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Show Thursday, March 22, 2007 Page 2 AMERICAN FORK CITIZEN Ljj m aaSh uiaaa NEWS AND NOTES OUP museum floods, damage avoidei Barbara Christiansen Things could have boon much worse when water flooded the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Relic Hall in American Ameri-can I ork's Robinson ftirk Representatives of the DUP made an unexpected stop in the building March 12 and found water on about half of the floor, threatening to flood the whole building. W hen they entered the building, build-ing, they could hear water running run-ning in the bathroom, Karen Adams, president of the Utah 1 imp Valley Company, said. They shut off some valves to stop the flow, then called the city, which shut down the main water connection. With the help of some city crew memlxrs, they moved the cases with artifacts to the other end of the building. They called a restoration company, owned by Adams's nephew and his wife. They pulled the carpet back and discarded the padding. The carpet on that portion of the building has ixt-n rest retched. They turned Help needed The DUP has some grant money to help maintain artifacts. The money will be used toward the repairs. They are also seeking donations dona-tions both of time and money from anyone who would like to help restore the building. They are looking for help to move the artifacts back to their correct positions. posi-tions. Anyone interested may call Karen Adams at 746-3724 746-3724 or e-mail her at upnadams "5 afconnect.com. Honk Continued from Page I story that celebrates the ugly duckling in all of us," she said. " 'Honk! Junior' follows Ugly, whose odd, gawky looks instantly in-stantly incite prejudice from his family and neighbors. Separated from the farm and pursued by a hungry Cat, Ugly must find his way home, with only his loving mother, Ida, searching for him. Along his barrow ing yet hilarious journey jour-ney he not only discovers his true beauty, but also finds love and acceptance. This show is filled with energetic and iaspi-rational iaspi-rational music and is perfect NorthCounty NEWSPAPERS 399 E. State St. Pleasant Grove Marc Haddock 443 3268 North County Editor mhaddockheraldextra.com Cathy Allred 443 3262 Lehi, Saratoga Springs, PI. Grove callred heraldext ra . com Barbara Christiansen 443 3264 American Fork, Alpine, Cedar Hills bchristiansen heraldexlra.com Mike Rigert 443 3265 Orem, Vineyard mrigertheraldexlra.com Beky Beaton 443 3267 Sports bbeatonheraldextra.com Lane Dubois 756 7669 Advertising Account Executive lduboisheraldextra com Volume 134 Afnprai Fort OwoiCWv Herald tdmor USPSa-880awwnewstwwputtfl399E State St , Ptaasant Grtive Utah MOW Pnnndrat- Postage Part at Peasant Grove Utah B406? and additional mangnHrR PuiUiflw . Sand adrtrms rhanqn!, tri the Amancari fort Ciwwi PO Bo 7 Amancan Fort. Ut 84003 000? PuhWwd Thursdays hv le . Audrt Bureau or Circulations TO KEEP YOU the display cases on edge to allow al-low the bottom portion to dry. They did not anticipate lasting damage. "Fortunately nothing was ruined," Dan Adams, Karen's husband, said. "If we hadn't come that day it may have been another several weeks. Things would have been a lot different." "We are very grateful we found it when we did," Karen Adams said. She explained how they worked to preserve the artifacts and lessen the damage. "We had to shift everything," every-thing," she said. "We rolled back the carpet. They brought in fans and a dehumidifier." NolxKly had been in the building since midl'ebruary. Adams said she guessed the water leak had been caused by the cold temperatures since then. She said the furnace in the building was nearly 50 years old and was no longer working. work-ing. The lack of heating, plus the wind from a certain direction direc-tion may have caused pipes to break, she said. One of the things that came about as a result of the fkxxj-ing fkxxj-ing is that the UUP members found out about the ownership of the building. "We had assumed that the city owned the building and the UUP owned the artifacts," said Uan Adams. Research found otherwise, however. City officials gave the UUP a lease for the ground under the museum, approximately 18 by 25 feet, on a 99-year lease for a total of $1. It expires June 30, 2056. Through sales of baked goods, fruits, vegetables, a quilt, rugs and greeting cards, the UUP raised funds to con- 'Honk' cast Lead characters: Ugly - Ben Wright Ida Emily Vance Bullfrog - Will Best Cat - Maryn McCombie Maureen Courtney Webber Drake Brett Anderson Greylag Josh Carson Dot - Brianna Bartlett for families." The students signed up for a workshop in September. Through December they worked on learning theater Phone:756-7669 Fax:756-5274 DAILY HERALD PUBLISHING CO. mux: Jennette Esplin 756 7669 Office Manager Erin Stewart 344 2558 Project Coordinator, DesignerCopy Editor Julia Fullmer 344-2570 DesignerCopy Editor Jeremy Harmon 344-2585 Photographer Issue 63 PuMcatmns wheh 6 a dMson of Lee Enterprises. Inc mm INFORMED AND v- - f t AW T Karen Adams inspects some of the artifacts at the Daughters of American Fork's Robinson Park. struct the building. "Work toward a Relic Hall might never have been revived had it not been for the deep concern of Myrtle Robinson Seastrand, who never missed an opportunity to talk about the need for preserving the fast -disappearing pioneer relics," rel-ics," according to a history of the Relic Hall, written by Relva Boothe Ross. The group held groundbreaking ground-breaking ceremonies July 12, 1956. COMMUNITY NOTES I Contributions sought for statue Members of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, the American Fork Arts Council Coun-cil and the American Fork His The rest of the cast includes Alissa Alger, Jackson Anderson, Ander-son, Geneve Ashworth, Alissa Beveridge, Abby Cragun, Portia Densley, Chantel England, Bailey Filoso, Laura Fishburn, Kaitlyn Guiver, Megan Fratcher, Sydney Johnson, Katie Larson, Rebecca Larson, Eliza McGill, Emily Neill, Sarah Norton, Dianna Olsen, Gabbie Pelzer, Kara Rhodes, Brandon Root-saert, Root-saert, Lindsey Schmidt, Ashley skills including singing, dancing and acting. They also learned how to participate in an audition. "Everyone who was in the It's time for countywide library It was surprising to read in the newspaper over the weekend that one of our county commissioners is only now discovering that there is a real and growing demand for a countywide library system. This is not this commissioner's commis-sioner's first time in office. He served six years in the county in the 1980s, when various people were agitating for greater county involvement in combining combin-ing the library resources of the various communities into a countywide system. The idea was bandied about, but never really caught on. v In fact, county government has limited its library concerns to the Bookmobile, Book-mobile, which it first operated in 1975 out of a storefront in Spanish Fork and now maintains out of the Mapleton library. Now, somehow, this issue has resurfaced, and with enough energy to make something happen. I'd had some experience with the county library system in Emery County and Salt Lake County before moving to Utah County in the late 1970s. In Emery County, as in most of the state's rural counties, a coui.tywide system was a crucial element to providing library service to the community. Residents of the county all paid a portion of their property taxes into a county-wide county-wide library fund. That money was used to establish es-tablish libraries in several of the small communities communi-ties that made up the county system. Everyone in the county could use all of the libraries, and the county helped fund the Bookmobile as well. The libraries were small, and collections were limited, but everyone on the far-flung county, from Emery to Elmo, and from Orangeville to Green River, had ready access to a library. When I lived in Kearns, the Salt Lake County library system was something else altogether. These libraries were also funded by a uniform property tax levy on all county residents. Here the combined taxing power helped finance several sev-eral well-stocked libraries for the much larger population. Celia Tomlin, who was American Fork's library director when I moved to the city in 1982, thought It was a shame that Utah County residents lived in one of the few counties in Utah without a unified library system, and the INVOLVED ".;; '...v-srt I; .I. ,V toric Preservation Commission are in the process of sending letters to descendants of the city's early pioneers. In those letters, they tell about plans to place a bronze statue to celebrate the work of early pioneers. It will be on the site of the old fort wall, on a pedestal which used to display the bell which has been relocated atop the renovated City Hall. The sculpture represents a pioneer family building their portion of the fort waff. It will be created by Jason Millward and will be a half -size depiction. depic-tion. It is expected to cost $25,000. I Planners consider Sugar Mill Estates subdivision On March 7, the Planning and Schroader, Camille Thomas, Ka-mryn Ka-mryn Welling, Madison Welling and Spencer Wright. Young students portray frog-lets. frog-lets. They are Zack Elzey, An-nika An-nika Esplin, Grace Gam, Lindsey Hatch, Emily Herzog, Jenetta Larson, Heather Neill, Sam Neill, Abbey Schroader, Ellie Shelton, Emma Shelton and Savannah Stauffer. workshop is cast," Noziska said. "It is not an exclusionary thing." She also complimented the youth. Marc Haddock THE EDITOR'S COLUMN V; I LP BARBARA CHRISTIANSENNorth County Utah Pioneers relic hall in Zoning Commission tabled action ac-tion on the subdivision, with 22 lots, in the area of 350 South and 1400 West. Among the issues listed as needing further consideration consider-ation were sewer access and the width of the street which would provide access to the subdivision. The planners held a public hearing to gather opinion about the possible development. develop-ment. Cassie AUred, the owner of the property to the east, south and north of the project voiced concerns including the Agricultural Protection zone, wetlands, reports of a sink hole, traffic patterns and the possibility of difficulty in getting get-ting farm equipment onto the road. "This is a great group of kids," she said. "They are fun to be around. "They are high energy. That is a good thing. You want them to be excited and animated." The benefits of a youth theater the-ater experience go to more than the young people, Arts Council director Lori England said. "It is community building," she said. Director Steve Aaron said it differently. "It is going to rock," he said of this year's play. "The kids have worked really hard. It is very much to their credit that this show is as awesome as it will be." 1980s seemed like a good time to get one started. I agreed, and wrote several editorials edito-rials on the subject. I dont know if anyone ever read a one of them, but I kept writing anyway. When Celia left the library in 1986, Julie Farnsworth became the city's new library director. Julie was young and dynamic and sparked some interest in a unified county system in her two years in American Fork. When she moved on eventually to take the head job at Provo's library, there was some real hope that something would change. Here was someone with passion and enthusiasm who was being placed in an ideal position to perhaps make a difference. But nothing happened. No one, it seemed, could overcome the two great roadblocks to unifying library service in Utah County concern by a community for protecting a library conection gathered at city expense from use by people who didn't live in the city, and the inability of the Utah County Commission to address the issue with any kind of a leadership role. In the intervening 20 years, the issue has lost ground, as Orem and Provo have invested even more in some spectacular buildings and impressive impres-sive collections. At the same time, the County Commission's contribution to the debate has been to cut back Bookmobile service year after year. Until now. Now, our growing north Utah County population popula-tion views a library as an integral part of trie community, and expects th?t service to be available avail-able to everyone and many are disappointed to find that this kind of access simply doesnt exist. ex-ist. Now, the directors of the four north county libraries American Fork, Pleasant Grove, Lehi and Eagle Mountain have crafted an agreement that is paving the way for a north Utah County library system based on the principle prin-ciple of access for everyone. And now our county commissioner tells us that a countywide library system is a priority, one that is long past due. It's about time. 560 West Continued from Page I open there have to be two that are closed," he said. "That offer has never been put forward by the city or developer." City officials have studied options for the closures for several years. Under Mayor Ted Barratt's administration, the council determined one closure would be feasible near 500 East, but they did not select se-lect another crossing to close. J. H. Hadfield of the city's engineering department told the planners that 13 private crossings had been closed in recent years and that could have an effect on the ratio. Current mayor Heber Thompson said the issue would be studied as the city makes plans for the coming year. "We look at it in terms of establishing priorities as we do our budgeting in the next couple of weeks," he said. "We will look at traffic planning, plan-ning, funding and impact fees." On the north side of the tracks at 560 West, there is a park often used for soccer. "They need access to the south so they can get out that way and go home," Wof-f Wof-f inden said of the soccer patrons. pa-trons. "It is a bottleneck." Woffinden said the city has long planned on opening the crossing. "It lias been on the plans for 20 years or better," he said. Mike Seely, who used to be the railroad engineer for UDOT, explained the department's depart-ment's reasoning for asking for closures. "We have to balance safety and mobility," he said. "You have got to be able to get around." Seely said he was helping with the transition transi-tion for his replacement, reviewing re-viewing plans and providing past history to him. Seely said the state policy of closing crossings to open another was based on a federal fed-eral initiative, but each case was reviewed individually. "Two for one is a starting point," he said. Siblings Continued from Page I sometimes finish each other's sentences. "I think we can all do all of it," Chapman said. "But we have our specialties," special-ties," Higley added. She explained how they got involved. "Andrea is the first one who started doing plays," she said. "I did a couple, then I started choreographing. There were never enough guys in the plays. We were doing 'Robin Hood' and there were no men to play the Merry Men. I got my two brothers." Aaron explained ex-plained his position. "I had always determined theater was for the girls," he said. "I couldnt sing or dance. In high school Melissa was on a drama tour to New York. They needed more guys so I decided to go. On the trip I got to know the drama teacher, Agnes Bro-berg. Bro-berg. Then I decided maybe I would try a play the next year. In 'Oklahoma' I was farmer number 3." Chapman said her start was earlier. "I have been singing my whole life," she said. "Music is a giant part of who I am. I grew up playing the piano. I write and sing music. I have been doing musical direction for about six years." Higley, the mother of 7-week-old baby Josie, said she danced through her pregnancy. preg-nancy. "It kept me healthy," she said. "I want to get back into performing." She told about her start with dancing. "Our mom put me in dance class because I couldnt hold still for the piano," she said. Higley was working with the Pleasant Grove Youth theater when she met Judy Noziska, who directs American Ameri-can Fork's program. "Last summer when she was starting up, she tracked me down and said she was starting a group and wanted to work with me," she said. Since Noziska was looking for other staff members, Higley's siblings got referrals and quickly became involved. Aaron said working with the kids was stfisfying. "I love for them to learn to love some of the things that I love," he said. "Largely for me it is like seeing them get jokes ami know hew to play a joke. They bring a freshness to it." . i FGOPv |