OCR Text |
Show Citizen - Wednesday, March 2, 1988 - Page 2 Laundry proposal has long-term impact for The government groups supporting the proposal to have Utah State Prison inmate take over the operation of the Utah State Training School laundry have done their best to answer most of the short-term questions surrounding the change. Utah Corrections Industries can operate the laundry for less than the training school, thanks to the use of cheap, captive labor. And UCI is going out of its way to resolve the security concerns of the American Fork community, with plans for a protective fence around the laundry, keeping inmates in-mates in and training school residents and employees out. In fact, the security measures probably are greater than will be needed for the type of prisoner who will be allowed to work at the laundry. Training School officials say they are working with the state to make sure all of those displaced in the transfer are offered a job at comparable wages And UCI has said it has no interest in taking over Jazz game Here's a riddle. What would you rather do? Take nine giggly little girls to a National Basketball Association game in the Salt Palace, or sit through three consecutive showings of the Ice Capades. I guess it all depends on whether you like your torture in one big dose, or long and drawn out. Once a year, lucky basketball coaches of the shortest players ever to grace a court (those on city-sponsored city-sponsored Jr. Jazz leagues) get to take the members of their diminutive teams to watch the Utah Jazz take on some worthy opponent. The opponents must be worthy, because in the three years I've participated in the exercise in extreme ex-treme patience, the Jazz have ended up on the1 short end of the score every time. But the action is exciting, with my players darting through the crowds, making rebounds to the concession stand, foul shots with crumpled candy bar wrappers, and fast breaks for the rest room. The pros don't look bad either, as they speed up and down the court. At first I used to worry excessively about what the kids were doing. The Salt Palace is a big place, and I figured it wouldn't take too much for one of these 4'3" centers to get lost in the crowd. I wasn't overly concerned about my own kids, because I had a good supply at home, but I figured some of the parents would become irritated if I showed up one short Trying to save is busting the budget First the dishwasher broke. After that things got difficult. I had determined that 1988 was going to be the year I got a handle on the budget. I had listened faithfully to all the lectures about determining where the money will go before it leaves the bank account. I had heard about the folly of my habit of just tracking its hasty trail. So I was determined. I was going to save and plan ahead and know where every dollar was headed. I made a firm resolution. I would be thrifty. No more of this "throwing the money out the kitchen window with a soup label." I've had a few problems. Starting with the dishwasher. It's a tried-and-true hard-working antique an-tique we bought used from a member of the family 10 years ago. It's had a very hard life so I was not surprised - just dismayed -when it began to dump its load of soapy water on the kitchen floor after every cycle. I tried for a while to believe it was filling with the hot water it needed to wash the dishes well when it wasn't. I tried to ignore the heavy knocking noises it was making when it was supposed to rinsing. But finally I had to admit it was Champ speller wins again By SHARON MORREY She's tenacious and conscientious, not loquacious but ambitious am-bitious . . . and she can spell all of those words. She's Binh Lieu, and for the third year in a row she's headed for the Alpine School District Spelling Bee as a school champion - once representing Greenwood Elementary, this year and last year, representing the American Fork Junior High School. Spelling is something she enjoys, something she's quite good at. The 13-year-old daughter of Tin and Ann Lieu of American Fork, Binh has just won the all around champion title at the Junior High School contest by spelling "outrageously" over her competitors com-petitors on Feb. 23. (Tara Miller came in just behind Binh, for second place all-around and in the 8th grade contest. Julie Aihistnn came in first place for the is relatively exciting the editor's column By MARC HADDOCK player short at the end of this annual excursion into the world of professional sports. But it didn't take long to find out that the players are more afraid of being left behind than the coach is afraid of leaving them. After that, I learned the relax and enjoy the game. After all, that's what this Jazz stuff is all about. The kids go to run around, and leave the coach free to enjoy a professional basketball game. Of course I only coach little girls, so I can't speak for the boys who go on the annual outing. I saw plenty of the young men, decked out in Jr. Jazz uniforms, running up and down the steep Salt Palace stairs. (Considering where our seats tidbits By SHARON MORREY dead. It wasn't going to work again and we shoved it into the corner. (It still makes a great extra countertop for the kid's books and paraphenalia.) I decided since the budget did not reflect a provision for a new dishwasher dish-washer we could all learn to do dishes by hand once more. I was proud of my restraint when ad Winners all. The champion spellers at American Fork Junior High line up: Tara Miller, Binh Lieu, Julie Abiston and Colby Knight. 7th grade and third place all-around. So now Binh gears up for the there, it'll mean a second trip to the Carrie Snell was second and Colby Knight third in the 7th grade Bee. ) other training school operations, since the agency cannot provide adequate security for an inmate operation, dispelling the threat of a take-over of training school jobs by the prison. But long term questions are reason for concern for area residents. The Training School laundry was originally designed to handle the laundry needs of the Utah State Hospital in Provo and the Utah State Prison, as well as the school. While state hospital laundry is currently cleaned at the training school, the prison has continued to handle its own laundry needs. But prison laundry facilities are inadequate and outdated - and UCI has plans to propose handling those laundry needs, as well, at the American Fork facility. All of this is happening as the Training School is coming under greater and greater pressure from national agencies and Utah legislators to cut costs and, more significantly, move residents from the large institution in-stitution into smaller group homes in Utah com were, it was a long, long, long run, up to where the air was thin and nosebleeds were prolific. ) This may have been part of the training regimen thrust on them by demanding coaches, but I doubt it. At last week's game I didn't start to worry about keeping the kids in one place until one of my players, carrying a piece of paper and a pen and hoping for an autograph of a famous basketball star, started moving towards the playing floor as the game entered it closing minutes. By the time I noticed her absence, it was too late to stop her, so I held my position in the cheap seats, keeping the other eight girls with me, scanning the crowd for some sign of my tiny autograph seeker. As the game ended, she returned to the group - more afraid of getting lost than I was of losing her. But she instigated a popular uprising that ended in an excursion to the dressing room door to wait for someone tall to come out and sign a piece of paper. With a handful of others, we waited and waited and waited. There must be a lot of doors out of that dressing room, because Jazz players kept showing up everywhere except where we were waiting. Finally, big Mel Turpin turned up, and my chief autograph seeker followed him to the exit, waiving a piece of paper in his face until he signed it to get rid of her. . I was ready to go, but was quickly outvoted. "Just a few more minutes," they mittedly my first instinct was so run right out and buy the nearest working model. I figured I could wait one, even two paychecks if I had to. I figured this was test. But then - the flat tire happened to the car, (something I've already written about but something that needs a postscript.) When I went in to pick up the repaired tire I was informed that the nails that flattened flat-tened the tire had penetrated the steel belt and ruined it. It would be $49.95 for a new tire just like the one I'd brought in. Okay, I had budgeted a $50 reserve amount for the unexpected. I could buy the tire and still meet my budget terms if I was careful. That's when I came home to water on the kitchen floor once more. This time the dishwasher was innocent. The water seemed to be coming from under the sink so I reached underneath and felt the drainpipe for a leaky place. The metal crumpled beneath my fingers and I knew we were now going to buy a new drainpipe and the attendant washers and matching parts. Another $19.95. Oh well. That prepared me somewhat for the broken toilet - District Bee on March 17, where she won last year. If she's successful begged. So we waited. Nobody came. At least, nobody famous. One young woman came in from outside carrying an immense pair of basketball shoes and beaming. "Thurl Bailey just gave me his shoes!" she told her friend, holding up the canvas canoes with Thurl's name handwritten on the side. Finally, I gave up and informed the group that our wait was over and we needed to get home. After all, third, fourth and fifth-graders need their sleep. We headed for the exit, and stepped out into the night air to find Thurl Bailey still there, signing autographs for any and all takers. The almost seven-foot player was quickly surrounded by nine 3'5" girls, all clamoring for a signature. Little Tara Bailey came over to me, clutching her autograph - a scribble on a pink piece of paper. She looked at the autograph, then at me, then at the autograph again, trying to decipher the name. She is just learning to write in cursive. Finally she asked, "What's his name?" "Thurl Bailey," I told her. She looked at the autograph again, then stared at the tall, black athlete who is a candidate for the best sixth man in pro basketball. And she looked back at me: ' ' "' "Do you think we're related?" she asked hopefully. "I doubt it, Tara. I really doubt it." $14.95 for a new chain and plug set -and for the new car battery - $39.95 plus tax. I wasn't even all that surprised a little later to discover my cupcakes were burnt on the surface and raw on the bottom. It just meant the lower oven coil had burned out and would have to be replaced. The bill from the last time we did that I remembered as being $60. My kids can't believe our rotten luck lately. I am starting to get up in the morning dubiously anxious to see what's going to break down next. I've told them to enjoy washing those dishes because at this rate the arrival of a new dishwasher is a lot of paychecks away. I sat down with the budget just today and slashed around, cutting unnecessary luxuries like food and toothpaste and laundry soap. I don't see any profit in getting all upset because it can't get much worse and I can at least say I tried if I do not succeed with this budget business. And I probably have learned something valuable here from the whole experience. I don't think I'll trying saving again until I can afford it. state contest. "Hike to spell," she says. munities. In other words, just as the government is trying to phase out the training school, the prison is taking over the school's laundry, leaving the community with the prospect of an otherwise empty training school campus with an active minimum security prison facility in the middle of the community. It may be some years before we see this. It may never happen. But once the prison laundry facility is firmly in place in north Utah County, there is a good chance it will be here to stay. Is that in the community's best interests? That's a question that needs to be determined now. The move to inmate labor to handle the laundry needs looks good on paper to the people who handle the state's money because it cuts costs and employs an available resource. But that doesn't mean it should look good to north Utah County residents. And if we are going to register our complaints, we'd better do it now. We learn it all in kindergarten Every once in awhile a bit of wisdom comes to me in one form or another. In this world of so many distractions, this bit of wisdom seems so real it is titled, "All I ever really needed to know, I learned in kindergarten." Author unknown. Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school. These are the things I learned. Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt someone. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some, draw and paint, sing and dance, and play and work some every day. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup. ..they all die. So do we. And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all. LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The golden rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living. Think of what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then PTA council names reflections winners The American Fork PTA Council has announced the winners of the city-wide Reflections Contest In the art competition, first places went to: Jeremiah Simpson, Highland; Tim Barnes, Shelley; Mike Hansen, American Fork High; and Heather Ferrell, AF High. For music, Amy Greenwood, Barratt; Sammie Robertson, Highland, Rachel Roberts, Forbes; and Beverli Christensen, AF High, received first place. Cody Jones, Alpine; Shane Ogden, AF High, Carrie Heiner, AF Junior High; Sallie Pace, Alpine; and Jared Curtis, Alpine won first place in photography competition. In literature, Chad Armistead, Alpine; Natalie Greenwood, Barratt; David Bell, Barratt; Tara Johnson, Barratt; Karen Brady, AF High; Amy Greenwood, Barratt; and Mary Greenwood, Greenwood, were awarded first place. Michelle Olsen, AF Junior High, and Paige Trinnaman, AF High School both went to the regional competition as alternates. Each of the 165 students who entered the city competition received gifts from Hart's, McDonald's, Mc-Donald's, Sunrise Video, Coop d' Fun, and Jack and Jill Bowling. : Rabies clinic to repeat on March 12 Because of low response to the recent rabies clinic, another clinic will be held on Saturday, March 12, betwween 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the front of the Public Safety Building in American Fork. The clinic is a joint effort of the American Fork Police Department and Dr. Donald Roper, DVM. area browsinq lay down with our blankets for a '. nap. Or if we had a basic policy, in our nation and other nations to . always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own ' messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into '. this world, it is best to hold hands and stick together. Oh, for the wisdom of youth. It is too bad that as we grow older we lose this God-given wisdom. In the March issue of the Reader's Digest there is an article titled, "Two Truths to Live By." In concluding it says, don't spend and waste your lives accumulating objects that will only turn to dust and ashes. It continues - add love to a house and you have a home. Add righteousness to a city and you have a community. Add truth to a pile of red brick and you have a school. Add religion to the humblest of eauices ana you nave a sanctuary. Add justice to tne tar-tiung round oi human endeavor and you have ' civilization. There is more, Dut l inimc l snau take my blanket and have a nap. The winners also received gifts from Sherwood Office Supply, Coast to Coast, Timp Floral, Allen's Tuxedo, American Fork Bakery, American Fork Hospital, Durfey Cleaners, Gene Harvey. Little Caesar's, Allen's Super Save, Fakler Tire, Bank of American Fork, Smith's, Ream's, Sprouse-Reitz, IFA, Deseret Bank, Patty's Flowers, and Noall Wootton. Entries in the photography or art fields on the city level are being displayed at the American Fork Hospital, Bank of American Fork, Gene Harvey, Sherwood Office Supply, McDonald's, Bromley's, and Deseret Bank. The entrants were greeted by Dr. Spencer, of the Alpine School District, Ron Rasmussen, Alpine Mayor; Larry Miller, Highland Mayor; and R. Kent Evans, American Fork Mayor. The PTA wishes to thanks President Diane Hunsaker, Clarnell Harper, individual development commissioner, Bill Kirkpatrick, Kathryn Heiner, Bonnie Armistead, Carol Oertli, Sue Ann Call, Lana Jardine, Laurie Sowby, Karen Conder, Evelyn Christensen, and all who served to make the Reflections contest a success. Rabies shots will be given for $7 per animal, and dog licenses will be available. Dog owners will not be obligated to purchase a dog license at this time, but as the license is a county license, it is not limited to pet owners in American Fork. |