OCR Text |
Show Thousands trek to Manti for Pageant If.. . .... was standing room only Friday night when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir presented the City Sesquicentennial year. It 7 "' ",l" entertainment But all three opening nights saw large crowds for this Manti " pre-Pagea- nt Messenger file photo Home of: Manti knife- - maker The is known world Mormon Miracle Pageant wide. 1999 Dates: June VOLUME 113 -- 22-2-6 17-1-9; Estimates indicate nearly 33,000 attended first 3 opening nights With perfect weather and the LDS Tabernacle Choir highlighting last weeks opening performances of the Mormon Miracle Pageant, attendance pretty much followed previous years. The Choir obviously was a huge drawing card for attenders, which bolstered the Friday night attendance. Estimating the attendance can be difficult, but a logical method has been devised, which makes it much closer than the guesswork which has been used in the past. Last year the MessengerEnterprise staff formulated a system, w hich w as further refined this year. In previous years, the exact number of chairs set up was questionable. Again this year we counted the exact number of chairs in each of the 15 sections on the grounds. With additional chairs being added this year, that total came to 0,949. By estimating the percentage of occupancy (this was done independently by several people and they all came out surprisingly close), we could determine the number of people occupying chairs. This count was made just before the opening 1 - MANTI, UTAH 50 CENTS NUMBER 49 By Max Call see page mam prayer when most people were in their seats. The blanket areas (two of them this year) could also be determined quite accurately. We actually counted an area of the space, then comprising did this for each four. We multiplied by of the blanket areas. The ratio of people in chairs, compared with the number of people on blankets, in a comparable area, show ed that there are at least 3 people on chairs for every' 2 people on blankets, in a gien area. We also did this with four people making an independent estimate (and count). We then counted (not estimated) the other areas, including the south street, inside the fence on the south, but not in the street, in the south street, on the law ns across the street, the w est street, on bleachers and lawns on the west street. In each case we added at least 5 in case we had made a few errors in counting. So how many were there on the first three nights? Here are the results: On Thursday night we counted 4.826 in the chairs. In both blanket areas we counted 350 people; we rounded that off to 400 each area, or 800 on blankets. Behind the chairs we counted each person one-four- th and came up w ith Outside the fence and on the lawns we counted 73. The total for Thursday night came to 5,849, which we rounded up to 6,000. On Friday night, all the chairs were filled. That came to 10,949. Each blanket area counted up to 800. We rounded that up to 1,000. Behind the chairs were 500; In the south street we counted 1,200; On the south lawns we counted 1,100; in the west street there were 550; and on bleachers and lawns on the west were 450. That total was 16,800. On Saturday night the total in the chairs was 7,486; each blanket area had 600, or 1,200 for both areas; behind chairs were 273; south street 100; south lawns 382, west street 32; west lawns 252. Total 9,725, which we rounded to 9,750. Comparing with last year's figures: Thursday: 1998, 5550; 1999. 6000 Friday: 1998, 12.500; 1999, 16.800 Saturday: 1998. 13.200; 1999,9,750 One thing which eeryone agreed on w as that all three ex en ings the cast gax e a 1 highly polished and spiritual performance, and that all who attended left feeling 4 JUNE 24, .999 Mormon Tabernacle Choir offers unique prelude for Friday night s performance By Karen Buchanan To help Manti celebrate its sesquicentennial, 26 singers from the member Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert at the preperformed a pageant program, Friday, June 18. To a large, enthusiastic audience they sang music from local composers, as well as songs from composers of Scandinax ian and English music representing the heritage of this area. Music of hope and optimism from Walt Disney productions was then presented, follow ed by patriotic songs and ending with the Tabernacle Choir signature piece, The Battle Hy mn of the Republic. The choir was accompanied by brass and timpani ensemble and was directed by all four choir directors. LloydNewell performed his usual role as narrator. The logistics of accommodating that many performers on Temple Hill, which 1 350-pl- us afixe-memb- er had already been set up for the pageant, might appear daunting to some, but not to The choir this pageant committee own sound their proxided system and on xxere installed two of the speakers A nine foot grand pageant light toxxers. xx as borrow ed from Snow College piano and moxed and tuned by professional. Jim Busby. Old risers used in the only other Mormon Miracle Pageant performance of the choir at the 19t Bicentennial Celebration, xxere located and refurbished for this performance. The choir and guests xxere transported in six buses and they xxere serxed dinner at the txxo LDS meeting houses in Manti. After the concert, the singers picked their chairs and joined choir guests in up the 700 seat area resen ed for them With little interruption in the normal procedures, the piano xxas mox ed and the risers xxere folded up and carried axxay by pageant support personnel as if they had done this exery night. Gooseberry Narrows project Sanpete comes up short in U.S. District Court U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball has of the Carbon Water Conservancy District in a laxxsuit, entered by the Sanpete Water Conservancy District, xx herein the Sanpete District challenged Carbon's opposition to construction of the Gooseberry' Project. The project xxould construct a dam on Gooseberry' Creek to divert xxater from the creek to Sanpete County. The legal battle has been ongoing for many years. The Sanpete District entered the maintaining that a 1984 agreement in xx hich Carbon xx ater interests said they xxould not oppose Sanpete's xxater rights and permits in building the dam. The Carbon County District maintains that they hax e the right to oppose the filing by the Sanpete District. Thus, the Sanpete District has lost an important round in that legal battle, when the Judge dismissed the lawsuit. No legal reason was gixen by the ruled in fax or laxx-su- an effort to control parking along 300 North near the City Baseball Compless, city council members and their children painted no parking zones in the area. Particularly during tournament time, visitors neglect appropriate parking courtesies. To be clear about what is appropriate the council painted red zones. Pictured are: Council members Lynn Schiffman, Lorna Larsen and Kim Cragun. Also Michael Larsen, Nephl and Stephen Cragun. In OPY ; it, judge as he rejected all of Sanpete's claims and ruled that Carbon has the right to oppose the project. Daxid Peterson, chairman of the Sanpete Water Conserxancy District said the ruling would be appealed. The judge made a xxTong decision. he said. We hax e a legitimate right. Water is the lifeblood of the land. Sanpete has xx ater rights to 5.400 acre feet of xx ater per y ear from Gooseberry Creek. To get that xxater, Sanpete xxould construct a reserxoir in the Gooseberry Narroxxs (one acre foot is the amount of xx ater required to cox er one acre of ground one foot deep). The Carbon group claim the Narrows Darn xxould diminish the supply of water running into Scofield Reserxoir from Gooseberry Creek. 17,000-acre-fo- ot Peterson acknowledges that the project has suffered a They delayed our plan without our being able to present it, he said. set-bac- k. |