Elmo Woman ‘Rolls’ into Money

James L. Davis

Lori Brady of Elmo has taken a trip to Mesquite from time to time she admits, but she never comes home with any great winnings so her faith in her inherent good luck was not the strongest it could be.

But that was last week. This week Lori Brady might feel a little differently about her luck. That is because Tyler Jeffs of Farm Bureau Insurance devised a little game for the community to play during the Emery County Fair. Called the Dice Roll game, it consisted of five oversized dice and on one side of each dice was a letter. Put the five dice together and they spelled money. To play the game all you had to do was be one of 100 people who drew out a qualifying number and then roll the five dice and spell money. Spell it out and you would win $15,000 or two Arctic Cat four-wheelers from High Velocity Sports in Huntington.

With one in 7,776 odds of anyone throwing the dice, spelling out money and coming out a winner, some people were willing to bet that it would never happen. Of course, if they did place a friendly wager on the possibility of someone actually winning the dice game their groans of disbelief were probably drowned out by the roar of cheers that followed Lori Brady’s five winning rolls of the dice
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Lori, smiling happily as she contemplated the possibilities of two new four wheelers or $15,000 in cash, couldn’t seem to believe her own good luck and with her husband, Ben Brady, at work she couldn’t seem to decide whether she would take the money or the four-wheelers.

Hundreds of people lined up for the chance to even be one of the 100 people selected to play the game. In devising the game, Jeffs made up 500 tickets and contestants had to pull a number between 100 and 199 to play. Contestants went around in a circle trying to draw one of the lucky tickets and some of the contestants went through dozens of times trying to get a ticket. Lori drew her number on the second go around.

With Lori sitting on what could be her new four wheeler Tyler Jeffs stood beside her, smiling almost as broadly as she was.

“I had to take out an insurance policy against this just in case someone won,” Jeffs said with a smile. For the contest he had to videotape each winning ticket drawing and every attempt to roll the dice for Farm Bureau. And of being suddenly short $15,000 Jeffs simply grinned at the good luck of Lori Brady.

“This is what it’s all about. You have to give back to the community,” he said.

Having decided that she will take the money instead of the four-wheelers, but what she will do with the winnings she hasn’t a clue…yet.

“I honestly don’t know,” she said.

School District Adjusts to Teacher Shortages

Josie Luke

With reports of many Utah schools facing teacher shortages resulting from teacher attrition, the Emery County School District has also faced the task of replacing teachers, mainly because many chose to retire after this past school year.

According to JJ Grant, the Emery County School District Secondary Supervisor, 20 classified employees and teachers had to be replaced this year. Along with the replacements, many teachers transferred from one position to another or from one school to another.

Green River High School was especially affected, with five of their nine teaching positions having to be filled. To do that, they hired Burke Simmons, Heather Parsons, Jayne Williams, Tony White and Douglas R. Maughan. Simmons will take over music and arts, Parsons will teach FACS, and Williams will teach English.

Also in Green River, Kay Nelson was transferred to Book Cliff Elementary and Marcy Thayn was hired to work a day and a half.

Four new teachers have been hired at Huntington Elementary. They are Jana Kae Wall, Shellet Rowley, Jesse Ward, and Christine Shaw who will teach Resource classes. The school district will also need to hire another teacher to fill the vacancy left when Colette Clement left to fill the Language Arts position at Canyon View Jr. High.

Jimmy Jones was hired as the vice-principal at Emery High School, and Linda Wilberg was hired to run the school-to-work program left vacant when Dixie Fielder was hired as a counselor at EHS. Diane Carter was also transferred from the high school to San Rafael Junior High.

Other changes were, Danielle Tuttle being hired at Castle Dale Elementary, Kari Alton being hired at Cottonwood Elementary and Tiffany Conover being hired at Ferron Elementary. Another teacher will also need to be hired in order to split a class at Ferron Elementary

Youth City Councils Combine Forces
to Serve Lamb Fry Masses

James L. Davis

It is a few minutes before 5 p.m. on the last day of the Emery County Fair and the hungry masses are lining up for the Lamb Fry, just as they do every day during the fair and Castle Valley Pageant.

While they wait patiently for the dinner bell to sound a flurry of activity takes place around them as everyone gets ready to start serving the crowd favorite of lamb or chicken.

The young servers and cooks are all smiles as they get ready to feed the crowd and as the hour draws ever closer Julie Jones, Huntington City Councilperson over the city youth city council program takes a final moment to give a pep talk.

“Are you guys ready?” She yells outs.

“We’re ready!” The youth reply.

Flush from a hot day, hot work and the chaos she is keeping just barely controlled, nods her head. “Smile. Be happy and be cheerful.”

And with that the first patron of the night pays for their meal and starts down the line, followed by another and another and another for hours on end.

On the night before the youth city councils from Cleveland and Elmo, Ferron, Castle Dale, Orangeville and Huntington, fed approximately 800 people in a few hours. And on that night a summer rain storm dropped buckets of water on the fair but couldn’t dampen the hunger of the crowd.

The servers follow Jones’ instructions and smile and are cheerful and the line slowly starts to move. In its second year of running the annual lamb fry for the fair and pageant, the youth city councils are getting things down to a science.

“We’re learning,” Jones said.

The lamb fry is the largest fund raiser of the year for the youth city councils and proceeds from the effort will all go toward the Youth City Council Leadership Summit on Sept. 22. During the summit the youth will conduct another service project, this one to create comfort bags for the Emery County Sheriff’s Office. The comfort bags are for children and will include blankets and stuffed animals to comfort them in a time of need.

During the lamb fry 48 youth a night can be counted on to be at the fair grounds, doing their part to keep the lamb fry a success. While there are two shifts of workers, Jones said she is amazed at how many youth come down every day and stay from start to finish lending a hand.

“They are an amazing group of kids. They truly are,” she said.

Working beside the youth is 20-30 adult volunteers per day who help cook, serve and clean up for the lamb fry.

“We couldn’t do it without the community helping. But this is the kids’ thing and they know it. They take pride in it,” Jones said.

The youth city councils in each community gather to work together on large events like the lamb fry through the county youth city council and while the councils are strong, Jones said they always want more youth involved.

“We’ll take all the kids that want to join from 14 to 18. Being on the youth city council really helps these kids with their scholarships,” she said.

And as the line for the lamb fry grows ever longer the youth city council members keep on smiling, and keep on serving.

Council Sustains Sheriff’s Decision
to Fire Deputy for Insubordination

James L. Davis

Responding to the wrongful termination suit filed by former deputy Richard Graham for his firing by the Emery County Sheriff’s Office, Administrative Law Judge Kenneth R. Wallentine recommended to the Emery County Career Service Review Council that it uphold the county’s decision to terminate the deputy.

The July 27 recommendation is part of a 33 page findings of fact, conclusions of law and recommendation by the judge following a four day administrative proceeding in late June where Graham and his legal team presented the case that the sheriff’s office acted improperly when it fired him in November of 2002 for insubordination.

Now living in Las Vegas, Graham was fired from the sheriff’s office following an unauthorized investigation into reported cattle rustling. The cattle rustling was first reported to the Emery County’s Sheriff’s Office in June of 2001 and Detective Bill Downard was assigned to investigate. According to the findings of facts several weeks after the investigation by Downard began Graham started his own investigation into the cattle rustling and during his own investigation made three tape-recorded interviews with one of the suspects. Graham did not share his investigative results with the investigating officer or his supervisors and the judge ruled that this was willful conduct and was insubordinate.

The county also maintained that among other things Graham had made disparaging remarks about Sheriff Lamar Guymon, Captain Kyle Ekker and other supervisory personnel in violation of sheriff office policy and the judge rejected Graham’s argument that he was not aware of the policy which stated such conduct was insubordinate. In the end of the eight counts the county had identified as justification for its termination of Graham’s employment, Judge Wallentine agreed with the county’s position on four of the counts and indicated that the county failed to meet its burden of evidence in the other four.

“The sheriff’s determination to terminate Grievant’s (Graham’s) employment was within the sheriff’s lawful discretion, is proportionate to Grievant’s acts, and is supported by substantial evidence,” Judge Wallentine said in his conclusion.

In responding to Judge Wallentine’s recommendation, the Emery County Career Service Review Council, composed of Judy A. Scott, Keith N. Ware and Randy Jensen, sustained the termination of Graham’s employment from the county.