OCR Text |
Show o SeuHt Ceafoat Utoli Supplement To: Gunnison Valley News - The Salina Sun Garfield County News - The Richfield Reaper VOLUME 3 WEDNESDAY, NUMBER APRIL 14 7, 1982 Southern Utah Country Inspired Video Career By Nancy Bales Spotlight Writer Like so many artistic people, John Rasmussen of News West in Salt Lake Death begins when the City says creative process ends. fascination with the vivid colors, varied terrain, and unusual life styles of Southern Utah has helped to shape the career of video specialist Rasmussen. A Since he was five years old, he knew that he wanted to be associated in some way with the communications media and his natural propensity toward the speech and writing fields as he grew older simply gave impetus to his childhood dream. Born and reared in Salt Lake City, Rasmussen became a TV junkie after his folks bought a black and white television set in 1949. training was as a television journalist. He received his degree as a broadcast journalist from the University of Utah in 1966 and worked as a television reporter with KCPX and with Channel 4 KTVX. His early professional John Rasmussen, right, takes video tape of snowmobilers in Garfield County as part of current film he is making of area. Rasmussen uses scenic Southern Utah area for much of his work. . Engines are 'Patients' For This Highly Rated Airplane Mechanic licensed student to graduate from Dixie By Loren Webb College in 1967. He also began working for Skywest Airlines, and later Writer Spotlight graduated from University of Utah in As the only aircraft mechanic in 1969 with an aeronautic technology central Utah with an aircraft power-plan- t degree. rating and an authorized inEven before the Air Force, Hulet, as spectors rating, Ken Hulet keeps busy a kid at Cedar City airport began servicing planes at Richfield City fueling airplanes for his boss, Art Airport. Wells. After graduation from the U, he Hulet has always had a love of air- began working again for Cedar City planes and likes the satisfaction of Airport, although he would still fly from working on engines and putting them his home in St. George to work. While at Cedar City, he noticed most back together again. Hes done 50 of his maintenance work came from major engine overhauls without one Richfield, Delta and Hanksville. engine failure, he states. Because Richfield was centrally Hulet who has a lease with Richfield located, he sold his home in St. George, City for his hangar, has been at the brought a tool box and his family with airport four years and averages a 12 him and opened shop at Richfield work week maintaining hour, five-da- y Airport. He nearly froze in the process some 115 airplanes every year. as the old existing hangar, had no heat. Prior to coming to Richfield, Hulet spent four years in the U.S. Air Force doing aircraft structural repair. He then moved to St. George where he became the first air frame engine repair and air frame and power plant Acquiring funds, Hulet finally had a now does complete engine overhauls along with minor and major maintenance. hangar built for him. Hulet Having all the ratings he can get as an A & P license, means he can service airplanes, jets, and helicopters. He also has a private pilots license. He remembers the license board giving him the license, then taking it way, then repeating the process, before finally allowing him to keep it, because of a condition in one eye. He has never had an accident to date. A love of airplanes runs in the family, Rowena, his wife, also has a pilots license and is the second woman pilot to get it at the Richfield Airport. Out of 16 people taking ground school, four passed, but she was the only one to pass the flying portion in November of 19R1 While Hulet was in the Air Force, he served in Vietnam. During those years, F4C he serviced Fl05s, Phantoms, Douglas and C5A Lockheeds. He was one of 17 people to recieve an Air Force Commendation Medal. Today, Hulet is content to work on passenger planes with the part-tim- e assistance of senior high school student Tim Olsen, with him for one and a half years. Salina Auction Early in his career he wrote many articles and a couple of books, but never really considered journalism as truly being the field in which he would ultimately find the satisfaction he was seeking. he says, were to satisfy the primarily requiremnts of his degree and he couldnt seem to generate the feel for writing. His writing classes, taken While working as a television journalist, he shot his own film, not uncommon at that time. He always had an almost uncanny ability to envision the total scope of a piece characters, sounds, words, emotions and script. Valley-Escalant- Dr. Kazan had as his patients many of the Indian population of the area he and Rasmussen met while Rasmussen" was documenting the dian story on film. In- It was during this time that he flew over the Paria wilderness area, later discovering its intimate and personal beauty in detail when he, Kazan and several others set out on foot from Lees Ferry to learn first hand about what had fascinated them from the air. When Kazan was later killed in a plane crash, it was Rasmussen who filmed the story of rural health care for national news coverage, a tribute to his friend who had been the only physician at the time serving the vast rural area with the medical needs of its Indian people. In St. George, Rasmussen worked with Paul Cox who operates helicopter scenic flight service at Rubys Inn near Bryce Canyon during the height of the summer tourist season. Rasmussen and Cox collaborated on the film promotion for the St. George Hilton and the following summer Rasmussen visited Cox at Rubys Inn. While he was showing Cox his latest video work, members of the Syrett family who own the resort became interested. The Syretts, whose family project, Rubys Inn, has been in the family prior to the establishment of Bryce Canyon National Park which it adjoins, asked free-lanc- Over the past three decades, federal aid has provided a substantial and growing share of state and local revenue. In Utah, for example, total federal aid for all purposes multiplied 42 times from only $14 million in 1950 to $593 million in 1981. Throughout the nation, federal aid amounted to $94.8 billion last year. The Salina Auction is now the largest livestock auction in the Intermountain West, according to C. Booth Wallentine, executive vice president of Utah Farm Bureau Federation. recent study by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget concluded that statutory requirements and red tape make the current federal grant system almost impossible to administer." It notes that a typical grant program imposes from 300 to 500 separate requirements and mandates on state and local governments as a condition for receipt of funds. It cites the child nutrition programs which involve 272 pages of federal regulations of and 38 million burden hours paperwork each year. A Wallentine is also the chief administrator of Salina Marketing Service, Inc. The board of directors of the marketing service recently inspected the auction facilities in Salina. The inspection was made in connection with the annual stockholders meeting of the company. During the meeting, stockholders were told that the Salina auction has become the largest auction in the Intermountain west. Wallentine said more than 85,000 animals were sold at the auction in 1981, making that year the biggest in the companys history. The auction is owned by Salina Marketing which is an affiliate of the Utah Farm Bureau. It is operated under contract by the Producers Livestock Marketing Association. Because of these and other problems, the Reagan Administration is calling New Federalism for a program, which, among other things, would involve a dismantling of many federal aid programs. Under the proposal, a total of 125 grants involving 44 different programs would be turned back to the states, In return, the federal government would earmark certain federal excise taxes to a special trust fund that would be allotted to the states during a four-yea- r transition period Beginning in 1988, the states would be completely responsible for these turnback programs. (1984-1987- airplane engines has always been a a source of satisfaction for Ken Hulet, and challenge Working on based at Richfield Airport. Hulet has an aircraii powerplant rating and authorized inspector's rating. Rasmussen to prepare a video promotion for them. They wanted people to be able to see what Bryce Canyon and Rubys Inn could offer the tourist and how Rubys Inn had been involved with the history of the exquisitely scenic national park since the days of dirt roads, horses and buggies, and overnight accomodations in tents. Rasmussen prepared the video film help from the Syrett family, showing the history of the park and the famous inn which attracts tourists form all over the world. with He has since added to his original tape and will soon include cross country skiing and snowmobiling as winter attractions and square dancing and the rodeo which have been added to the summer attractions at the inn. Rubys Inns new restaurant, scheduled to open soon, will also be included in the new footage, making the completed film about an hour long. Each year for Rasmussen has held annually in video specialists best works. the past three years entered a video show Salt Lake City where compete with .their In his first year of competition, Rasmussen took top honors in industrial video tape competition when he entered a program on fertilizer, a tape he had developed for a client. His approach was totally new on what might have been a dull and uninteresting subject. His second year he entered his (Continued on Page 8) Utah Fares Poorly in Federal Education Aid It wasnt until 1969 that he shot his e film Bullfrog on first 16 mm Lake Powell for a group of Salt Lake City investors. The investors owned the piece and it was shot as a promotional Utah does not fare well in federal aid work to attract people to the newly developing tourist attractions at allocations for education, despite the Bullfrog Marina on growing Lake fact that Utah has one of the largest school loads in the nation. This fact was Powell. disclosed in a report of changing patLake Powell was just the beginning terns in federal aid prepared by Utah for Rasmussen who really began to look the private research Foundation, at Southern Utah with his trained arorganization. tists eyes. A pilot since 1968, he began to take every opportunity he could to According to the study, Utah see more of the vast unfamiliar areas of received only 0.18 percent of the federal aid allocated for elementary and Southern Utah. secondary education last year, even He soon became familiar with the though it has 0.80 percent of the nations Indians on the reservations in the area public school enrollment. The bulk of and concerned with their plight. He such federal aid is allotted to the big became a fast friend of the late Dr. population states with large numbers in Ivan Kazan, a physician and a pilot who the poverty class rather than on a financing capability equalization basis. Many of the states receiving these funds have high per capita incomes. Largest in Western Region Bruce Nielson, manager of the auction, reported several improvements to the auction. He cited new lighting systems for the corrals, a resurfaced parking area and extensive work on the corrals. served the people of the sparsely set e in tied areas of Bryce Garfield County and the areas between there and Page, Arizona. ). Foundation analysts point out that if the New Federalism proposal materializes, it would represent a sharp turnabout from the trends of the past three decades. State and local units would be presented with new challenges, but they also would be given a new opportunity to forge their own destinies. Under the proposal, federal goals would be limited to those problems having a clear national interest, while most domestic matters would be tailored to local conditions at' state or local discretion. In analyzing whether federal aid is a good deal for Utah, the Foundation report acknowledges that the state still gets back more in federal aid than it pays in federal taxes to support these aid programs. However, it questions whether this represents an overall gain to the state for the following reasons: 1. Administrative costs would reduce and might eliminate any monetary advantage that Utah would have in federal aid allocations. 2. of Because compliance requirements, projects undertaken federal funds often are more expensive than those completed with state or local funds. with evidenced by the above-cite- d for education, many of the grants newer grant programs have cost Utah more in added taxes than it receives back in federal aid. 3. As 4. Some projects are undertaken merely because federal funds are available. 5. Federal aid violates the doctrine that the government which spends public monies should be responsible for imposing and collecting the required revenues. 6. Federal decision-makin- aid takes essential responsibility away from the local level and leads to centralization of direction, supervision, and control, thereby creating a vast, unwieldy, and expensive central g bureaucracy. 7. Because of the magnitude and system, complexity of the grant-in-aionly the largest state and local units have had the resouces to keep abreast of the programs from which they might benefit. d |