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Show A7 Vernal Express Arts Works grants will provide new teachers for Uintah schools r r" Wednesday, July 23, 2008 V t i By ViAftgj Prestwich Uintah Basin News Service ' Nextschoolyearstudentsmay be learning the parts of speech through dance. This unique lesson les-son will occur in three Uintah County elementary schools. Yet another school in the Uintah District will use visual arts more heavily in the classrooms. Ashley Elementary, Davis Elementary, and Eagle View Elementary schools all received arts monies and have decided to use these funds to incorporate dance instruction into their curricula. Maeser Elementary School will hire a visual arts instructor. These additions have been made possible by the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Elementary Arts Learning Program. The money is made available through a $16 million, four-year initiative which dedicates funding fund-ing to the hiring of school arts specialists to work directly with teachers in the classroom. Schools are required to apply ap-ply for the grant money. Those chosen receive enough funds to pay for an arts teacher, as well as $10,000 per school to help the teacher establish a program. Across the state, grants were given to 50 schools. These schools could use either music, visual arts, drama, or dance in a companion teaching model with classroom teachers. Six of the grants found their way to schools in the Uintah Basin; two went to Duchesne County, and four to Uintah County. Grant recipients were chosen because they had a long-range plan for art forms over five years. The schools were also required to have a history of support for arts education in order to be considered for the money. Every school in Uintah County that applied for the grant received funding. Schools that secured the grants must agree to hire a qualified quali-fied arts specialist, utilize the side-by-side teaching model, and have the arts specialist provide art instruction throughout the school year to all students on a weekly basis. Lynna Kendall who has volunteered volun-teered as the Uintah District arts coordinator for the past seven years is excited to see these new opportunities for students. She plans to add more teachers in the future and hopes that eventually all the elementary schools will have an arts specialist. One plan calls for these teachers teach-ers to trade schools every year. This would allow for students to learn dance one year, visual arts another year, and drama and music the next year. The side-by-side teaching model is designed to equip classroom class-room teachers with the tools necessary nec-essary to continue using various art forms to educate students. Kendall would like to see all students benefit from the exposure expo-sure to the arts in the same way that she benefited. As a child whose father worked in the oil field, Kendall moved often. There was a time when she attended three different schools in one year. Regardless of where she went, however, her mother found her a dance class and later she joined band and drama. "When we moved to a new school, I automatically had a place to go," Kendall explained. "Arts are very inclusive." Using dance to include students stu-dents appears to be an idea that is growing in popularity. Kendall feels that schools use the dance option because dance relates the most to emotional learning. "When we talk about dance we are not really talking about ballet and square dance. We are talking about using your body with energy, space, and time," she said. "Through the arts program, I've watched them do the water cycle on how a seed germinates and grows." Heather Wilson used dance to teach just such lessons. Fifteen years ago she worked at Lincoln Elementary School in Salt Lake City. The school was the pilot to see how side-by-side teaching would work. "It was considered a failing school at the time," Wilson said. "After a year, the teachers saw a marked improvement in how students related to each other and how they handled stress." Seven years ago Wilson moved with her family to Roosevelt. She has continued to teach workshops work-shops and help teachers incorporate incor-porate dance in the classroom. Wilson, who holds a master's degree in fine arts with an emphasis em-phasis in dance education, is convinced that many subjects ' ' " ' :. rV -' ; A mini m i I, I ,.v Elizabeth Hitch UVU selects interim president SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Utah Valley University's vice president for academic affairs will serve as the school's interim president. Elizabeth Hitch was named interim president Thursday by Jed Pitcher, chairman of the state board of regents. Hitch will start her new job Aug. 18. That's when Bill Se-derburg Se-derburg will leave the post to become commissioner of higher education. Hitch has held her current job since July 2007 and has more than 35 years of experience in higher education. can be explained through dance movements. She gives several examples. The 21-year-veteran dance instructor uses dance to clarify parts of speech. She explains to students that nouns are things. The students are instructed to shape their body into a thing. One example might be havingthe body be a ball. Whatever the ball does is the verb. The instructor then explains adjectives. "We might say the ball is flat," Wilson said. "They learn that adjectives describe the noun. They learn adverbs when they describe the movement. The flat ball might roll crazily. Ball is the noun, roll the verb, fiat the adjective and crazily the adverb. It's surprising how well they understand this when they use movement. " Teachers have yet to be hired for the four new positions in Uintah County. Kendall is hoping for qualified applicants, because eventually she'd like to see even more instructors of the fine arts. 5 - '4. : 'i; r v. 4 LABORERS SUPPORT HOUSING, COMMERCIAL GROWTH Edwardo Mesa shows how easy it is to blow in insulation. He works for Barton Insulation and has been kept busy all summer insulating homes and businesses in both remodels and new construction. construc-tion. The fiber is blown in wet so that it will stay in place by itself when one side is exposed. It is blown in dry when being placed behind sheetrock. Utah AG, cable companies fight child porn Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has signed an agreement agree-ment with cable operators to . limit the distribution of child pornography on the Internet. Shurtleff and 36 attorneys general gen-eral announced the agreement between the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), and the National Association As-sociation of Attorneys General (NAAG). "This historic agreement will save children and bring greater protection to millions of homes throughout the United States," said Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. "This is the first effort of its kind in our country and a great step forward in combating this insidious evil." The companies included the agreement offer broadband Internet service to more than 112 million homes - nearly 87 percent of all homes in the U.S. The cable broadband service providers have agreed to use NCMEC's database, da-tabase, which identifies websites containing child pornography. This will ensure that no such site is hosted on cable company servers and will make it easier in Park Service works to remain relevant By Paul Foy Associated Press SNOWBIRD, Utah (AP) - After Af-ter nearly a century of managing some of the most scenic places in the country, the National Park Service is looking for ways to stay relevant in an increasingly diverse America with a diminishing diminish-ing tradition of spending time outdoors. Director Mary Bomar said a two-day conference held last week at Snowbird, was a chance for "my fellow parkies" to reinvent re-invent the parks ahead of the agency's 2016 centennial. Some parks superintendents and a retirees' group criticized the summit as frivolous and ill-timed, coming with the end of the Bush administration just months away. But Bomar said she hasn't heard from a single naysayer among the group of about 350. "They all said to me, 'Boy, this was needed,"' she said. Park superintendents haven't gathered as a single group since 2000 in the waning days of the Clinton administration, she said. Bomar is a political appointee who expects to be replaced with the next administration, but she said most of the career employees under her will remain. Bomar said estimates that the Park Service is spending $1 million mil-lion on travel, rooms and meals for the conference are wrong. She didn't have a firm number, but said the agency took the money from regional conferences that were canceled to spend on the national summit instead. "We needed to come together," Bomar said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm convinced we've done the right thing." The timing is bad because many parks are in their busiest season of theyear, said Bill Wade, the retired superintendent of the Shenandoah National Park. OPTIMUM MORTGAGE, L.L.C. H - Phone: 435.789.7705 ' Conventional , Fax:435-789.7706 V h Purchases (Up to 100) P ; 80 North Vernal Avenue . State Income Loans LJI 1 J Vernal, Utah 84078 . Manufactured Housig 'lrctt Rc no,ds breynoldsoptimumusa.com . f W ,m Peffect Cm, MoaCu0an to report incidents on NCMEC's CyberTipline. NCMEC will also be able to refer these cases to law enforcement for investigation and prosecution. The cable operators, who have agreed to execute the agreement within 30 days, include: Comcast Com-cast Corporation; Time Warner Cable; Cox Communications; Charter Communications; Ca- blevision System Corporation; Bright House Networks; Sudden-link Sudden-link Communications; Mediacom Communications Corp; Insight Communications; Bresnan Com-munications; Com-munications; Midcontinent Communications; Broadstripe; US Cable Corporation; Bend-Broadband; Bend-Broadband; Eagle Communications; Communica-tions; GCI; Sjoberg's Inc.; and Harron. Wade said he wasn't criticizing criticiz-ing the need for a summit, but that it wasn't dealing with the fundamental issue of how the Park Service is managed. He believes only an outside commission commis-sion can remake the agency. He also worried that the agency's increasing reliance on private funding for centennial programs pro-grams would shortchange more pressing needs, like a backlog of unfunded maintenance. "The centennial should be more than cake and candles and pushing for private funding," said Wade, head of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees. Retir-ees. In an opening address to conference con-ference attendees, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne underscored un-derscored the challenges facing the national parks as it tries to stay relevant to the newest generation. gen-eration. "Children don't know the outdoors, spending more time pecking at their BlackBerrys than picking some blackberries, surfing the Web instead of surfing the waves, Webcasting instead of flycasting," Kempthorne said. Park Service officials said they . were turning more to technology to tell the country's history and stories. They also face the challenge of trying to appeal to people who spend less time exploring the outdoors. More Americans - 80 percent of the population - now live in cities and suburbs, up from 63 percent during the 1960s, a demographer told the park bosses. The face of America also is changing - Hispanics, Asians and Pacific Islanders make up growing parts of the population. And foreigners and their children accounted for more than half of the last 100 million people added to the U.S. population in the past 39 years, said Emilyn Sheffield of California State University at Chico. Just Listed II Home with perfect set-up for horses. 3 bedroom, 2 bath Home with family room located on approximately 8 acres with irrigation water, corrals, arena, horse stalls, out buildings, & beautiful views of the mountains and valleys. "Expect the Best realty inc. IIUMlMUIHmi,lil.'..H!MIHWB WWWWWW ' Is .. " ' v "''v : ir i ?v Pat Harrell, Agent, GRI, CRS 828-5063 AT Jessica Schofield 828-5280 1340 West Highway 40, Vernal, UT 84078 Office: (435) 789-7555 Fax: 781-2913 Today's Weather Wed Thu Fri Sal Sun 723 724 725 726 727 "V TS 4-TN- 'VV' ' 'vnS-x V, ""V. """"V. Nl 8960 8961 9060 9060 8958 Times of sun and Isolated thunder- Partly cloudy, Isolated thunder- Isolated thunderclouds. thunder-clouds. Highs in the storms. Highs in the chance of a thunder- storms. Highs in the storms. Highs in the upper 80s and lows upper 80s and lows storm. low 90s and lows in upper 80s and lows in the low 60s. in the low 60s. the low 60s. in the upper 50s. Sunrise Sunset Sunrise Sunset Sunrise Sunset Sunrise Sunset Sunrise Sunset 6 07 AM 8:38 PM 6:08 AM 8:38 PM 6:09 AM 8 37 PM 6:10 AM 8:36 PM 6 11 AM 8 35 PM .... We Celebrate Hometown Life Stories for and about hometowns (ust lika yours. Look for us each week in this paper. Utah At A Glance Moon Phases Logan M 8956 -i4,- V$ Ogden 9063 V Salt Lake City 0 9367 Provo Zi. 9161 . 1 Cedar City 8960 J X Vernal I i CD Last Jul 25 Full Jul 18 New Aug 1 First Aug 8 UV Index Wed 723 Thu 724 Fri 725 Sat 726 Sun 727 10 10 Very High Very High Very High Very High Very High The UV Index is measured on a 0-1 1 number scale, with a higher UV Index showing the need for grpaier sKin protection. pro-tection. 0 . 11 Area Cities beaver Blandmg Brlgham City Cedar City Delta Elko, NV Evanston, WY t)8 5 mat sunny 89 65 t-storm 91 60 mst sunny 89 60 mst sunny 63 mst sunny 53 sunny 51 pt sunny 91 92 81 Farmmgton, NM 85 68 t-storm Fillmore Flagstaff, AZ 92 63 mst sunny 69 48 t-storm Oiund Jet, CO. Green River Heber City Kanab Logan Moab Mt. Pleasant Ogden Park City Preston, ID 90 bi 93 66 78 51 87 60 89 56 94 65 85 55 90 63 77 54 89 52 t-storm cloudy t-storm l-storm mst sunny cloudy mst sunny mst sunny mst sunny mst sunny Price Provo Richfield Roosevelt Salt Lake City Sandy St. George Tooele Vernal Wendover it 5 91 61 88 57 81 57 93 67 91 66 102 75 88 64 89 60 94 66 t-storm mst sunny mst sunny t-storm mst sunny mst sunny mst sunny mst sunny pt sunny mst sunny National Cities AtluntM Boston Chicago Dallas Denver 6 84 78 99 88 09 t-storm 68 t-storm 60 pt sunny 76 t-storm 65 cloudy Houston Los Angeles Miami Minneapolis New York Baa EES by M rain 82 64 sunny 89 78 t-storm 84 65 pt sunny 83 71 rain Phoenix (' bO cloudy San Francisco 83 59 sunny Seattle 72 53 mst sunny St, Louis 85 69 mst sunny Washington, DC 83 72 t-storm |