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Show Thursday, June 19,2008 Page 2 0 R E M TIMES NEWS AND NOTES TO KEEP YOU Spots still open in Reva Bowen NORTH COUNTY STAFF It's not too late for local youth to sign up for the fourth Annual National Youth Theatre The-atre Festival coming June 25-27 at the SCERA Center for the Arts in Orem. Kids ages 12 to 18 can register for the event as late as on the day it begins, said Shc'vn Mortensen, production and programs manager for SCERA, who is in charge of the festival. Tuition is $100 and includes workshops with professionals plus activities, food, snacks, and a T-shirt. To register, or for more information, call the SCERA at 225-ARTS or visit Egypt Continued from Page 1 junior high school. His mother, Cheryl Earl, who took Spanish Span-ish and French courses as a Brigham Young University student, stu-dent, had encouraged him to diversify his foreign language ambitions. "I started with online programs pro-grams then the library and books," he said. "I thought it would be easy because I was learning French. It wasn't." Last summer he enrolled in BYU's Star Talk summer foreign for-eign language camp for high school students. Along with 14 other students, Earl had a Bail Continued from Page I old Christopher Kirsch, was stabbed to death in their home near 800 North and Main Street in Orem. According to Orem police spokesman Lt. Doug Edwards, Elaine Kirsch called 911 shortly after 9 a.m. to report a dispute between her husband and son, and arguing could be heard in the background back-ground before the call was cut off. When she called back a few minutes later, Edwards said, she told dispatchers that her son was stabbing her husband. hus-band. According to an affidavit filed in Provo's 4th District Court, Michael Kirsch stabbed his father repeatedly in the stomach, back, chest, neck and head with a 10-inch carving NorthCounty NIWSFAPIHS 399 E. State St. Pleasant Grove Marc Haddock 443-3268 North County Editor mhaddockheraldextra.com Cathy Alfred 443 3262 Lehi, Saratoga Springs, PI. Grove ca!lredheraldextra.com Barbara Christiansen 443 -3264 American Fork, Alpine, Cedar Hills bchristiansenheraldextra.com Mike Rigert 443-3265 Orem, Vineyard mrigertheraldextra.com Beky Beaton 443 3267 Sports bbeatonheraldextra.com Josh Walker 443-3260 Advertising Account Execufrve jwalkerheraldextra.com Volume 135 O-w Tfm CW Memo Ecn UWI 411-700 k"y -ewraw pjC-sreo at 300 E sva St. Pieman Gfvm W 6403 (Vodkas oostage pad PKan Gte. Uta- e-J:2 nm Awjr mng ctfrm ' P tiinw . Send artcs charqes as Onsm Tn PC Bo65. Own Ut WKWm PX-oTivavbvLJwa'cr5 nfs9dvsr oflac www.scera.org. The three-day event will kick off on Wednesday at 5 p.m. with dinner, games, introductions, in-troductions, and a festival preview pre-view before participants attend at-tend the Jordin Sparks concert at the SCERA Shell Outdoor Theatre. Sparks was the season sea-son six winner of television's "American Idol" competition. "You get to come to the Jordin Jor-din Sparks concert, for crying out loud," said Mortensen. "That's a hot ticket." The concert con-cert is included in the registration registra-tion cost. Cindera Che, a famed choreographer cho-reographer and performance coach, and a teacher at The Edge Performing Arts Center in Hollywood, will be among total immersion experience in Arabic, including living in the on-campus "Arabic House." "He got an A in it and they gave him four college credits," Cheryl Earl said. Earl's host family that includes in-cludes three sons ages 19, 21 and 23, lives on the outskirts of the capital city. "The pyramids are 15 miles away and the school is 9 miles away," he said. Though for many of Earl's travel mates, it will be their first language training in Arabic, Ara-bic, Earl is among a handful of students with formal training who will be in an advanced class. Earl said this is the third knife. He died shortly after arriving at Timpanogos Regional Re-gional Hospital in Orem. Elaine Kirsch suffered cuts to her hand while trying to pull her son off of her husband. Police said Michael Kirsch suffered from severe psychiatric psychiat-ric problems. He had lived on his own after being released from prison in 2007, but his parents invited him to live with them because they did not feel he was getting the support he needed to deal with his mental health issues, Edwards Ed-wards said. "Despite knowing Michael's violent tendencies when not taking his medication, his parents brought him home to care for him," Edwards said in a news release. "Chris Kirsch and his wife had reportedly talked about the dangers of just this kind of thing happen Phone: 756-7669 Fax: 756-5274 DAILY BBRALD PUBLISHING! CO. 1 Jennette Esplin 756-7669 Office Manager Julia Fullmer 344-2570 Project Coordinator. DesignerCopy Editor Allison Davies 344-2570 DesignerCopy Editor Ashley Franscell 344-2585 Photographer Issue 25 INFORMED AND SCERA youth theater fest the professionals featured in the festival workshops. Sheila Krein will direct a workshop on make-up artistry. art-istry. Former Miss Utah Stacy Johnson-Bills will teach dance and movement. Comedian Jason Hewlett will share his talents as an entertainer and impersonator. Utah Valley University acting act-ing professor Chris Clark will conduct an improv workshop, and director Steve Anderson will teach acting for film technique tech-nique and film basics. "It will be a great opportunity opportu-nity to sit at the feet of these great actors and performers, and to learn from them," said Mortensen. One of his main goals with the festival is hav year AFS has offered the summer exchange session in Egypt. As far as cultural differences, differ-ences, Earl has learned that it's inappropriate for a person to ask an Egyptian about individual female family members. mem-bers. Guests should inquire about the family in general. Also, boys and girls don't hold hands as in Western culture, but it's normal for boys to hold hands with other boys in the Egyptian culture, his mother said. AFS picks up the tab for the entire trip minus airfare to the students' orientation and departure from New York City, and the suggested $200 ing, but were trying to help their son despite their concerns con-cerns for personal safety." On Monday, the family released a statement through Craig Cottle, their IDS bishop at the Timpanogos Park 3rd Ward. "There have been many victims as a result of the tragedy," trag-edy," Cottle read. "Mental illness has robbed our family. We love our son and we know he loves us." Michael Kirsch was incarcerated in-carcerated at the Utah State Prison from January 2005 to March 2007 after pleading plead-ing guilty and mentally ill to charges of aggravated assault and simple assault for another knife attack. Utah Department of Corrections spokeswoman Angie Welling said Kirsch was housed at the prison, not the Utah State Hospital. Sharing valuable resources want to be the first in line to check out a book on July 1 when the interlocal agreement which will allow residents of north Utah County to share library resources goes into effect. , The agreement represents years of work by local library directors and library boards all working toward to-ward one goal making the books available to as many people as possible. pos-sible. Libraries are some of our most valuable community resources, although al-though they are unappreciated by some. Several years ago, a city council member in one of our communities suggested that the city would be better bet-ter off simply purchasing a set of encyclopedias encyclope-dias for every family in the city. It would cost less than maintaining a library, and do the families just as much good, he reasoned Nowadays, that kind of thinking would be even more dangerous, since the World Wide Web has made the old World Book next to obsolete. I can't remember the last time I consulted con-sulted an encyclopedia for a story. It was so much easier, and much more fun, to Google the subject and see what bubbles to the surface. sur-face. I wonder if the same person today would simply opt for providing free Internet service for every family in place of paying for a library. li-brary. And what a loss that would be. Our libraries have kept up with the times. In addition to books, one can check out books on tape or CD, or even get free access to MP3 audio books, as well as videos and DVDs. And computers with public access have become be-come a mainstay of library service. I think these are aD great. I almost always have an audio book in my car's CD player. But I still think the main business of our local libraries is to provides books to read and the more people we have reading books, the better off we are. And this goes for everybody every-body from young children who need to have stories read to them to us old people who want to keep our minds agile. It's not an original concept. Here are a few quotes I Googled about the value of reading. Reading is to the mind what exercise is to INVOLVED ing participants come away as better performers in all aspects as-pects of theater. Now in its fourth year, SCERA 's Youth Theatre Festival Fes-tival has drawn participants from California and Nevada, Mortensen said, and he has sent out invitations to youth groups in locales such as Denver, Den-ver, Boise, and Idaho Falls. "We have hopes," the program director said, "that someday we'll have talent from New York come and teach workshops. Then people can have that experience here, and at not so much cost." Mortensen said Che will also be teaching a master class on methods to help directors and parents. People of all ages to $300 spending money. On the organization's Web site, the cost of the trip is listed at $6,000. "Apparently everything is quite inexpensive," Cheryl Earl said. "It's a great bargain for us." Earl is already getting to know some of his classmates 24 girls and five boys through a Facebook.com site set up for the Egypt -bound students. Other preparations include purchasing small gifts for the host families Cairo. Suggested items are photo books from the participant's home state. Earl said a Egyptian volunteer volun-teer with AFS recommended After being released from prison, Kirsch lived at a halfway half-way house for about four months while he completed a mental health treatment program, which Welling said was a condition of his release. Kirsch was on parole at the time of his father's murder. Chris Kirsch was an adjunct professor at Utah Valley State College, where he had taught geography and Latin American Ameri-can history since 2003. UVSC President William Sederburg ordered that all flags on campus cam-pus be flown at half staff on Monday. "We are deeply saddened to have learned of the untimely un-timely passing of one of our colleagues, Chris Kirsch," Sederburg Se-derburg said in a statement released re-leased on Monday. "On behalf of the institution, I express my most heartfelt condolences to Marc Haddock THE EDITOR'S COLUMN are invited to the presentation Friday, June 27, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The $75 cost includes a light dinner. Not everyone is aware of the many programs offered by SCERA, he said. "Movies are just a small part of what we do every ' day here at SCERA," said Mortensen. "We have choir, we have ballroom dance, and we will have photography later. You could drop a child off and have them involved all day long ... There are great things happening at SCERA, and it's a great time to be on the team here." bringing chocolate apparently appar-ently Egyptian chocolate isn't that great. A Beehive State staple, green Jell-O was Cheryl Earl's suggestion. "We checked and they said green Jell-0 is kosher," she said. Though she admits she is nervous about her son's adventure, ad-venture, Cheryl Earl said the exchange program is an amazing amaz-ing opportunity for her son. "I really do believe he has a gift of languages that needs to grow," she said. "... It's important im-portant to him and he wants it so badly." his wife, Elaine, and the entire Kirsch family. I speak for all of us when I say that the entire UVU family mourns his loss." Michael Kirsch is one of nine children and lived with his parents and his 17-year -old brother, according to neighbor Pamela Robbins. Robbins described de-scribed Chris Kirsch as a man who loved gardening with his sons. "They seemed to get along as a family. I never saw them argue or fight or anything. They were always working together," Robbins said. Christopher and Elaine Kirsch taught a gospel doctrine doc-trine class together at their ward, Cottle said. Elaine Kirsch is a special education teacher at a grade school in American Fork. the body." - Sir Richard Steele. "A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading." - Jeremy Collier "The hours spent in reading are investments in tomorrow. For reading read-ing sends us into the future with a great reservoir of knowledge from which we can draw at various times." -CNefl Strait. In fact, books and libraries to make them available to everyone are so important, I was surprised when I first moved to Utah County to find out that there was no county-wide library system. I'd lived in Castle Dale, where there the Emery County Library operated small libraries is several small communities. And in Salt Lake County, which also has a county-wide system providing provid-ing every county resident access to every library in the system. Utah County is the oddity. A county where the lack of leadership over decades on the part of county government allowed many of the cities to develop their own libraries, while many communities have no library at alL The general rule, of course, was the bigger the city, the better the library. The north Utah County interlocal library agreement breaks this deadlock, and it is largely the result of our local librarians working work-ing together to overcome many obstacles. It's not a county library system, but it's a darn good start. And it's open to everyone, although al-though those who live in cities without libraries librar-ies will have to pay an annual fee. Next up: fixed tax levies to fund library services. ser-vices. These are standard with most county-wide county-wide systems. A tax levy dedicated to funding libraries ensures steady, guaranteed income to buy books, maintain buildings and pay staff. That's how you avoid circumstances like we see today at the American Fork Library where, because of budget issues, city officials have decreed that the library cannot buy new books until August. Without the tax levy, library funding depends de-pends on the whims of the city council members, mem-bers, some of whom may think encyclopedias are superior to library service. Vineyard Continued from Page 1 last June, said Orem Council-woman Council-woman Karen McCandless. She said council members decided that with Vineyard growing, they wanted to re-focus re-focus Orem's fire protection resources on the city. The decision wasn't prompted by concerns about the previous contract or relationship with Vineyard, McCandless said. "The Orem City Council has been pretty clear we want to focus our resources in Orem," she said. At the Orem council's June 10 meeting, McCandless used the word "irresponsible" to describe Vineyard's actions, or lack thereof, in providing its residents with a contract for fire services. Taxpayers in communities expect to have services like fire and emergency medical taken care of by their local community commu-nity officials. "I said it out of frustration," frustra-tion," she said. "I do believe it is irresponsible to not have those protections." Jim Reams, Orem's city manager, said Orem gave Vineyard officials 12 months notice of the decision, and then another six months for the town to make other arrangements ar-rangements for fire service. Despite several calls for comment, Vineyard Mayor Randy Farnworth could not be reached prior to press time. David Church, Vineyard's town attorney , said Orem and Vineyard representatives representa-tives met about a week ago at Orem's request to look at the possibility of a new service ser-vice contract. He said there had been no recent indica- I don't want to beat up on them. We're in a real dilemma di-lemma ...We are really trying and it's a real struggle for us." Jim Reams OREM CITY MANAGER tion from Orem that the city wasn't interested in providing provid-ing fire and EMS services to Vineyard. "Practically, if a fire happens, hap-pens, they're going to show up," Church said. "We want to make sure we pay our fair share and it's fair to them." Larsen and McCandless said Orem staff are currently working on a cost analysis to determine what actual 2008 costs are. Simply staffing the fire stations and maintaining the division's equipment, he said, requires a substantial financial commitment from the city. For example, Orem's EMS staff have paramedic training, a high standard in most community fire departments. depart-ments. "Each call is not small or inexpensive," Larsen said. "It's expensive just to have the staff and run the equipment." equip-ment." Yet despite the meeting, Orem officials are concerned that Vineyard's mayor and Town Council aren't getting the message. Reams said Vineyard desired de-sired to become a community in recent years and one of the basic services all communities com-munities are responsible for providing to their residents are fire and police services. "I dont want to beat up on them," Reams said. "We're in a real dilemma ... We are really trying and it's a real struggle for us." |