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Show Page 8 The Ogden Valley News Volume XXIX Issue X April 1, 2022 Ogden Marathon – Ogden Canyon Cleanup Volunteers Needed! nated garbage can locations (14 each, one every By Rick Kearl, Ogden Canyon You may have noticed that our beautiful canyon has become an absolute disaster area! The Ogden Marathon, which was cancelled for the past two years because of COVID, is officially on this year for May 21! During the marathon, traffic in the canyon is tightly controlled and vehicle speeds are drastically reduced. This provides much needed protection for our cleaning volunteers who have helped in past years. We have not cleaned the canyon for past two years because we need this additional safety for cleanup; therefore, it is currently a mess! Here is an opportunity for you to enjoy the whole canyon, on foot, for an entire morning! Marathon officials have once again agreed to help our volunteers clean up the canyon during the event. We are looking for a total of 28 volunteers. Each volunteer will receive an official volunteer shirt and will be invited to the volunteer bash after the marathon. The details of how it works are included below so that you can decide if you want to participate. It is so rare to have the opportunity to enjoy the canyon without dangerous automobile traffic. And it’s fun to participate in such a big event with racers who are very gracious and appreciative. You’ll enjoy the outing. If this sounds fun to you and you decide you want to help, please email me ASAP at ospreyutah@gmail.com. DETAILS - Needed: 28 volunteers who will be organized into 14 two-man teams. Volunteers will receive: • Marathon shirt • Home Depot bucket (to aid in carrying trash) • Instructions (a schedule for the day and the cell phone numbers of the other volunteers in case someone needs a ride or needs help getting an extra trashy area cleaned up) • Plus, medical emergency phone numbers. Items will be delivered to you on Friday evening before the marathon. Each team will drive close to their desig- third mile) in the canyon where a vehicle can be parked out of the way. Then teams will walk to their designated location. We ask that you wear your marathon shirt for identification purposes. Bring gloves! Each team will be asked to use the first hour after arrival to thoroughly clean up the roadway and the river and its bank; from their designated location downstream one third mile to the next designated location (the next garbage can downstream). This is an effort to clean up the litter that has accumulated in the environment since the last cleanup effort. Volunteers will be asked to carry everything possible to any garbage can location and to place the debris in the can or in a liner. If the debris will not fit in a liner, then to place it near the can but away from the runners (behind cans). This is also where any full liners will be placed. After their designated one-third mile has been cleaned, volunteers are free to roam the canyon as they wish, keeping it cleaned up, dumping any additional trash they find at the garbage can locations and replacing full liners with fresh liners, as needed. In addition, they can gather up discarded articles of clothing and place the clothing in piles near the garbage cans for the clothing charities to collect after the race. At the time designated by the marathon organizers, the volunteers will be asked to make their way back to their transportation. Anyone driving a vehicle in the canyon during the race must wait to join up with the police escorted caravan traveling in their desired direction. We encourage everyone to time their walking so that they will not be in danger once law enforcement opens the canyon to regular traffic. Volunteers will not be involved with loading the garbage trucks or the clothing trucks as they sweep down the canyon at the end of the race. This work will be performed by other volunteers already assigned to the task. Again, if you would like to be part of this great community effort, please email me ASAP at ospreyutah@gmail.com. Steel Building Contractor ~ Residential ~ Agricultural ~ Commercial ~ Storage Units ~ Steel Siding and Roofing Huntsville, Utah 801-528-2318 Undergraduate Literature Students to Present at WSU Literature students from across the country will have the opportunity to present their work at the 37th annual National Undergraduate Literature Conference (NULC) hosted by Weber State University in a virtual format March 31 to April 2. NULC, founded in 1985 by WSU professors Mikel Vause and Michael Meyer, is the longest running national undergraduate conference in the United States. This year’s conference is dedicated to Alan Cheuse, novelist and long-time supporter of the conference who passed away unexpectedly in 2015. He is credited with bringing author Norman Mailer to the conference in 2005. “The point of the conference is to let undergraduates share their work with other undergraduates,” said Sarah Vause, conference co-director. “Their writing is just as important as other students across the country. The conference is an opportunity to bring the community back together in a sense and to celebrate literacy.” The conference will host seven sessions where students will present on subjects including fiction, poetry, and literary analysis. The schedule for the presentations can be found at weber.edu/nulc/2022schedule.html. Attendees may view the session on the NULC website when they begin at weber.edu/NULC. This year’s keynote speakers include the following: Tobias Wolff - Tobias Wolff’s books include This Boy’s Life, In Pharaoh’s Army: Memories of the Lost War, and Old School; the short novel The Barracks Thief; and four collections of short stories. Wolff is a Professor of English, Emeritus, at Stanford University. In 2015 he received the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama. Ayana Mathis - Ayana Mathis’ first novel The Twelve Tribes of Hattie was a New York Times Bestseller, a 2013 New York Times Notable Book of the Year, an NPR Best Books of 2013, and was chosen by Oprah Winfrey as the second selection for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0. She is an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at the Iowa Writers Workshop. Clint Smith Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of Counting Descent. He currently teaches writing and literature at the DC Central Detention Facility. His debut nonfiction book How the Word Is Passed explores how different historical sites reckon with—or fail to reckon with—their relationship to the history of slavery, was published by Little, Brown in June 2021. He received his Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University. “At a time where books are being banned left and right, it’s all the more important for us to continue to push as a community and to engage in literacy,” Vause said. “We need to see ourselves through other people’s stories and their perspectives.” For more information about the National Undergraduate Literature conference, visit weber.edu/nulc. Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University. Ragnar Sprint Wasatch Back 2022 Wasatch Back is returning in 2022 as a one-day event! This will be everything Raganarians love about Wasatch Back, all squeezed into a one-day adventure! Runners will come together on June 11 in Logan to kick off their adventure, conquering one of the more difficult (read: rewarding) races in the Ragnar series. From there, teams run through some of Utah’s most Ragnarfriendly communities, and up the most stunningly green mountainsides. You’ll make your way through the wildflowers in Avon Pass and into a postcard-worthy countryside dotted with horses and quintessential barns. After each team member completes their two legs (or 4 if you are running the ultra), your team will cross under the orange Ragnar arch together at one of the best finish lines ever at Snowbasin Resort. Tired but triumphant, you’ll do together what you could never do alone. Registration is now open. To register, visit runragnar.com/event-detail/sprint/ wasatchback_sprint#overview. |