “Best Sister”; a photo of the sisters on a church-sponsored reenactment of Latter-day Saint pioneers’ journey to the Salt Lake Valley that was captioned “the Wilhite girls can do hard things”; and a rich assortment of baubles and inspirational items. Jess and her mom took turns reading the notes to Sabrina, who had a gastric tube and needed mechanical help to breathe. She could mouth words but not yet speak. That was Jan. 7, and Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year had all passed without fanfare in the quiet of an ICU 506 miles from home. Sabrina loves Snoopy and her room in Flagstaff was decorated with the cartoon dog’s image. On the “Snoopy super power wall of fame” were photos of relatives and friends who’d sent prayers and love and sometimes driven long distances for a short visit. That week, Brent, Jen and Jess Wilhite met Kayla Sandoval. Sabrina was, of course, still in the hospital, so they all visited her later. But seated in the hotel lobby, they heard the first direct eyewitness account from a would-be rescuer and Jess beamed. “You were my angel,” she told Kayla. “I know your voice.” Two of Kayla’s kids sat quietly while she talked about what her family witnessed that day. She was clearly still shaken. They’d wondered about the sisters, worried they’d died but hopeful they were long out of the hospital. Neither was true. Two days later, Sabrina was stable enough to be flown to Utah. Brent and Max drove back, while Jen flew in the air ambulance with Sabrina, who was transferred directly to St. Joseph Villa, a skilled nursing facility where she needed to heal more to be eligible for a rehabilitation center. Jess
had a ticket on a commercial flight, a trial run to independence. Afterward, she admitted she hadn’t considered how long the walk was through the Salt Lake airport. It was also a victory. She made it on her own. Sabrina, on the other hand, could not yet sit up or stand or even picture walking. They used a hoist to move her into a wheelchair that someone else had to operate to adjust the angle at which she sat. Her right arm was not working due to severe nerve damage, plus its inactivity had led to bone spur growth, so when someone else moved her arm to keep it limber, it hurt. A lot. Her mom slept every night at St. Joseph; Sabrina couldn’t even call for help on her own. During the day, she smiled most of the time and was a good sport. At night, she worried and often cried. She was not sure what her future would hold, what dreams she would give up and what her new dreams would look like. She was always singing before the crash. Now she could barely speak.
The mending begins
But time passed, bringing progress. In midFebruary, Jess returned to work in Mesa, in a new apartment. She missed her former roommate and pal, Sabrina, but she was so happy to be among friends and what felt like her own life again. She started going to high fitness classes three days a week but said she wasn’t close to where she was before the crash and she still had some pain. She still tired easily, too. A few weeks later, she had another hospital stay related to the crash, caused by severe abdominal pain the doctors credited to scar tissue in her dissected bowel. In this moment, though, she described being
in Arizona again as “such a freeing feeling. Knowing where I was the night of the crash and the fact that they didn’t know if I would make it, let alone what kind of life I would have if I did, I feel so immensely grateful to be here. I got to see my friends who I love today and laugh with them as we unpacked and set up my new place,” she wrote in a text. “Tomorrow I get to go to church with a ward I love who fasted and prayed for me and sent me gifts and loving notes and messages while I was in the hospital.” The next week, she wrote, she would go back to the job and co-workers she loves. “It just feels like I am getting back to the life that I had built that I loved living every day.” Sabrina’s return to normalcy has been very much an ongoing effort, and much of it played out in Intermountain Medical Center’s rehab unit on the 12th floor, overlooking the helipad that welcomes others who desperately need care. Bits of humor decorated her room. A certified nursing aide, Cerise Scott, is artistic, so Snoopy was again on guard dog duty, watching over her from the white board that listed the day’s care providers and her vital signs. Sabrina named her “residual remnant” — the technical term for her amputated arm. She calls it “Sabrinub,” and they posted joking nub wordplay on the side of a cabinet where it was the first thing seen as you enter her room: “Live, laugh, nub.” “A whole lotta nub.” “Enub is enub.” At the end of February, she drove her wheelchair for the first time. The next day, an occupational therapist, Analena Holihan, took the Wilhite women to a spa for a celebratory one-handed manicure. It was a much-needed off-campus treat. The Flagstaff nurses kept checking in. No longer charged with keeping Sabrina and Jess alive, they are now friends. Sabrina was stable and finally learning what she can and can’t do and what will likely be possible in the future. One early March day, Jess visited from Mesa and, with her parents and Max, watched Sabrina walk with the harness that helped hold her up as she made tentative steps down the long hall in rehab. Then Paul Tippetts, the physical therapist, sat her down and removed the harness, telling her she was ready to walk on her own. It was a terrifying moment for the young woman, who was weak enough that simply standing was hard. But she later said he thought she could do it, so she believed it. A video and photographs show her taking a tentative step and then another and another, her family clapping and laughing. When Jen texted a photo to a couple of members of the care team at the Flagstaff hospital, one responded, “Oh my gosh. We’re all crying. I just ran around and showed it to all the docs and nurses and we’re all crying and we’re all excited for you.” Later, Sabrina admitted how weak she felt. “Even when I make progress, it’s so hard. Everybody can stand.” Then she thought about it for a minute and added, “But look at me. Three months ago I broke literally everything and I’m walking today.” Rehab sometimes made her cry, but she still
DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
The crash has provided lessons on how to be a friend, how to help others, how to adapt. Jen Wilhite said her big takeaway is about God. “There have been a lot of things that I believed about God and about Jesus and how they help you through things, and the power that they have to overcome the physical whatever. I believed it before, but I know it now. I lived it. I feel it to my bones,” she said. She has also had a crash course in what she called the goodness of people. “We have been overwhelmed with the love … all the neighborhoods we’ve ever lived in, all the schools that the girls have ever gone to. … They were
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On March 12, 111 days since the crash, Sabrina was sitting in the wheelchair she could
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involved in performing for years, all the places and the kids that they performed with and their parents, all of the organizations the girls have belonged to, all of the wards that we’ve lived in, everybody cared and everybody made such an effort to help us through this,” she said. Sabrina provided a May status report. She can walk great now. She’s working on her balance and just realizing how truly wobbly those first steps were. A specialist has checked out her right arm, which is waking up. When nerves come back to life, there are tingles, but there are also jabbing, stabbing, really awful pains. They’re a bad good sign. The doctor predicts she’ll get all her sensation back. He thinks maybe her artificial elbow is a bit too large. He replaced it May 20 in what they hope will be a final or nearly-final surgery. He’ll plane down the bone spurs that cause so much pain, too. She’s been working with a prosthetics specialist for weeks. Initially, she wanted the most high-tech arm she could get to attach to Sabrinub, but she’s changed her mind. The more high-tech arms are heavier and more complicated to master. For now, at least, she wants to focus on using very well the most basic arm that will do what she needs and wants it to do. Her list includes doing her own personal care, feeding and dressing herself, and other ordinary tasks. An arm that can give her that freedom will make her very happy. And 177 days and 453 miles from that desolate strip of road, Sabrina still can’t scratch her nose. But she’s singing again.
There’s no hint of sorrow March 19, when a half-dozen news cameras and an equal number of reporters, plus 60 or so of the Wilhites’ dearest friends, packed the rehab floor hallway to watch Sabrina walk down it to the wheelchair she would ride out of the unit and use at home for a bit. The walk was really part dance because she was bouncing with pleasure as Phil Collins’ “I’m on My Way” played in the background. The wheelchair was festooned with colored tinsel garlands. As the video cameras rolled, Sabrina called it “an insane day that doesn’t seem real” and said she’s both excited and grateful. It had been a long, difficult journey. She was in a coma, she said, for a long time and in the ICU for seven weeks. Dozens of people, both friends and staff, lined up for a photo with her before she left the hospital.
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Besides physical therapy and occupational therapy, she was still getting wound care, too, for that spot on the back of her head. Her kidneys and liver were starting to behave normally, after weeks of dialysis. She was told she would probably be able to go home in a couple of weeks. But she would not be done with treatments. A great deal of rehabilitation, including learning to use a prosthetic arm, are in her future. And her other arm doesn’t work. Her pal Matt Keddington, a rehab aide, often joked with her, amping up the revelry when she faced especially difficult or painful tasks. He distracted her when her body hurt. One day, as she struggled to move from her wheelchair to the table where she did many of her physical therapy exercises, he told her earnestly, “Look at me and transfer your pain to me. You are doing amazing. Such good progress.” She knew that was true. But it didn’t keep her from being tired and discouraged, too. It had been a long, painful journey that came out of nowhere. Like that truck.
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by then drive, at a table where an occupational therapist told her to take a small cup of water and pour it into a glass bowl a few inches away. She could only move her “good” arm forward a little and it took a ton of concentration. Her thumb twitched with the effort, but she joked that “moving well is a gateway drug to something.” The therapist, Emily Hannah, took her right hand and made her bend her finger. Hannah placed a small foam block between Sabrina’s fingers and told her to imagine it’s a “pink Monster juice” — clearly a Sabrina favorite. Sabrina slid her hand weakly and Hannah disparaged the effort as “old Sabrina stuff.” “Those are fighting words,” Sabrina laughed. When the therapist said she must do it 8,000 more times, Sabrina bantered, “I did 2,000 when you weren’t looking.” By twisting sideways, she found she could angle her hand to empty the cup, only spilling about a tablespoon of water on the table. Her dad joked that she’ll be doing extra-easy chores at home in no time. She agreed. “I couldn’t lift my arm 20 minutes ago, and now I’m pouring water.” She always loved to paint and she’d been doing a bit of painting with her nub, a piece of modern art featuring blue and yellow slashes of brightness on hot pink paper. She and a younger patient planned a joint painting session soon. Sabrina admitted she would miss everyone at the rehab center, but the end of being confined is near and she could hardly wait. “I will be so sad and so glad to go home.”
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worked hard. Within days, she could walk 560 feet in less than six minutes without the harness. The rehab team called that a milestone test. But when her nose itched, there was nothing she could do about it.
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10 DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
CHURCH NEWS
‘Festival: A Youth Concert’ helps youth connect with, joyfully worship Jesus Christ ‘Every song tonight has pointed us to the One,’ says a Strive to Be artist By Kaitlyn Bancroft Church News
PROVO, Utah — Looking out at a crowd of almost 2,000 youth, Benjamin Taylor testified of Jesus Christ. “This is not about performance,” he said. “This is about our Savior, Jesus Christ. We are His followers, right? We are His disciples. We choose to look to Him in every thought. So tonight, we celebrate our faith in Him. We celebrate our gratitude, we celebrate our praise. He is the reason why we’re all here.” Taylor was one of 13 Strive to Be artists who performed at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, on Wednesday, June 11, as part of this year’s “Festival: A Youth Concert” event. The singers were also joined by Young Women General President Emily Belle Freeman and Young Men General President Steven J. Lund, who explained the concert to the audience and gave them instructions about the stage, the cameras and the light-up bracelets distributed before the show. But the concert wasn’t only for the youth attending in person, who were participating in a For the Strength conference. The entire show was filmed so that Strive to Be can broadcast it to youth around the globe. Strive to Be is the youth channel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, dedicated to strengthening youth around the world through Christ-centered music and messages. Last year, the channel featured a worldwide broadcast of “Festival: A Youth Concert,” filmed in Salt Lake City in front of a live audience of almost 1,000 people. The recording was then distributed through Church channels, with wards and stakes encouraged to plan a date to view the concert together. This year, wards and stakes will again have the chance to enjoy “Festival: A Youth Concert” together. The broadcast will be available online Aug. 7 in English, Spanish and Portuguese and will include footage from live performances in Mexico and Brazil. “We have been planning this night for a very long time,” Taylor told the crowd on Wednesday night. “Every song, every note and every prayer behind the scenes has led to this moment. What matters most is that you are here, every one of you guys. So we need you guys ready to feel, to listen and to be changed.”
Looking unto Christ through music
The concert setlist of songs and performers included: • “Good Day,” Liahona Olayan • “Stand Strong,” Benjamin Taylor • “Stronger,” James Thorup • “Faith,” Reina Ley • “Healer” Sister Ellie Barry • “FSY Medley,” sung by the entire group • “Your Presence,” Ashley Hess and Pearce Morris • “What Is This Joy?” JRay Kuhn • “He’ll Be There,” Connor Austin
Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
Strive to Be artists sing and dance on stage at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, during the filming of "Festival: A Youth Concert" on Wednesday, June 11, 2025.
• “Fear Not,” Rylee Paige • “Light My Way,” Jay Phung • “Look Unto Christ,” Hanna Eyre • “If You Believe,” Patch Crowe. Between songs, the performers shared stories and personal testimonies of Jesus Christ. Jay Phung, a Strive to Be singer from Hawaii, recounted the story of Christ walking on water and Peter leaving the boat to walk with Him (Matthew 14:25-31). People sometimes focus on the part of the story where Peter sunk into the water, Phung said. But he finds it incredible that Peter first walked on water. “You are capable of seemingly impossible things as long as you have your eyes on Christ,” Phung said. “It was only when Peter looked away that the sinking began. So imagine what you could do. Please, please accept the Lord’s invitation and just take that first step out of the boat, and I
promise you that you have nothing to fear, because the Lord will always be there.” Strive to Be artist Hanna Eyre performed a song based on this year’s youth theme, found in Doctrine and Covenants 6:36: “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.” “Looking to Christ invites His joy to our lives, and that is a real, lasting joy,” Eyre told the youth. “Every song tonight has pointed us to the One, the One who gives us strength, peace and purpose. … Jesus Christ is the hope in the struggle. He will give you courage.” The crowd responded loudly and enthusiastically to each performance, at one point chanting “We love Jesus!” Strive to Be artist JRay Kuhn encouraged the youth’s energy, inviting them to get on their feet for the uptempo song “What Is This Joy?” “I’m so grateful that we can also celebrate and have joy, for this is the Church of joy,” he said.
DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
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12 DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
DESERET MAGAZINE
Pioneers of the printed page The Deseret News has documented an evolving West for 175 years By Ethan Bauer Deseret Magazine
The very first issue of the Deseret News told the story of the paper itself. Published on June 15, 1850 — 175 years ago this month — the lead item established the paper’s motto as “Truth and Liberty” while promising to “promote the best interest, welfare, pleasure and amusement of our fellow citizens.” It promised to bring readers the world, with foreign news and the ornamental works of “our poets and poetesses.” The edition covered the dealings of the U.S. Senate, where North Carolina’s Willie P. Mangum had threatened to dissolve the Union, and a “terrible fire in San Francisco.” And it included a plea, encouraging readers to save physical copies of the Deseret News so that “their children’s children may read the doings of their fathers, which otherwise might have been forgotten; ages to come.” It may seem odd to our modern digital sensibilities, asking readers to keep physical newspapers around as a record of a people and their place in the world. But such were the demands of the era. The Deseret News, owned then and now by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was established for the practical reason that there was no better way to transmit information at the time. “Before our internet universe, the best way to communicate to just about everybody was through a newspaper,” says Brad Westwood, former director of the Utah Historical Society. “It was the place to learn. To experience. To sell. To buy.” It was the place to make sense of the wider world — in words and, later, in pictures. The Deseret News published its first local news photos on May 12, 1900, in a spread about a mining disaster in Scofield that killed over 200 men. Photos soon became a dominant force in newspapers, with better resolution and color printing added over time. The images helped tell the story of what the Intermountain West was and wanted to become. They were one among many innovations to that end, from a sports page, added in 1893, to the first bylines in the 1920s and ’30s, as the Deseret News grew and became something both new and familiar at once. “What’s interesting about the Deseret News,” says Ed Adams, a scholar of media history at Brigham Young University, “is this evolutionary process of being a frontier newspaper, and then making its way to a commercial newspaper.” Indeed, the Deseret News was always more than a newspaper about the dealings of church leadership, even if it certainly was that. Those early
settlers also had to contend with the difficult demands on life in the Mountain West. The Deseret News offered a kind of common language across this vast, arid country, connecting people across what Westwood calls the “Mormon commonwealth” — the land that we know today as the Intermountain West, plus parts of Canada, California and Mexico. It also connected those pioneers and their viewpoints to the rest of the continent. “It communicated to its members, then it communicated to (their) neighbors in Utah,” Westwood says. “And then it was communicating to the nation.” It did so with a voice that amplified church views on social issues and criticized the sensationalism that emerged among its larger contemporaries along the East Coast, particularly during the “yellow journalism” era that marked the early 20th century. It could do so because Salt Lake City was, at the time, one of the most isolated cities in the country, which insulated the Deseret News from having to copy the New York tabloids to stay afloat. The paper did, however, have to adapt to a changing journalistic business environment. It adopted classified ads and came to embody the corporate structure of most major newspapers. It added the Church News in 1931 to stay relevant to its longtime constituency. Most importantly, it partnered in 1952 with its biggest rival, The Salt Lake Tribune, to share production costs and advertising revenue as part of a “joint operating agreement” that kept both papers afloat. Despite that shared business arrangement, editorially the two Utah papers of record competed fiercely. The Deseret News defended the church and a more conservative outlook. The Tribune was often critical of the church and promoted a more liberal worldview. Their frequent opposition shaped each other, and the surrounding region, in a way that continues to reverberate. “If you want to know how Salt Lake City, or Utah, was built,” Westwood says, “it was built on journalism in a very big way.” The Deseret News won its first and only Pulitzer Prize in 1962. The Tribune won its first in 1957 and its second in 2017. Both papers ended the joint operating agreement in 2020, reflecting broader changes in the media landscape. The Deseret News has weathered changes before, but nothing so seismic as the digital revolution that has shuttered legacy publications across the country. “With the onset of social media, the power of publishing is in the hands of everybody,” Adams says. “So now everybody can say anything — and they do. … We’re out in the Wild, Wild West again.” For a publication that quite literally made
Deseret News photograph collection, Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
sense of the “Wild West” for readers across the frontier, the Deseret News is as wellpositioned as any established media company to weather the current storm. A 175-year history connotes a certain level of authority. Even if it’s not nearly as dominant a voice as it once was, Westwood says, the Deseret News “can speak from experience. And it (does).” More recently, the organization has poured more resources toward its digital initiatives, bolstering the online home it founded in 1995. In 2021, the Deseret News ceased daily print publication in favor of a biweekly edition. That same year, it launched Deseret Magazine, a monthly print publication, to add more national depth and analysis to the mix, with more changes surely on the way as media continues to evolve. “The main change in the Deseret News since (its inception) is that now we can have global reach, with global
influence, and we want to make use of that,” says Executive Editor Doug Wilks. “We do not think we are greater than we are, but we think it is worthwhile to make an effort to, if not change the world, then change the hearts of people in the world.” In that sense, the Deseret News hasn’t changed much since that first issue in 1850, when it proclaimed that “a paper that is worth printing is worth preserving.” And conveying the true people, places and events of today is still just as valuable as it was 175 years ago. It’s still an enduring force, and one worth preserving in new ways. In words and photos that will continue to make sense of a region and its people — to each other and to the wider world. This story appears in the June 2025 issue of DeseretMagazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.
DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
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14 DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
DESERET NEWS
Deseret News through the eras: A story of grit, gumption and changes galore The staying power and determination to continue to print Truth and Liberty, no matter what, is the legacy of the Deseret News By Lee Benson Deseret News
And a happy birthday to us. The Deseret News is 175 years old this month. The inaugural edition came off the presses — or press, as there was just one — in a small adobe building on South Temple Street in Great Salt Lake City on June 15, 1850. There were 220 copies that went on sale that Saturday at the rate of $2.50 for a six-month subscription or 15 cents for a single copy ($6.15 today). The paper was eight pages and measured 7 1/4 inches by 9 3/4 inches, which, by way of comparison and sheer coincidence, is almost exactly the size of an iPad. A handful of newspapers in the California gold fields had started printing before 1850, but all of them, like the gold, disappeared. With the exception of the Santa Fe New Mexican, first published just seven months prior on Nov. 28, 1849, the Deseret News is the oldest newspaper in the United States west of the Missouri River. At that, the paper might have started back in 1847 when the first Latter-day Saint pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, except for the fact they didn’t bring a printing press with them. It took three years and several teams of oxen to get a secondhand 4,000-pound Ramage hand-press from Philadelphia to the newly established territory of Deseret — a much larger version of what is today the state of Utah. The Deseret News has been in business ever since, first as a weekly, then a biweekly, then a daily, delivering through the decades, as the saying goes, the first draft of history. It has taken no small amount of grit and gumption to do it. Delivering the news has never been a job for the timid. By any measure, the last 175 years has been quite a ride, one full of lows and highs, setbacks and solutions, questions and answers, and most of all, constant change. As a birthday tour of the quarter-century eras indisputably shows, to not just survive but to thrive, the Deseret News has been anything but timid.
1850-1875
Isolated in the Great Basin nearly 1,000 miles in any direction from their nearest neighbors, 11,380 souls, almost all of them members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, inhabited the Salt Lake Valley when Vol. 1, No. 1 of the Deseret News was published.
The Deseret News office is pictured in Salt Lake City on Friday, May 30, 2025.
The paper began as a weekly, issued every Saturday, with the motto “Truth and Liberty” on the front page. There were fits and starts in the beginning due to a lack of paper to print the news on. There was no paper mill in the valley to greet the pioneers when they arrived, and no equipment to make one. The meager paper supply they brought with them ran out faster than a sunset on the Great Salt Lake. By the fall of 1851 the paper shortage was so acute that publication ceased for three months, the longest break in the newspaper’s history. That prompted a front page story, once the paper managed to print again, pleading for any kind of cloth material — rags, old laundry, gunny sacks, quilts, stray socks — that could be made into “homemade paper.” People could get a paid subscription in exchange for the worn top from the covered wagon that brought them across the plains.
In September 1850, just three months into publication, the paper’s first name became outdated when the U.S. Congress changed the name of the new territory from Deseret, a Book of Mormon word meaning “honey-bee,” to Utah, in homage to the predominant local Indian tribe, the Utes. Undeterred, editor Willard Richards and his staff of three (one typesetter, one proofreader, one man to run the press) decided to stick with the original name and it’s been Deseret News ever since. (In 1854, the paper’s very first illustration appeared in the form of a beehive — in tribute to Deseret — that was cut above the editorial column. The beehive has been the Deseret News logo ever since. It is also Utah’s official state symbol and the honeybee is the state insect.) Publishing has always originated from Salt Lake City, with one exception. In the spring and summer of 1858, out of concern
Laura Seitz, Deseret News
that federal troops coming to the territory might seize and silence the presses, the press was hauled to Fillmore in central Utah, where it was made operational in the basement of what had once been the territorial statehouse. The press made the 150-mile trek to Fillmore hidden in a buggy driven by a future editor of the paper, George Q. Cannon, with his new wife, Sarah Jane Jenne, sitting beside him. The ruse worked. Who was going to look for a printing press on somebody’s honeymoon? The press stayed in Fillmore from April to the end of August, by which point war tensions had simmered — few shots were fired in the so-called Utah War and no one died — and the printing press returned to Salt Lake. CONTINUES ON PG. 16
DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
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16 DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
The original Deseret News building pictured on South Temple in the late 1880s.
Deseret Morning News file photo
In an undated file photo, the newsroom of the Deseret News, where the "Church Section" was produced in 1931, was a busy place. Early coverage was mostly limited to talks, but soon included overseas travels of church leaders.
down dramatically. Then, in 1861, the world got considerably smaller when the entire country was connected to the telegraph, with Salt Lake City the final link. Now, important information could be transmitted instantaneously by wire, as it was in April 1865 when news of the end of the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln appeared in the now biweekly (Tuesdays and Saturdays) Deseret News just days after both momentous events happened. By then, the News was printed on a steam-powered cylinder press purchased in 1864 that was capable of printing 1,800 newspapers an hour, a massive leap from the two-per-hour rate of the original Ramage press. In 1867, the Deseret News evolved from a biweekly into a daily (except Sundays) and changed its masthead to read Deseret Evening News. Another two years after that, the golden spike was driven at Promontory Point, completing the transcontinental railroad and connecting Utah even more directly to the nation and the world — and, not incidentally, to the world’s paper supply. The Deseret Evening News was no longer waiting on news to print or paper to print it on.
1875-1900 Deseret News archives
The 1962 Pulitzer Prize winner Robert D. Mullins of the Deseret News scans his nomination presentation and reminisces over coverage of the murder-kidnap story that won him journalism's highest honor.
News content in the earliest editions of the Deseret News came from two main sources: personal letters and newspapers from the East Coast and West Coast. Both arrived via the mail, which could often take months to show up (the “latest” news in the first edition was of an earthquake in San Francisco that happened six months previously). Due to a lack of breaking news, or any news at all, it was not uncommon, since the readership
was almost entirely Latter-day Saint, to have a majority of an issue filled with news about the church (excerpts from the personal history of Joseph Smith ran on the front page in every issue the entire year of 1856). But with western settlement came change and progress, and much faster access to the news. In 1860, riders on horseback called the Pony Express began delivering the mail, cutting delivery time
The beginning of a new era marked the end of an old one when Latter-day Saint president Brigham Young, long a champion of freedom of speech, died on Aug. 29, 1877. The great colonizer passed away at 4:01 p.m. of a ruptured appendix. As both a tribute to the man who, more than anyone, had made sure the Latter-day Saints procured a press and produced a newspaper in the first place, and to the ability of that newspaper to react quickly and accurately to breaking news, less than an hour later, that day’s newspaper hit the streets with extensive details about Brigham Young’s last hours on Earth, the cause of death and the people at his bedside. By now the Deseret Evening News
Frank B. Woodbury
wasn’t the only paper in town. Five major newspapers had gained a foothold in Salt Lake City, including, besides the News, the Herald, the Evening Chronicle, the Democrat and the Salt Lake Tribune, which is still in existence today. Started in 1870 by an anti-Latter-day Saint faction, the Tribune and News were known to trade editorial volleys throughout the 1870s and 1880s, often heated and often about polygamy. When polygamy ended in 1890, the rancor simmered down, although never completely. On the production front, in 1890, the News acquired a steam-powered Bullock press that could print on both sides of a sheet of paper at once. At full speed, it could produce 14,000 eight-page newspapers an hour, another huge leap in production. At about the same time, an invention called a typewriter, hailed as a “miniature printing machine,” found its way onto newsroom desks, eliminating the need for reporters to write their stories in longhand. When a linotype machine was purchased in 1897, capable of setting type five times faster than doing it by hand, and photographs made their first appearance in 1899, it was as if the modern newspaper had reached its zenith. What could top this? What more could possibly be invented?
1900-1925
In an era that began with no cars on the streets, no airplanes in the skies and no electricity, indoor plumbing or radios in homes — and ended with all of the above and more — the Deseret News kept pace with its own kind of innovation. It began at the start of the century with the hiring of a new general manager named Horace “Bud” Whitney. Whitney’s specialty wasn’t technological inventions, it was making the newspaper more appealing and entertaining. It was Whitney who expanded sports, business and society coverage, who instituted a stock market report, who added
DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025 Left: The Deseret News Building pictured in the 1950s. Bottom: James Mortimer, Glen Snarr, Thomas S. Monson, Gordon B. Hinckley and James Faust and John Hughes in front of the then-new Deseret News building May 21, 1997, on 100 South in Salt Lake City.
occurred as the 19th century turned into the 20th century, the most significant newspaper development, and not just at the Deseret News but everywhere, was a new kind of ad. What became known as “Want Ads” or “Classified Ads” allowed individuals to use the newspaper as a personal marketplace to buy, sell and seek goods and services. In small adverts at the back of the newspaper, people could buy or sell their horses and wagons, offer their services as a handyman or a piano teacher, rent band instruments, seek employees for their small businesses, and any of thousands of other possibilities. In 1894, the Deseret News first made these ads available to the general public at the rate of 1 cent per word. Soon, what began as a trickle of business turned into a torrent. Classified ads would provide the most dependable, constant revenue for newspapers for the next 100 years.
1925-50 Deseret News
Tom Smart, Deseret News
one-picture cartoons and who introduced big, bold, eye-catching banner headlines that spanned the width of the front page. Including this one that ran on Nov. 12, 1918, the day after the end of World War I: “Glory to God in the Highest and on Earth PEACE.” In 1920, “Evening” was dropped from the masthead as the name of the paper, although it still continued to be delivered
in the evening, returned to the original Deseret News. That same year the Deseret News Wireless Club was formed, with members sending messages by Morse Code via shortwave radio — a nod to a much more substantial kind of wireless coming in the then-distant future. Two years later, in 1922 the News was approved by the Federal Communications Commission to start a radio station, giving
it the call letters KZN. It was the first broadcasting license issued in Utah, but by 1924, the station hadn’t turned a profit. Nobody knew for sure if radio had much of a future, and the license was sold to private investors (eventually the call letters were changed to KSL and the station was purchased by the Church of Jesus Christ). But for all the cosmetic changes, new technology and dramatic headlines that
17
This quarter century began with the most melodic sound ever heard in a newsroom, a sound old-timers pine away for like a lost love: the teletype machine. The Associated Press wire service, and later its rival UPI, started distributing these machines to member newspapers in 1931. For the next 50-plus years (until satellites rendered them obsolete), the teletypes tapped out a steady clack-clack-clack as news from all over the country and around the world was printed electronically on lowgrade paper that was constantly threaded through the machine. At most newspaper offices, including the Deseret News, teletype machines were kept in a corner or small office to cut down on the noise, but throughout the day their constant hum not only added to the ambience, but produced news ready to print. As with most everything else, the Great Depression put a damper on the newspaper business. Newsboys still protected their turf on Salt Lake City’s street corners, happy to at least still have a source of some income, but as thousands of banks failed and unemployment skyrocketed, subscriptions declined from just under 40,000 in 1930 to 34,000 a decade later. That all changed in 1941 with America’s entry into World War II. Americans hungry for war news turned again to their newspapers. Circulation figures grew exponentially, cresting at the Deseret News in 1948 when the number of subscribers reached 100,000. With the new readers came expanded coverage in virtually every department, including farm, home and garden sections and a weekly magazine. Home delivery routes were increased in the growing suburbs. The editorial staff soared to include 100 editors and reporters. As the crowning achievement in this decade of unprecedented growth, on May 16, 1948, after 98 years without one, the Deseret News printed its first Sunday edition.
CONTINUES ON PG. 18
18 DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
1950-1975
The runaway growth of the 1940s had a downside. The Deseret News and its chief competitors, the Salt Lake Tribune and Salt Lake Telegram, competed so hard with prizes, come-ons and cut-rates to entice new customers that they were all losing money. To right the ship, the Church of Jesus Christ, owner of the evening Deseret News, and the Kearns-Tribune Corporation, owner of both the morning Tribune and evening Telegram, got together and agreed to a business deal. Each would remain editorially independent, meaning their newsrooms would operate entirely separate from each other, but beyond that they would share all non-editorial costs in the areas of advertising, production and circulation. With the News an evening paper and the Tribune a morning paper, it was agreed that both newspapers would print on the same presses and deliver on the same trucks, while salespeople at the newly organized and jointly owned Newspaper Agency Corporation would solicit subscribers and sell advertising for both newspapers. As part of the agreement, the Deseret News agreed to buy the Telegram from the Tribune for cash and also agreed to discontinue its short-lived Sunday edition. In return, Deseret News subscribers would get the Salt Lake Tribune delivered on Sunday mornings. On secure financial footing again, in 1962 the Deseret News was able to achieve the highest award in newspaper journalism: a Pulitzer Prize.
The honor went to reporter Bob Mullins, who doggedly covered a robbery-murdersuicide case in southeastern Utah. The newspaper’s bureau chief in Price, Mullins was the first to break lead after lead as he chased the developing story from one end of Grand County to the other, putting more than 1,000 miles on his car. He was the first newsman to report the finding of the murder weapon. The Pulitzer committee cited him for “outstanding local reporting against deadline pressure.” Also in 1962, the Deseret News launched its Sterling Scholar program, honoring top high school students in a variety of subjects throughout the state of Utah. More community outreach included the sponsoring of the first Deseret News Marathon in 1970, the 26.2-mile course mirroring the route taken by the Days of ’47 Pioneers. Both the marathon and the Sterling Scholars continue to this day.
1975-2000
The golden age of newspapering continued apace in the final quarter of the 20th century. Under their joint operating agreement, the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune installed new presses at a location on Regent Street. The presses, capable of producing 50,000 newspapers an hour, ran morning and night seven days a week. The Deseret News published three editions every day, one for rural Utah and parts of Idaho, one for the rest of the state outside Salt Lake County, and one for Salt Lake County
Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
Young Electric Sign company workers install the new Deseret News sign on Saturday, July 2, 2011, on the Triad Center in Salt Lake City.
itself. Dozens of correspondents and bureau chiefs in all corners of Utah, as well as in Washington, D.C., collected and reported news on a grassroots level. In 1983, the advent of word-processing computers allowed reporters to file their copy electronically over the telephone, eliminating the need to call the rewrite desk to dictate stories, or to use the telegraph or teletype to send copy.
With prosperity came growth. In the mid-1990s, the Deseret News demolished its cramped offices on Regent Street and began construction of a nine-story office tower designed to look like a newspaper. The building on the corner of 30 East and 100 South — located one block south of the little adobe building that published the first Deseret News — was finished in 1997, greeting a staff of more than 150 editors and reporters.
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Ravell Call, Deseret News
Newsroom for KSL and the Deseret News pictured in Salt Lake City, Friday, Jan. 23, 2015.
2000-2025
It wasn’t long into the new century that it became obvious the Deseret News needed to pivot yet again. The computer age that introduced word processors, a welcome change when they arrived in the 1980s, also brought with it a problem that caught the newspaper world largely by surprise. The advent of the World Wide Web meant news content that for hundreds of years had been the province of ink and print could now be delivered without the need
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for paper at all — transmitted electronically and displayed on a computer screen. At first, newspapers treated the new technology more like a novelty than a serious rival. Like so many others, in 1995, the Deseret News added a website (desnews.com) and, like so many others, didn’t charge for the content, the idea being that the online product would attract new customers who would then sign up for the more expansive and traditional print product.
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Instead, consumers were quick to realize they could get the news without paying for it and started canceling their subscriptions. Worse, internet providers like Craigslist, eBay and, closer to home, KSL.com, started offering online ad space free of charge. Almost overnight, the classifieds that for decades had been proven money-makers for newspapers were all but eliminated. The decline in print took a heavy toll on newspapers. Since 2005, a third of the papers in the U.S., more than 3,300 of them, have gone out of business. In order to stay afloat financially and plan for a future emphasizing technology instead of print, in 2010, the Deseret News laid off 43% of the editorial staff, sold the brick-and-mortar building (that still looks like a newspaper) on the corner of 30 East and 100 South, and moved to offices in the Triad Center to join forces with KSL TV and Radio. While the demand for a print product has continued to slide — in 2021, the Deseret News finally discontinued its daily print edition and returned, for the first time in 156 years, to biweekly publication, with printed newspapers mailed to subscribers on Wednesdays and Fridays — the number of visitors to the website, which never closes, has continued to soar, making up the difference a hundredfold. The comparisons are dramatic. Whereas print subscriptions peaked at 100,000 in 1948, and hovered around the 75,000 mark during the years of the joint operating
agreement with the Tribune, the deseret. com website registers millions of page views every day and upwards of 25 million unique visitors every month. Beyond that, the geographical boundaries that existed in the print era have disappeared. The Deseret News can be accessed virtually by anyone, anytime, anywhere on Earth where there is computer access. The bottom line: In 2025, the audience reading the Deseret News is far bigger than ever before.
The legacy of the Deseret News
Disseminating the news at no charge, without a printing press, to readers from Salt Lake City to Singapore and everywhere in between? Such a notion would have been as fantastic to imagine for those who printed the first edition of the Deseret News in 1850 as it would be for the staff in 2025 to imagine what it would be like to publish a newspaper on a canvas wagon top. Each era has seen its unique challenges and, more importantly, a way around them. The staying power and determination to continue to print Truth and Liberty, no matter what, is the legacy of the Deseret News — one of just 47 American newspapers that have been publishing for 175 years or more. What will the next era bring? Hard to say. But if the past is indeed prologue, one thing is certain: There will be one.
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20 DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS
Utah’s top high school athletes shine at Deseret News High School Sports Awards Nearly 170 athletes were honored at the third annual event By Krysyan Edler Deseret News
The hard work of Utah’s best high school athletes was on full display June 9. Nearly 170 student-athletes were honored at the third annual Deseret News High School Sports Awards presented by The Larry H. Miller Company. The event, hosted at the new Ballpark at America First Square, celebrated Utah’s most exceptional high school athletes for their athletic accomplishments over the past school year. “The talent has gotten better and better in this space,” Deseret News Editor Sarah Jane Weaver said. Deseret News columnist and BYUtv broadcaster Dave McCann served as the event’s master of ceremonies. The night’s honors included most outstanding athlete awards for each of the 25 sanctioned sports as well as male and female honors for player, coach and humanitarian of the year. The top overall athletic programs in each of the six classifications were also honored with the All-Sports Awards. In addition to their awards, the male and female athletes and coaches of the year each received a $1,000 check from America First Credit Union. Other sponsors of the evening included Minky Couture, SymbolArts and Eye Care4 Kids.
Male Athlete of the Year
Male Athlete of the Year and Mr. Soccer winner Lewis Knecht expressed his gratitude for the Deseret News recognizing and celebrating the accomplishments of Utah’s high school athletes. “They work hard to make sure we feel like we’ve succeeded, because we have,” Knecht said. “It’s not easy doing what we do. Whether you get an award or not, to be here, it’s really important to each of us, and it’s really nice to feel important to the community, so I’m just very grateful for them and all they do.” The American Fork High forward was caught off guard when he learned he’d been named male athlete of the year. Knecht was impressed as the winner’s stats and achievements were read off and was surprised when he realized they were his. The future Utah Valley Wolverine considers the award his proudest accomplishment of his high school athletic career alongside American Fork’s back-to-back state championships. “It was unheard of for our program and to make a name for our program and to switch the narrative for us, it was really important for me to just build those memories with my teammates,” he said. “There’s nothing I would trade for those two state championships for my team.”
Female Athlete of the Year
The day after she demolished her own national high school record for the two-mile run, Timpview’s Jane Hedengren
Kristin Murphy, Deseret News
Travis Hansen, former NBA and Euroleague player and keynote speaker, gives Ms. Track Jane Hedengren BYU hats at the Deseret News High School Sports Awards 2025 at the Ballpark at America First Square in South Jordan on Monday, June 9, 2025.
was named the Female Athlete of the Year for the second consecutive year. Hedengren was also honored as Ms. Cross Country for a third straight year and Ms. Track and Field for the second consecutive year. “It’s awesome to come to this event. It’s been great the past few years, and I’m just really, really glad that they wanted to have me again this year,” she said. Hedengren finished her high school career with nine national records to her name, and she’s excited to join the BYU Cougars this fall. “I think that it’s gonna be a great opportunity, and I’m excited to gain some new relationships there and to just give myself grace for the development process and that it might take a few years to adjust and just get back into the rhythm of things, but I’m really hopeful for the future,” she said. Hedengren had many college options, but she chose BYU. “I think it’s really just going to be a great place and great fit for me, so really looking forward to my time,” she said. “No negative nerves or energy coming in. Just looking forward to that process. “I’m sure there’s going to be many learning curves but I’m ready for that and I’m excited for that because I think that will only positively affect me as a person and as an
athlete, just with building my resilience and just learning to be adaptable within many different positions.”
Female Coach of the Year
The 2025 Female Coach of the Year, McHailee Danner, and her softball team made West Jordan High history by winning the school’s first-ever girls state championship. “Honestly, to get the award was kind of a bit of a shock, but I am so deeply honored,” she said. “I mean, my whole life, I’ve chased being a winner. I’ve chased being a champion, and I didn’t quite get it in high school. “It kind of manifests in a way that I never thought, and it’s just 100% better, so I’m just grateful to be honored in that way, and just to show up for my players.” This season was Danner’s second as West Jordan’s coach and her second year ever as a head coach. She actually interviewed for the job while on a family trip to Disney World. Now, she’s able to share her “one true love” with the next generation.
Male Coach of the Year
Adam Fager, this year’s Male Coach of the Year, led Layton High’s boy’s wrestling team to its highest national ranking and third straight state title, but the year was also
DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025 bittersweet for Fager and the team. Fager’s father passed away in January, the month before the Lancers claimed their title. His father, a sports psychologist, had volunteered several free hours of his services to the boys on the team “to help them pursue becoming their best selves,” Fager said. “To see us all be able to finish out that season with a lot of gratitude and persevere when we could have hung our heads and really choked, but we all kind of stepped up and decided to have a lot of gratitude for my dad and the things that he’s done for us and show that gratitude through our effort and our performance, so I mean, that more than anything, that kind of makes it most special,” he said. While the night was full of special moments, the best moment was actually impromptu. The event’s keynote speaker Travis Hansen, a former BYU, NBA and Euroleague player, advised the honorees to “give a piece of crust away and get a loaf back.” “When you do good, the unimaginable happens,” Hansen said. Hansen showed the honorees what that looked like. Before his address, Hansen — without disclosing his reason — had asked the event organizers to find an athlete who had experienced a rough year. They chose Ben Hone, who plays volleyball at Orem High. At the conclusion of his remarks, Hansen invited Hone out onto the field to share his story. Hone said he has Type 1 diabetes and his parents are going through their own health challenges. His father has cancer, and his mother has multiple sclerosis and arthritis. Sports has served as an outlet for Hone to get away from life’s challenges, he said.
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Hansen then surprised Hone by telling him that he was giving him $5,000 “because you’re a fighter, because you’re disciplined, because your family is dealing with a lot of uncertainty.” Here is the full list of honorees from this year’s Deseret News High School Sports Awards.
2024-25 Deseret News High School Sports Awards Honorees Athlete of the Year • Male: Lewis Knecht, American Fork, soccer • Female: Jane Hedengren, Timpview, track and field/cross country Coach of the Year • Male: Adam Fager, Layton, wrestling • Female: McHailee Danner, West Jordan, softball Boys cross-country • Mr. Cross-Country: Kaden Evans, American Fork Most outstanding athletes • Kaden Evans, American Fork • Hayden Hooper, Bountiful • Kyle Steadman, Mountain View • Jackson Spencer, Herriman Girls cross-country • Ms. Cross-Country: Jane Hedengren, Timpview Most outstanding athletes • Jane Hedengren, Timpview • Lily Alder, Timpview • Skye Jensen, American Fork • Jaylie Rae Jenkins, Union Football • Mr. Football: Robert Young, Roy
Kristin Murphy, Deseret News
Deseret News Executive Editor Doug Wilks shakes hands with Bear River softball honoree Bella Douglas at the Deseret News High School Sports Awards 2025 at the Ballpark at America First Square in South Jordan on Monday, June 9, 2025.
Most outstanding athletes • Top QB: Emerson Geilman, Bountiful • Top RB: Kaden Vest, Spanish Fork • Top WR: Jaron Pula, Timpview • Top WR: Graham Livingston, Ridgeline • Top OL: Zion Finau, Corner Canyon • Top OL: Aaron Michael Dunn, Spanish Fork • Top DL : De’Shawn Ioka Nofoa Toilolo, Skyridge • Top DL: Viliami Moala, Bingham • Top LB: McKay Wright, Crimson Cliffs • Top LB: Nusi Taumoepeau, Westlake • Top DB: Cyrus Polu, Desert Hills • Top DB: Robert Young, Roy Boys volleyball • Mr. Volleyball: Trey Thornton, Maple Mountain The Ultimate 6 • Trey Thornton, Maple Mountain • Kilika Tafa, Westlake • Corbin Batista, Alta • Nesta James Vaitai, Mountain Ridge • Ben Hone, Orem • Ashton Shewell, Lehi Girls Volleyball • Ms. Volleyball: Taylor Harvey, Bountiful The Ultimate 6 • Taylor Harvey, Bountiful • Grace Fredrick, Skyline • Ava Burgess, Lone Peak • Halle Bills, Corner Canyon • Kylie Buttars, Skyridge • Sadie White, Mountain Ridge
Kristin Murphy, Deseret News
Jason Buck shows his support as athletes are honored during the Deseret News High School Sports Awards 2025 at the Ballpark at America First Square in South Jordan on Monday, June 9, 2025.
Boys Basketball • Mr. Basketball: Gavin Lowe, Olympus Dream 5 starters • Coleman Atwater, Davis • Cale Barclay, Herriman • Dean Rueckert, Timpview • Gavin Lowe, Olympus • Jude Haigh, Green Canyon
Girls Basketball • Ms. Basketball: Emilee Skinner, Ridgeline Dream 5 starters • Emilee Skinner, Ridgeline • Taylor Harvey, Bountiful • Skylie Barker, Copper Hills • Olivia Hamlin, Snow Canyon • La’u Pele Kylee Falatea, West Drill team • Ms. Drill: Caymbree Hodges, Bingham Most outstanding athletes • Caymbree Hodges, Bingham • Harlee Ruoti, Copper Hills • Taylor Crum, Duchesne • Ellison Parkinson, Davis • Reagan Tracy, Farmington Competitive cheers • Ms. Cheer: Avery Iorg, Bingham Most outstanding athletes • Avery Iorg, Bingham • Ellie Baugh, Farmington • Anistyn Barber, Timpview • Preston Abilla, Bingham • Ava Johnson, Corner Canyon Boys golf • Mr. Golf: Kihei Akina, Lone Peak Most outstanding athletes • Kihei Akina, Lone Peak • Bowen Mauss, Corner Canyon • Jackson Shelley, Skyline • Rawson Hardy, Park City Girls golf • Ms. Golf: Saydie Wagner, Lone Peak Most outstanding athletes • Kaylee Westfall, Orem • Aadyn Long, Lone Peak • Saydie Wagner, Lone Peak • Whitni Johnson, Bonneville CONTINUES ON PG. 22
22 DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
Boys tennis • Mr. Tennis: Braeden Johnson, American Fork Most outstanding athletes • Braeden Michael Johnson, American Fork • Oliver Mesicek, Highland • Calvin Armstrong, Skyridge • Adam Miner, Crimson Cliffs Girls tennis • Ms. Tennis: Bella Lewis, Skyridge Most outstanding athletes • Bella Lewis, Skyridge • Fabiana Gonzalez, Hillcrest • Emmy Richards, Woods Cross • Bailey Huebner, Green Canyon Boys soccer • Mr. Soccer: Lewis Knecht, American Fork Best 11 • F: Lewis Knecht, American Fork • F: Jorge Beltran, East • F: Jayden Cosper, Wasatch • MF: Luis Velasco, Ogden • MF: Demitri James Wallace Larsen, American Fork • MF: Taylor Daniel Kogan, Dixie • MF: Cole Simpson, Wasatch • D: Elijah Robert Jaggi, Lone Peak • D: Ben Hess, American Fork • D: Ty Dutcher, Alta • GK: Chase Radford, Alta Girls soccer • Ms. Soccer: Hope Munson, Olympus Best 11 • F: Hadli Barrera, Mountain Crest • F: Kyleigh Hastings, Green Canyon • F: Bella Devey, Lone Peak • MF: Hope Munson, Olympus • MF: Kate Denney, Lone Peak • MF: Kate Fuller, Lone Peak • MF: Brooklyn Phongsavath, Davis • D: Ruby Lee, Lone Peak • D: Cadence Packer, Davis • D: Summer Cay Sofonia, Mountain Crest • GK: Eliza Collings, Lone Peak Boys wrestling • Mr. Wrestling: Geronimo Rivera Jr., Layton Most outstanding athletes • Geronimo Rivera Jr., Layton • Tucker Roybal, Union • Austin Paris, Grand • Jason Worthley, West Field • Noah Bull, Layton • Brad Farrer, Pleasant Grove Girls wrestling • Ms. Wrestling: Kristina Kent, Davis Most outstanding athletes • Keilikki Nau Rarick, Westlake • Kristina Lynn Kent, Davis • Aleena Navarrete, West Field • Tevia Nau Rarick, Westlake • Tilisa Matakaiongo, Canyon View • Nia Hagler, Snow Canyon
Kristin Murphy, Deseret News
Athletes are honored at the Deseret News High School Sports Awards 2025 at the Ballpark at America First Square in South Jordan on Monday, June 9, 2025.
Boys lacrosse • Mr. Lacrosse: Austin Taylor, Brighton Best 11 • Attack: Rome Swanwick, Judge Memorial • Attack: Austin Taylor, Brighton • Attack: Gabe Carrera, Brighton • Middie: Braxton Horoba, Alta • Middie: JT Rigby, Mountain Ridge • Middie: Ashton Wood, Davis • SSDM: Reece Jerrad Smith, Park City • Defender: Mason Brady, Corner Canyon • Defender: Carter Sant, Davis • Middie: Kaydin Berry, Fremont • Goalie: Rhett King, Corner Canyon
• Kurt Morgan, Canyon View • Sebastian Wrona, Olympus • Gabriel Thomas Jones, St. Joseph • Nash Stanford Hale, Skyline
Girls lacrosse • Ms. Lacrosse: Sarah Anné, Olympus Best 12 • Attack: Catherine “Cat” Elsa Faucette, Corner Canyon • Attack: Taya Chalk, Mountain Ridge • Attack: Alexandra MacAulay, Farmington • Middie: Sarah Anné, Olympus • Middie: Lizzie Anné, Olympus • Middie: Coco Crawford, Park City • Middie: Cecelia Walton, Viewmont • Middie: Hailey Larsen, Farmington • Defender: Lily Yatkeman, Park City • Defender: Brielle Fabert, Mountain Ridge • Defender: Megan Magee, Park City • Goalie: Elle Erickson, Farmington
Baseball • Mr. Baseball: CJ Mascaro, American Fork Elite starting 9 • Cy Chrisman, Maple Mountain • Mays Madsen, Lehi • CJ Mascaro, American Fork • Kameron Beck, Bingham • Chase Johnston, Maple Mountain • Andrew Wilson, Desert Hills • Drew Smith, Pleasant Grove • Easton Fry, Brighton • Cache Poulson, American Fork
Boys swimming • Mr. Swimming: Abe Astle, Olympus Most outstanding athletes • Abe Astle, Olympus • Luan Barnard, Brighton
Girls swimming • Ms. Swimming: Roni Black, Highland Most outstanding athletes • Roni Black, Highland • Jade Garstang, Skyline • Taylor Bennett, Lone Peak • Avery Bulkley, Payson • Rainie Moran, Olympus • Ana Diedrichs, Wasatch
Softball • Ms. Softball: Anne Wallace, Ridgeline Elite starting 9 • Anne Wallace, Ridgeline • Lulu West, Desert Hills • Maile Larsen, Pleasant Grove • Bella Douglas, Bear River • Rita Leialoha Tavita, West Jordan • Brecka Larson, Bingham
• Peyton Holly Sanchez, Riverton • Maggie Amelia Hamblin, Riverton • Katelyn Wilson, Bear River Boys track • Mr. Track: Davis DeGroot, Bonneville Most outstanding athletes • Ty Warnick, Riverton • Davis DeGroot, Bonneville • Matthew Christopher Bryant, Lone Peak • David Konan, Corner Canyon • Tayshaun Ogomo, Herriman • Eli Connelly, Crimson Cliffs • Josh Hamblin, Weber Girls track • Ms. Track: Jane Hedengren, Timpview Most outstanding athletes • Amelia Nadauld, Snow Canyon • Jane Hedengren, Timpview • Tia Brown, Snow Canyon • Kinzlee J Riddle, Mountain Ridge • Burklie Burton, Layton • Lily Alder, Timpview • Cadee Alder, Manti Humanitarian of the Year • Male: Sawyer Orgain, Rowland Hall • Female: Lydia Wall, Salem Hills All-sports winners • 1A: Clint Barney, Panguitch • 2A: Amy Robinson, South Sevier • 3A: Kade Morrell, Morgan • 4A: Mike Hansen, Ridgeline • 5A: Wendy Anae, Timpview • 6A: Nancy Warner, Lone Peak
DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
Athletics unite us in a way nothing else can. The roar of the crowd, the crack of the bat, the sprint across the pitch. Sports remind us that victories aren’t only on the scoreboard; they’re also in the heart, the hustle and the teamwork. The Larry H. Miller Company is proud to support the Deseret News High School Sports Awards and celebrate the talent and contributions of Utah’s student athletes. www.lhm.com
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24 DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
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DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
Athletics unite us in a way nothing else can. The roar of the crowd, the crack of the bat, the sprint across the pitch. Sports remind us that victories aren’t only on the scoreboard; they’re also in the heart, the hustle and the teamwork. The Larry H. Miller Company is proud to support the Deseret News High School Sports Awards and celebrate the talent and contributions of Utah’s student athletes. www.lhm.com
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26 DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
© 2025
41, No. 31
Draw the item that should come next in each row to continue the pattern.
July 4th is Independence Day in the United States!
Standards Link: Reading Comprehension; students follow simple written directions.
Puppy Parade
Ryan, Monica, Josephine and Jordan wanted to have a puppy parade for the 4th of July. But the puppies ran off to the neighbor’s home. Can you read the clues to help figure out who owns each puppy? Ryan and Monica’s puppies are twins. But Monica’s puppy does not have spots. Jordan’s puppy likes wearing costumes, but Josephine’s puppy likes chewing them!
Draw a line from each name to that child’s puppy. Have a family member check your work.
RYAN MONICA JOSEPHINE JORDAN
See how many words you can make with the letters in:
INDEPENDENCE DAY
Score yourself: 1-5 words: SUPER SPARKLER 6-10 words: LIBERTY BELL RINGER 11 or more words: HIGH-FLYING EAGLE
BALLOONS COLLAR EAGLE FLAG FOOD FUN HAT HOT DOG JULY LOUD PARADE PUPPY SAFE STARS STRIPES
Find the words by looking up, down, backwards, forwards, sideways and diagonally.
F B A L L O O N S J
E F X S E P I R T S J X U Q P J E G A P
H C R N S U A C R A D O O F A L P Y S R
U L T J F Y D P I A L L P D E U Q F Y D T A H Y O E L G A E Z R P L H G R S T L Standards Link: Letter sequencing. Recognize identical words. Skim and scan reading. Recall spelling patterns.
DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
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EVENTS 2025 Mapleton Pioneer Days
July 12 - 19 Time: 7am Location: Maple Street and Main Street - Mapleton https://nowplayingutah.com/event/2025-mapletonpioneer-days/
Ogden Pioneer Days Rodeo & Celebration 2025 July 19 - 24 Time: 6:30pm Location: 668 17th St - Ogden https://www.ogdenpioneerdays.com/
Family Arts Festival 2025
Utah County Water Lantern Festival
Farmington Festival Days 2025
2025 Days of '47 Rodeo
July 12 - 16 Time: 10am Location: North Campus Drive - Provo https://nowplayingutah.com/event/family-arts-festival-2025/ July 12 Time: 9am Location: 100 Main Street - Farmington https://nowplayingutah.com/event/farmington-festivaldays-2025/
Fire & Flavor Festival
July 12 - 13 Time: 11am-4:30pm Location: 7660 Royal St E - Park City https://www.facebook.com/events/1418278102509971/
Wasatch Wildflower Festival 2025
July 12 - 13 Time: 9am Location: 12601 E Big Cottonwood Canyon Rd https://nowplayingutah.com/event/wasatch-wildflowerfestival-2025/
2025 Draper Days
July 14 - 19 Time: 9am Location: 12501 S 1300 E - Draper https://nowplayingutah.com/event/2025-draper-days/
Bryce Canyon Geology Festival 2025
July 18 - 19 Time: 10am Location: Highway 63, Bryce - SLC https://nowplayingutah.com/event/bryce-canyon-geologyfestival-2025/
Layton FEST 2025
July 18 - Aug. 8 Time: 5:30pm Location: 437 N Wasatch Dr - Layton https://nowplayingutah.com/event/layton-fest-2025/
2025 Ogden Arts Festival
July 19 - 20 Time: 12pm-9pm Location: 2501 Wall Avenue - Ogden https://ogdendowntown.com/ogdenartsfestival/
Kamas Valley Fiesta Days & Rodeo 2025
July 19 - 26 Time: 8am Location: - Kamas https://nowplayingutah.com/event/kamas-valley-fiestadays-rodeo-2025/
July 19 Time: 6pm Location: 67 S 470 E - Orem https://www.facebook.com/events/811499333860488/ July 22-26 Time: 8pm Location: Days of 47 Arena - SLC https://utahdaysof47rodeo.com/
2025 Butlerville Days
July 24 - 26 Time: 9am Location: 7500 South 2700 East - Cottonwood Heights https://nowplayingutah.com/event/2025-butlerville-days/
2025 Wasatch County Fair Days, Rodeo and Demolition Derby
July 24 - Aug 2 Time: 9am Location: 415 Southfield Rd - Heber City https://nowplayingutah.com/event/2025-wasatch-countyfair-days-and-demolition-derby/
Layton's Pioneer Day - Electric Light Parade 2025
July 24 Time: 10pm Location: 437 N Wasatch Dr - Layton https://nowplayingutah.com/event/laytons-pioneer-dayelectric-light-parade-2025/
Ogden Pioneer Days Grand Parade 2025 July 24 Time: 9am-12pm Location: 31st Street to 20th Street - Ogden http://ogdenpioneerdays.com/
2025 Bountiful Handcart Days
July 25 - 26 Time: 5pm-9:30pm Location: 200 W 400 N - Bountiful https://nowplayingutah.com/event/2025-bountifulhandcart-days/
2025 Morgan County Fair and Rodeo
July 26 - Aug. 2 Time: 9am Location: 750 E Como Springs Road - Morgan https://nowplayingutah.com/event/2025-morgan-countyfair-and-rodeo/
Lindon Days 2025
July 27 - Aug. 2 Time: 8am Location: 400 N 800 W - Lindon https://nowplayingutah.com/event/lindon-days-2025/
2025 Utah County Fair
July 30 - Aug. 2 Time: 6pm-10pm Location: 475 S Main Street - Spanish Fork https://nowplayingutah.com/event/2025-utah-county-fair/
World Folkfest 2025
July 30 - Aug. 2 Time: 5:30pm-10:30pm Location: 700 South 1300 East - Springville https://nowplayingutah.com/event/world-folkfest-2025/
2025 Tooele County Fair
July 31 - Aug. 2 Time: 9am Location: 2930 W Highway 112 - Tooele https://nowplayingutah.com/event/2025-tooele-county-fair/
2025 Kimball Arts Festival
Aug. 1 - 3 Time: 5pm-9pm Location: 1251 Kearns Blvd - Park City https://kimballartcenter.org/exhibition/kimball-arts-festival/
2025 Summit County Fair and Rodeo
Aug. 2 - 8 Time: 9am Location: 202 East Park Road - Coalville https://nowplayingutah.com/event/2025-summit-countyfair-and-rodeo/
6th Annual Indian Food Fair 2025
Aug. 2 Time: 11am Location: 900 South 700 East - SLC https://nowplayingutah.com/event/6th-annual-indianfood-fair-2025/
Rockstock Music Festival 2025
Aug. 2 Time: 4pm-10pm Location: 77 W 1300 S - SLC https://nowplayingutah.com/event/rockstock-musicfestival-2025/
2025 Weber County Fair and Rodeo Aug. 6 - 8 Time: 12pm-10pm Location: 1000 North 1200 West - Ogden https://www.webercountyfair.org/
Luau Run Half Marathon, 10K, 5K
Aug. 7 Time: 5pm Location: 151 South 1100 West - Farmington https://nowplayingutah.com/event/luau-run-halfmarathon-10k-5k/
The 17th Annual Craft Lake City DIY Festival
Aug. 8-10 Location: 155 North 1000 West - SLC https://www.24tix.com/events/qj3qd5fkfbad7eyln3qeaovuja
*Events and details are subject to change. Please visit the event websites for the most up to date and correct information.
28 DESERET NEWS | JULY 2025
RETIREMENT i n 2025 LIVING YOUR BEST LIFE!
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