ST. GEORGE — Police said a driver suspected of driving under the influence had his vehicle strike another near the Green Springs Drive exit of northbound Interstate 15, halting traffic for approximately an hour Saturday afternoon.

At about 4 p.m., a grey GMC Terrain, which was reported as speeding by witnesses, lost control and struck the rear and side of a white Mercury Milan. After they collided, both cars then hit the guard rail on the left, police said. The Milan spun to the right while the GMC rolled once and landed on its wheels.

Nobody was transported to the hospital as a result of the crash.

Utah Highway Patrol Sergeant Jake Hicks said that the crash shut down the freeway for almost an hour. Upon investigation, he said the driver of the Terrain was found to be impaired.

“When we investigated, only minor injuries were involved. However, alcohol was involved and we investigated that for the driver of the Terrain,” Hicks said. “We determined the driver, an adult male, was impaired by alcohol and he was arrested for DUI and booked into the jail.”

The biggest thing Hicks brought up as a result of the crash was the traffic caused by the freeway closure and the traffic on surrounding side streets. Many of the cars were getting off the freeway and taking Red Hills Parkway or Telegraph Street through Washington City.

The on-ramp to the northbound 15 was closed as a result and the Washington City Police Department did traffic control on side streets near the accident.

“We had help like always from Washington County Sheriff’s Department and Washington City Police Department who assisted with the ramp closures,” Hicks said.

There were two dogs in the Mercury that spun during the crash and Hicks confirmed that the dogs were not injured as a result.

“The dogs were OK, they were just as happy as dogs can be,” Hicks said.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

FEATURE — My grandpa Oscar always had a lot to say. 

He was telling grandpa jokes when he wasn’t talking about the legacy of George Gabbitas (the sole convert on his Latter-day Saints mission) or lamenting about Park City, “Colorado” (on account of them acting like didn’t even want to be a part of Utah with their fancy skiing and Robert Redford stars).

You know the kind. Corny and self-deprecating. The two I remember him telling most often anchored how I perceived him: bald and self-made. 

He was a son of a Scots immigrant and while I like to imagine him with a tinge of red hair (it was actually brown), I only knew him without any. He’d explain to me, “I used to have a crew cut, but the crew pulled out.” 

Then, the corners of his hazel eyes would crinkle behind his gold-framed glasses, and he’d laugh. Every time.

Before he was bald, he was a boy on a farm in West Weber, Utah. 

He milked cows at the break of morning; plowed the fields with a team of black horses named Babe and Bud; and, on his mother’s orders, delivered food to the family down the street who’d lost their own mother to Typhoid fever. 

With all the planting and harvesting and do-gooding, my grandpa stopped his education short somewhere in the middle of high school. 

Explaining this, he liked to tell us grandkids, “I went to the school of hard knocks – our colors were black and blue, and our fight song was ‘ouch, ouch, ouch.’”

Then, the corners of his hazel eyes would crinkle again, and he’d laugh. Again.

But what my grandfather lacked in formal education, he made up for in charm. And determination. 

I never saw him as anything but a success. School of hard knocks or not.

But even still, I figured I’d have my own path. I figured I’d have my own alma mater, one that wasn’t campused on a farm. 

I was a city girl, after all, with an educational future beyond the 10th grade.

What I didn’t know then, laughing along with my grandpa and his corny grandpa jokes, is that it’s not just the farm boys who are enrolled in the school of hard knocks. 

Last Tuesday afternoon, my husband, isolation getting the best of him, took a run to our snow-packed cabin in the Uintahs. He brought along his dear friend, who’s been quarantining with our family while he goes through a divorce, and our family dog.

The plan was for the three of them to check the water lines in the house, soak up a little nature, and then return the next morning, emotionally refueled for the stressful telework week ahead. 

As my husband tells it, after all of the obligatory checks, they were supine in the warmth of the cabin listening to vinyl records – he on the couch, his friend on the rug in front of the hearth – and talking life. Specifically, they were talking about how stuff doesn’t really matter. 

Leave it to an impending divorce and weeks of a global pandemic to help frame the importance of things like relationships and health over things like, well, things. 

And talk they did. Good, philosophical, deep talk. While listening to Van Morrison on a vintage turntable, with my husband’s childhood collectibles and most of his prized possessions an arms-reach away up the spiral staircase.

After all, my husband remarked to his friend, “you’ve heard how it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man into heaven.”

Then, the dog wouldn’t settle, and the philosophical talk stopped. My husband reluctantly took the dog out back for a potty break and his friend went out to the front deck for some sunshine. 

When my husband came back into the kitchen only minutes later, sparks from a faulty electric baseboard heater had already engulfed the living room couch, upon which he’d just been laying, in flames, as well as part of the wall behind it and the ceiling above. 

Seconds more and the black smoke hugged the living room and kitchen so tightly, he couldn’t see his wallet and keys on the counter just four feet in front of him. 

And he knew the only thing to do was get out. 

Another minute later, from the snow-packed driveway, my husband was watching 40-foot flames lick the metal roof of the cabin and dance behind the sliding glass doors. Without a coat. And in his socked feet. 

I’m not sure he thought about my grandpa just then. He likely was thinking about things like the black and white childhood photo of his own father that hung opposite the couch. 

But I’m sure my grandpa, and the first-place ribbon he’d earned at the 1917 Utah State Fair that was hanging in a frame in the cabin stairwell, were watching from somewhere. And they were probably saying, “ouch, ouch, ouch.”

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

ST. GEORGE — The people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic have many faces. They can be first responders, medical staff and business owners. But they are also men and women who have served their county in the armed forces.

For one United States Marine – a Southern Utah resident who served two tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003-2011 in the infantry – the past few months have been as challenging as any combat he had experienced.

Now without a job, dipping into savings to pay bills, and put food on the table as a father of four children ages 14, 13, 12 and 8, 34-year-old Manny (last name withheld) dreams of a day when life will get back to normal.

The journey into struggling financially has been a slow bleed for many people during the past few months. Prior to the virus outbreak, Manny worked in sales for a local company. In February, the company was challenged financially and let him go.

To add insult to injury, Manny had just started on a new career path in digital media and design when that goal was put on hold when his school began shutting down.

“There were no hard feelings getting laid off,” Manny said. “They just couldn’t afford to have the sales department any longer.”

Economists say looking for a job under stable economic times can be hard. But following the outbreak of COVID-19, things became impossible with millions now out of work.

“When school shut down, it sent me into a depression,” Manny said. “School was something I was looking forward to going and drawing every day.”

Piled-on bad times upon bad, Manny’s wife had been in school to start her own new profession, but this required state certification which she could not take because of the virus outbreak. Even though she had a job lined up, she could not be hired without the certification.

Challenges keep mounting.

One of Manny’s children, his 13-year-old son, has DiGeorge syndrome. He was born without a thymus and cannot filter out harmful viruses that have rendered the family unable to take the chance of leaving their home even for the basic necessities.

DiGeorge syndrome, also known as 22q11. 2 deletion syndrome, is a syndrome caused by the deletion of a small segment of chromosome 22. While the symptoms can vary, they often include congenital heart problems, specific facial features, frequent infections, developmental delay and learning problems.

“Even starting a new job now is not that great of an option because I could bring something home to him and that could kill him,” Manny said. “He is also autistic and dealing with all of this is hard. It seems like everything, in a nutshell, is being thrown at us in the last month or two.”

Hunkering in place, Manny and his family are doing the best they can, he said. As an artist, he has tried to sell pieces of his work.

“We are sliding by,” he said. “We have burned through our savings and we are trying to make it until this is over.”

Like many, Manny is relying on using credit cards, building more debt, and faced with interest that will have to be paid back.

Although it seems like swimming upstream, Manny said he is generally optimistic. But this isn’t his first challenge in life. In 2018, his home in North Carolina was destroyed by Hurricane Florence.

Because Manny is considered 100% disabled, there is financial help from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. But he has not filed for income tax in this category since 2015 and is not eligible to receive the current round of federal government stimulus funding.

“I was told to contact the VA or the IRS who aren’t open,” he said. “They want you to go on the internet which tells you to put in your last tax return five years ago and put in your ID number but I don’t have that. My wife is in the same boat because she has been a student.”

The other hurdle with Veterans Affairs, Manny said. He has to travel to Salt Lake City for services even though Las Vegas is closer.

“The VA hasn’t been any help at all,” he added.

Pat Lisi, commandant of the St. George Marine Corps League, Utah Dixie Detachment 1270, told St. George News that Manny is exactly the type of person we all need to help.

“He asked me … if I know any programs for disabled veterans that offer financial assistance for times like these,” Lisi said. “I do not, but I offered to donate … and asked him if it’s alright if I contact the Marines in the detachment.  So here I am.”

To donate to help any service member in need through the Marine Corps League, contact Lisi at 435-215-3090 or email at patlisigmac@gmail.com. All donations are tax-deductible.

Manny can be contacted at this link. He is eager to get back to work and remain a productive member of the St. George community.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

ST. GEORGE — Mayson Sersansie, an 18-year-old senior at Desert Hills High School, had just finished a golf tournament the day before she heard the announcement that high school spring sports were being temporarily suspended and schools would be closed for two weeks due to the coronavirus.

Sersansie is one of some 3.7 million high school seniors in the United States who are expected to graduate this year, a group of students who will share a unique bond for having been largely born the year of 9/11 and are graduating the year of the coronavirus. She is also one of at least 55.1 million students in the U.S. who have been impacted by current school closures.

In the beginning, Sersansie told St. George News that she thought of the two-week closure as a fun break and urged herself to just stay positive and look forward to when school was back inside the classroom. She had just won a golf tournament and was feeling momentum.

But when Gov. Gary Herbert officially announced on April 14 that schools would be dismissed for the rest of the school year, the reality hit hard and is something she’s been grappling with ever since.

“This is the time when we do all the fun things at school and all the senior stuff,” she said. “We’ve literally worked so hard for 12 years – in elementary we were thinking about graduation day. We don’t think about college graduation day. High school graduation is the graduation.”

Without the traditional graduation ceremony she said, “it really just does not feel finished. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel complete.”

Growing up, she and her peers always considered 2020 as the coolest year to graduate because the number felt somewhat auspicious, she said. But in light of the current situation, the future seems more unstable.

“The fact that such a powerful year got twisted and no one expected it is crazy,” she said, “because now you don’t know what could happen at any time of your life – or anyone’s life. You never know what to expect. In a couple months, you don’t know if this is going to be all over, or if there is going to be a new virus with everything changing again. We never expected a virus to take down our world.”

As a senior, remote instruction has been particularly challenging in maintaining motivation.

“Senioritis is actually a thing,” she said. “And so even when we’re at school, we don’t want to do our work. But now that we’re at home, it’s so hard because now we don’t have a graduation ceremony – we do – but not like a normal one. So it makes us not want to work because we don’t really get an award for it. Even though that’s not how it is, but that’s just how it feels, you know?”

The class of 2020 is strong, and it might not be easy, she said, but they will get through. It just feels unbearable because they’re in the middle of it.

“Right now, I’m thinking this is the worst thing in my life, but there’s going to be way worse, and maybe there has been way worse, but right now I can only think about this and what’s happening to me. But there’s a lot worse things going on in the world.”

Sersansie said despite the difficult situation, she’s still feeling positive. She’s keeping her eye on the road ahead, where in the fall she’ll be starting college at Dixie State University.

She’s also been feeling the love from the unexpected support she’s been getting from friends and family. With the pandemic being such a large-scale crisis, she said none of the seniors were expecting anyone to really care about them and thought they would’ve been forgotten.

“But the fact that people are actually caring and reaching out to us and making these cool videos and being on our side is what’s cool to see. And to see our communities all coming together and our different schools coming together – even our rivalries. I’ve talked to so many Dixie and Pine View kids and the love that I have for them now – because they’re going through what I’ve been going through – is amazing.”

Junior stays on track

Riley Jones, a 17-year-old junior at St. George Academy, told St. George News that the school closures were somewhat anticipated. She had overheard conversations about the probability.

When the news came, “we were listening to the governor’s address in my math class that Friday. We were all expecting it, but we weren’t that prepared for it. It was weird. It was a weird feeling.”

Unlike other schools, Jones said her teachers haven’t decreased the workload, and it’s the steady workload that is fueling her motivation and keeping her academically challenged.

To stay on track, she said she wakes up at 8 a.m. every day like it’s a normal school day.

“I make a to-do list and put it on my mirror, and I check off every class that I do. It’s not like I have a certain time I have to finish it by, but of course there are due dates. If it’s an A day, then I focus on those classes,” she said. “And then I try to fit other things in there before I go to work just so I don’t get bored, and I don’t feel like I’m doing nothing during this quarantine.”

The most challenging part of remote instruction is trying to retain information through just reading what’s on a screen, she said. But conversely it also feels like she can get more done in a day.

“I guess you could say it’s kind of a condensed school day. It takes like three hours, and I get everything done. I feel as if sometimes, those eight hours a day at school aren’t that necessary.”

But even still, she said the one-on-one, teacher-student relationship is irreplaceable and is what she misses most.

Jones will be attending Dixie State for some of her classes in the fall and hopes to be on campus for these, but admitted she does worry about what might happen if a second wave of the virus hits.

“I don’t know if I’d be as motivated as a senior as I am right now if this happened again – that’s what I’m worried about.”

Like Sersansie, Jones is staying positive and has a newfound joy that’s getting her through.

“I’ve been buying a lot of plants,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve just been planting, and that’s kind of a hobby I picked up during this pandemic.”

Jones considers this time as valuable in understanding the need for financial preparedness and in gaining an appreciation for people and the work they do.

“I think we’re all collectively gaining a new respect for workers who we pushed aside,” she said, “like our teacher and our healthcare workers.”

“I didn’t think I would miss school”

When Savannah Polhamus, 16, and a junior at St. George Academy first heard about the closures she was kind of excited she told St. George News. She imagined herself in her pajamas doing school work and was interested in trying out online learning for the first time.

But soon after the transition, things changed.

“I didn’t think I would miss school. I want to go back so bad. I didn’t think that would happen, but here we are.”

Even as a straight-A student, remote instruction has been particularly difficult for Polhamus because she is a very social person.

“Being inside all the time – it’s hard because you can’t see anyone, and it’s just kind of lonely and work tends to be harder, because there’s so much you want to do, and so it’s hard to focus.”

The most difficult subject to learn through remote teaching is chemistry, she said.

“It’s hard to understand in class, and learning it on your own – well kind of on your own, reading it and all that – it’s harder to focus,” she said. “And you can’t really interact with the teacher and ask questions as it goes on. You have to want to learn.”

Though Zoom meetings can’t compare to being in the classroom, she said, “it’s really nice to see everyone. I feel like it’s a whole lot easier to connect with people when you can see them face to face even if it’s over a computer.”

Considering what’s happening with this year’s senior class, Polhamus said she feels like she is going to enter senior year with gratitude. Though right now, she said her emotions have been in a constant flux.

“There are some days when I’m really depressed, and I’m like, ‘I really just don’t want to get out of bed and then at the same time I want to go see people.’ And then there are other days where I’m like, ‘Wow I’m going to workout today, I’m going to work on a new art project.'”

The greatest loss during this time is that she said she feels like she’s losing all her social skills.

“I’ll be talking to a friend on the phone who I haven’t heard from in a while, and I’ll be talking, and either I’m on a tangent or I don’t know what to say, and I used to be really good at conversations and keeping on topic. But now all the conversations are so dry because no one knows how to talk to each other anymore, but we’re still trying to connect.”

She said she knows a few peers who are struggling because they are used to using school and work as an escape.

“The only thing we can do right now is stay positive, try to do what you can. If you need to go outside, put on a mask, go for a run, keep distancing yourself because it will only get better the longer we stay away.”

Despite the social distancing, the school closures and the time away from friends, Polhamus said she can’t help but see a silver lining.

“As a community, somehow this virus has brought everyone together in a way. There are suddenly so many people outside. I feel like with my neighbors, I never saw them before, but now I do and it’s a great time.”

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

ST. GEORGE — A family had just started their day on the lake at Sand Hollow State Park on Saturday when their boat hit some rocks, leading to a passenger being ejected off the front, according to authorities.

The boat, which was full of passengers, was traveling about 25 miles an hour before the boat collided with the rock. When the passenger was ejected, the boat went over her while she was submerged but did not cause any injuries.

“The lake is almost full and as the lake levels change, different obstacles can be just under,” Sand Hollow State Park manager Johnathan Hunt said. “Many people are familiar with the island of red rock that’s out on the lake. That island has little fingers I guess, little pieces that rise up. A family was on a boat and they hit some red rock that was just underneath the surface of the water. It knocked one of the passengers out of the boat and apparently the boat went over top of her. Luckily there were no injuries.”

Hunt said that there are buoys to show where the rocks are located but sometimes boats come too close to the buoys, causing crashes. He said that is probably what caused this crash.

The boat is brand new and the shaft of the propeller broke in half due to the crash.

An ambulance was originally called to Sand Hollow State Park but they were cancelled when there were no injuries.

The accident came on a day the park was full of activity that forced it to be closed off to new visitors.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

ST. GEORGE — Walk into The Vault dance studio in St. George on any given day and you will likely hear the teachers leading their students in cheers of affirmations.

“Say, ‘I’ve got this!'” “Say, ‘I can do hard things!'” “Say, ‘I’m awesome,'” the cheers go.

And the students respond.

The affirmations are part of a culture of positivity that studio owner Tia Stokes has instilled in her teachers and students, as they all strive to use dance for a bigger purpose.

In addition to the dance studio, Stokes is the founder of hip hop dance groups Kalamity and Kaos, which for 13 years have been helping families going through real life calamities by putting on benefit concerts and donating all of the proceeds.

Now dancers, along with family members and friends, are rallying around a new cause … Stokes herself.

Stokes was recently diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

“We never thought it would come full circle, when a ‘kalamity’ would hit home with our beloved Tia,” part of a message on the #togetherfortia GoFundMe page, said.

Since founding Kalamity and Kaos, Stokes and her dancers, who live by the slogan “dance for a cause, not for applause,” have helped over 50 families and raised nearly $600,000.

Kalamity dancer Jori Christensen, a family nurse practitioner, said Stokes had been complaining of upper respiratory infections that had been dragging on for months.

“They seemed to come right after the other.” Christensen said. “I think everyone, including herself, just shrugged it off as her working too hard and her immune system being down because of it.”

Stokes was being treated for pneumonia and would seemingly get better only to have it come back worse, so she was advised to go to a clinic, Christensen said.

“I don’t think anybody was expecting that this would be her diagnosis, especially for how energetic and physically active she can be while being sick. It is quite a shock,” Christensen said.

In fact, just days prior to her diagnosis, Stokes was busy planning a virtual concert for the two causes that Kalamity and Kaos are supporting this year.

Christensen reflected on some advice that she said Stokes always gave during their rehearsals which seems to confirm how Stokes lives her life:

At our dance practice, she always said that ‘nothing is guaranteed, you never know when your life can change. You never know if it’s the last time you are going to hug someone, have a picture with them or dance together. So make it count. Dance like it’s your last time because you don’t know…’

Living Legacy

As family and friends prepare to support Stokes through her cancer journey, they shared some of the lasting impacts that Stokes has had on their lives, and the lives of others, so far.

“Tia has been serving families facing their own personal life ‘Kalamitys’ since 2007. She has raised over half a million for people in need, most of them she hadn’t ever met before,” Kalamity dancer Holly Axtell, said.

Axtell added she feels blessed to have served alongside Stokes for five of those years.

“Tia goes above and beyond for anyone in any situation: Family, friend or stranger,” Axtell said.

Kalamity dancer and Vault dance teacher Chelsea Judd agreed.

Judd was on the receiving end of Stokes’s generosity in a unique way, when Stokes donated her eggs so that Judd was able to carry children and become a mother.

Judd’s two girls and Stokes’s four boys and one girl have a unique bond, as do the two mothers.

“I love her like a sister because of our strong bond,” Judd said. “I know after Tia beats this cancer, she will continue blessing lives, complimenting strangers, dancing and loving our girls.”

Stokes is starting treatments Sunday, and because of visitor restrictions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic she will be going through tests and treatment alone at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City for at least 30 days, Axtell said.

“Imagine going through all of these scary things physically alone. Tia would have been by anyone’s side in a heartbeat if roles were reversed and it breaks my heart that we cannot physically be there with her,” Axtell added.

Stokes’s sister, Irene Ah Quin said that the family has been checking in on her often through the Zoom app and keeping her spirits up. Ah Quin, who runs the Main Ohana Movement dance studio in Hurricane, also called on the Southern Utah community to rally behind her sister who has had such a positive impact here.

“Tia has always been a great server to the community of Southern Utah in helping those struggling with their very own personal life calamities,” Ah Quin said. “Now is that time to come together and unite one big Southern Utah family and be ‘Together for Tia’ and do for her what she’s taught all of us for the last 13 years.”

And Christensen is positive the community will respond.

“I know that the generosity and love she has given will come full circle back to her 100-fold,” she said.

Despite the diagnosis and the isolation, Stokes posted on social media that she plans to fight the cancer and that she doesn’t feel alone.

In a post to her Instagram, she said though she is physically alone in the room, she feels the love and prayers being sent her way.

“We got this,” Stokes said in the post.

Stokes is able to receive letters and packages as long as they don’t contain homemade food or living things (plants, flowers, etc…)

Letters can be sent to the following address:

LDS Hospital
C/O Tia Stokes
8th Avenue, C Street
Room #E-803
Salt Lake City, Utah
84143

“If Tia has made you smile, inspired you, or impacted your life in any way, I encourage you to reach out and send your love,” Axtell said.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

ST. GEORGE — Should the clouds stay out of the way, a train of satellites will be putting on a show across the Southern Utah sky Sunday night.

At around 9:36 and for the next three minutes after, a string of 60 Starlink satellites will be bright enough to be seen with the naked eye in the north, passing near Polaris the North Star.

The satellites, part of entrepreneur Elon Musk’s fledgling satellite internet company, were launched together April 22 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, atop one of Musk’s Space X Falcon 9 rockets.

University of Utah professor Patrick Wiggins, who serves as a Utah NASA solar system ambassador, told St. George News the string of satellites won’t be making as much of a show as they will in the northern part of the state, but it will still be stellar to watch.

“It’s not quite as good a show as in the north but still visible,” Wiggins said. ” It will be rising in the northwest about a minute later than in the north but only making it about half way up the northeast sky before fading out at 9:39.”

The satellites, at an average of 364 miles above the Earth, are high enough that they will still be reflecting light from the Sun even after it has set and the skies are dark in Southern Utah. Right after passing a little below Polaris, they will fully enter Earth’s shadow and seemingly disappear.

At between 2.5 and 2.0 magnitude, they will be around the same brightness as the stars in the Big Dipper, also known as the Ursa Major constellation.

In fact, the Big Dipper will be a good way to track where the satellite train is in the sky. Viewers can use the two stars that make up the right side of the “dipper” and they will point directly to Polaris.

Unlike the twinkling stars, the train of Starlink satelites will be look like a steady string of lights, almost like the lights of a parade of airplanes flying overhead in the distance.

As of now, SpaceX has launched 422 of the Starlink satellites, but plans are to eventually have 4,425 of the satellites. Each has a flat panel design around eight feet wide, or the size of an office whiteboard.

The one thing that could stand in the way of seeing the show in the sky is the weather. The National Weather Service forecast says it will be partly cloudy between 9 and 10 p.m. Sunday night.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

ST. GEORGE — As hundreds of small business owners across the state grapple with the mounting losses suffered in the wake of the pandemic, the restaurant and hospitality industry may be the hardest hit with a series of devastating blows, forcing smaller eateries to close their doors while others offer curbside service to stay afloat.

Restaurants and fast-food stores began stepping up their in-store cleanliness efforts and forming crisis teams during the initial stages as many prepared for the worst.

For some, the worst came in an email sent by Gov. Gary Herbert on the night of March 17, ordering statewide restrictions to close dine-in options at restaurants and bars by 11:59 p.m. the following day to help stop the spread of the virus — an order restaurants and eateries across the state were given 24 hours to comply with.

The order stated the closures would be reassessed after two weeks, but in-door dining remained off-limits four weeks later when the governor extended the order on April 9.

On Friday, Herbert announced a tentative return to a limited form of in-house dining as early as May 1, albeit with six-foot distance between customers and a health check of both employees and patrons upon entry.

Even in the best of times, restaurants are tough businesses to operate — with more than half of them failing during the first year alone. Add to that the abrupt halt of dining-in due to the restrictions associated with the pandemic, coupled with a work-from-home labor pool that has all but eliminated the dining-out crowd for traditional and fast-food restaurants.

Jeff Germain, owner of Chef Hog’s Oyster Bar & Grill in SunRiver and a number of food trucks that operate locally, said that when he received notification that all dine-in operations were suspended it “was devastating” – as was notifying his employees, many of which called the following day to volunteer to help out until the ban was lifted.

A similar experience was shared by a general manager of a restaurant chain that operates two stores locally, who preferred to remain anonymous. She told St. George News that notifying her staff of more than 50 servers, cooks and service employees that all in-house dining was suspended, particularly with such short notice, was one of “the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do as a manager.”

“I’ve cried more in the last few weeks over these employees than I have during any other time I can remember,” she said.

While a few of the cooks are still on the schedule with limited hours for to-go orders, she said a majority of them were laid off. Since the hours and cook staff positions were limited, a number of the employees who had a second job or were able to afford it gave whatever hours they would have had to the cooks who had families or lacked any other income, a gesture she found “very heartening,” she said.

She also said that many of the employees put off applying for unemployment under the assumption the suspension would be lifted within a couple of weeks the Governor’s office stating “the order will be reassessed at the end of this two-week period.”

Those employees applied only after the two-week period had passed and the suspensions remained in place, she said, which put them a few weeks behind. She also said that all employees were paid any vacation pay accrued as soon as the suspension took effect.

Many of Germain’s employees also applied for unemployment, as was evidenced by the stack of paperwork he’s received from Workforce Services over the course of the last several weeks.

Germain also said that several of his employees called the day after the order was issued and volunteered to help out during the dine-in suspension while he applied for the temporary assistance being offered to sustain the business until the restrictions were lifted.

“In their minds, they chose to wait it out with us with the hope the business can come back,” he said.

He went on to say that Easter Sunday was big for Chef Hog’s Oyster Bar & Grill when the restaurant received more than 400 take-out orders on that day alone. The orders were called in primarily by Sun River residents, he added.

“So that community really saved us. I mean they really did.”

As far as business goes, both reported an 80-90% drop in business, which is supported by research conducted by Pymnts.com that was released in a report last week revealing an 85% reduction in the number of people dining in at sit-down restaurants nationwide since the pandemic began.

Changes have come in the wake of the pandemic for all local eateries that have had to absorb the costs to continue operating under the restrictions, including one local restaurant that changed operations during the pandemic to allow for orders to be picked up directly from windows facing the parking lot to make it more user-friendly for their customers. A number of establishments included coupons with every to-go order to promote repeat business.

A move to help displaced restaurant workers came when a partnership formed between Xetava Gardens Café in Kayenta and Switchpoint Community Resource Center, according to an announcement issued by Xetava Garden’s owner, Greg Federman, on April 8.

Federman first set up a GoFundMe page with the goal of raising $10,000 to turn the cafe into a place where displaced workers could pick up food and household supplies until they can return to work, and then realized more could be done through a partnership. shortly thereafter he partnered with Switchpoint, which provides temporary shelter and support for the homeless community in Washington County, and together they collaborated with over 20 nonprofit partners and local government agencies to offer services and resources onsite.

Federman works directly with Switchpoint to purchase items for restaurant workers through the food pantry, and restaurant workers in need of assistance are being asked to preregister online. 

Uncertain future 

The virus-related crisis has forced consumers to adopt new habits surrounding dining at restaurants and eating in general, which poll data released this week suggests that those behaviors might have long-lasting impacts for restaurants even after the current threat is eliminated.

On March 26, just shy of two weeks after President Donald Trump declared COVID-19 to be a national emergency, the National Restaurant Association announced that 3% of restaurants were closed for good and could be joined by another 11% by the end of the month. The association predicted that as many as 7 million industry jobs could be eliminated and losses could exceed more than $225 billion in sales over the second quarter of 2020.

In Utah, some local restaurants are preparing for the soft opening that is expected to take place by the first of May, some by maintaining an empty table between each seated table. But the future remains uncertain.

When asked, Germain said that while there have been drastic changes during this unprecedented time, it could be a while before things get back to normal. He also said that some things may never be the same.

Even so, he said, he looks forward to the future, saying that business will return. “We’re not going anywhere.”

COVID-19 information resources

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• World Health Organization
• Utah Department of Health
• Intermountain Healthcare
• To Donate and Volunteer to Help 

Southern Utah coronavirus count (as of April 26, 2020)

Positive COVID-19 tests: 87, with 58 recoveries.

• Washington County: 62 (4 new)
• Iron County: 21
• Garfield County: 1
• Kane County: 3
• Beaver County: 0

Deaths: 2

• Washington County: 1 
• Iron County: 1

Hospitalized: 0

Tested: 4,238

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

–

ST. GEORGE — As clouds of pollution have seemingly disappeared across the globe, many news headlines emerged about how the earth appeared to be replenishing itself as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic – but is this true?

According to NASA, during state-mandated quarantines in January and February, pollution monitoring satellites over China detected significant decreases in nitrogen dioxide – evidence that suggested the change was partially due to the economic slowdown.

However, these impacts are likely not garnering any permanent effects considering past observations of drops, such as during the Olympics in Beijing. After the Olympics were over, the pollution levels rose again. A similar decrease was seen during the 2008 recession.

In looking at how the state’s recommendations on social distancing and staying home could be effecting Utah air quality in the short-term, it’s not as easy as just looking at this March compared to the past five, spokesman for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality Jared Mendenhall told St. George News.

For one thing, Utah doesn’t suffer in general from year-long poor air quality.

Air pollution events, such as the Salt Lake City inversion, occur in the short-term and “about 40 to 50% of that pollution is automobile-based,” he said.

Across the state in March, there was about a 25%-30% reduction in vehicle traffic. This is a substantial reduction that offers scientists at the department a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study air quality in relation to things like emissions from automobiles and other sources. Even still, it will take some time before there are any conclusive results because of various factors that come into play.

“If you just take the average of the last five Marches and compare it to this March, you’re probably going to have very similar numbers.”

Adding to the challenge of discerning impacts right now is timing. Utah generally has good air quality during March and April.

“You have spring breezes. You have regular storm fronts coming through. And so, you just don’t see pollution building at the ground level – that’s where we monitor – that’s where EPA says monitor for air pollution,” he said. “There have been satellite images that have shown a reduction.”

Though immediate answers aren’t probable, Mendenhall said they plan to continue to gather and monitor data. In the coming months, they will assess the information to try to interpret any significant impacts during this time.

But Mendenhall said beyond looking at these impacts, this is an important time for people to reflect on how they live their day-to-day lives, whether that’s teleworking or fewer tanks of fuel.

“This is an uncomfortable time and there’s a lot going on,” he said. “We hope that people take this opportunity and reevaluate how they use their automobiles. And perhaps some of the things we’ve learned through this will benefit people when we do have our next pollution event … I’m personally going to the store a lot less. I’m trying to keep it to one time a week, instead of regular trips to the store. And that all helps.”

Compared to other places such as Los Angeles, where the prevalence of unhealthy air quality is much higher, the health risks are far fewer in Utah, he said. Over the last 35 years, Utah air quality has seen remarkable improvement, particularly looking at northern Utah. Currently, Utah is in attainment of the Clean Air Act and meeting federal clean air standards.

But one emerging issue in Utah, Mendenhall said, is an increase in ground-level ozone.

Long, hot summer days contribute to ozone pollution. Ground-level ozone is created when NOx and VOC’s mix, rise into the atmosphere and break apart by high heat and sunlight. The free oxygen molecules reform as ozone.

“The ozone up high in the atmosphere is good and different from ground-level ozone, which is a pollutant,” he said.

Ozone presents human health risk by breathing it. In some cases, its effects are similar to a sunburn of the lungs.

While most of the pollution issues are still isolated to northern Utah, there is ozone in Washington County, he said, and could become an issue with population and economic growth.

“Where the people live, that’s where the emissions are.”

While most of the short-term decrease in pollution has to do with a reduction of traffic emissions, it’s important to note that a sole reduction in traffic emissions does not negate pollution. And a drop in one air pollutant doesn’t necessarily mean that the air is suddenly healthy across a country.

According to an American Lung Association report released Tuesday, climate change has caused many western communities to see record-breaking spikes in particle pollution due to wildfires. The report also states that nearly half of Americans –150 million – have lived with and breathed polluted air. These unhealthy air impacts are of increased concern amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the report.

The report also showed Salt Lake City ranking ninth for the most polluted cities in the U.S. for short-term particle pollution.

“Air pollution is linked to greater risk of lung infection,” American Lung Association president and CEO Harold Wimmer said. “Protecting everyone from COVID-19 and other lung infections is an urgent reminder of the importance of clean air.”

Southern Utah has seen significant traffic reduction since March. One immediately noticeable trend is the decrease in southbound traffic on Interstate 15 leaving the state. In addition, comparing this time in April from 2019 to 2020, there has been about a 77% decrease in traffic on state Route 9 headed into Zion National Park.

But again, how and if these traffic reductions impacted air quality is still to be determined, Mendenhall said, but could serve as an important lesson forward as the Utah population continues. Both Iron County and Washington County in 2019 were noted in the top five fastest growing counties in Utah.

Maybe the pandemic quarantines aren’t necessarily clearing up the earth’s pollution for good, but they might still have some positive long-term benefits.

“This is a bad situation. There’s a lot of people in pain right now,” Mendenhall said. “But perhaps the silver lining might be that people consider how often they need to use that automobile, consider other ways and other behaviors that could help address some of these pollution events in the future.”

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

ST. GEORGE — Following the first-ever digital Utah Republican State Convention Saturday night, William Billings of Hurricane won over the most state delegates for the Utah House of Representatives’ 71st District over incumbent Brad Last, forcing a primary run-off.

Last has served for some 13 years as the representative for District 71 and is part of the reason for the outcome, Billings told St. George News. Billings garnered 56.25% of the vote, but said he had expected to receive more than 60% –but a few people who supported him ended up not voting, he said.

As Billings mentioned earlier in the year at his first event, he kept his word in not gathering signatures in order to win the nomination. He said he believes the caucus is what holds him accountable to the people.

“I think he (Last) expected me to win because there’s no reason to go gather signatures unless you are afraid of losing in that venue,” he said.

Billings said he plans to meet with around 5,000 people through virtual meetings before the primary on June 30. One of his successes so far in this race is that people want change, he said. People don’t want lifetime politicians. Moving forward, he said they are going to hold Last to his voting record.

“I don’t want to win this thing,” he said. “I want the person who the people want to win.”

For the gubernatorial nomination, Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox and his running mate Diedre Henderson came in first at the convention, garnering 52.6% of the vote. In a video post on Twitter Saturday night, Cox said the solution to Utah’s problems are going to come from Utah residents and also that he was blown away by the support.

Coming in second at 45.04% was Greg Hughes and his running mate Victor Iverson, a Washington County commissioner. According to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune, Iverson shares Hughes’ frustration with how the state is dealing with pandemic.

“In a string of mid-March text messages to Herbert’s top aides, he accused the governor and lieutenant governor of sitting idly by as the state’s economy goes up in flames,” according to the article.

Cox and Hughes will compete against former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who garnered enough signatures before the convention but placed sixth among delegates, in the June 30 primary.

For the U.S. House of Representatives 2nd District, incumbent Chris Stewart received 71.7% of the delegate vote. Stewart has represented the 2nd District since 2013, and in a victory statement said he was humbled and grateful for the strong delegate support he received over the last few days of convention voting. He expressed gratitude for hard work and leadership Derek Brown and his team demonstrated to pull off an unprecedented virtual GOP convention.

“I continue to trust in the convention system to vet and select the best candidates to represent our conservative values and I’d like to thank the delegates for their sacrifice and devotion to serving our county,” he said. “The world is in commotion right now.  But our nation is no stranger to challenges, and like those who have come before us, we will rise and meet them boldly.”

For the Attorney General, incumbent Sean Reyes was forced into a primary run-off with David Leavitt. Reyes had 57.51% of the vote to Leavitt’s 41.7%.

Utah’s Democrats also held their state convention virtually on Saturday.

The primary election will be held June 30 with the main election on November 3 that includes the race for U.S. president between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

FEATURE — When it comes to hypothyroid patients in the United States, approximately 80-90% of them have an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

With Hashimoto’s, an errant immune system attacks and “chews up” the thyroid gland to the point where it becomes inflamed, swollen, impaired and unable to produce the hormones it should to maintain health and quality of life. Sometimes during the typically long process of destruction that characterizes Hashimoto’s, the gland even dumps too much hormone for short periods of time, creating hyper/hypo cycles that can drive patients and their doctors to the end of their ropes.

Despite Hashimoto’s dominance in the thyroiditis category, doctors seldom diagnose it via lab tests because insurance companies are unwilling to pay for the tests. They know that conventional medical treatment for Hashimoto’s – hormone replacement therapy – is the same as the treatment for other forms of hypothyroidism.

The thinking goes like this: If the treatment is going to be the same no matter what, why pay for extra testing? Seems logical enough. But is it? Let’s explore.

A large number of my patients are middle-aged women who come to my office after having been told by doctors that they are hypothyroid. They have been taking various hormone replacement medications to get their laboratory numbers – especially their pituitary TSH and thyroid T4 levels – back into normal ranges.

Despite the treatment, including jumps in dosage, these women continue to exhibit many different symptoms, including symptoms of hypothyroidism that hormone replacement was supposed to alleviate.   

When that approach failed to relieve symptoms for these women, another diagnosis often followed, usually from the following sickness menu: depression, cyclothymia, PMS, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and anxiety disorder. For these women, the additional diagnoses have meant more drugs and more side effects from those drugs yet little, if any, relief from the misery they suffer. What is going on?

The immune system has two sides. One side attacks invaders while the other side creates antibodies that tag invaders for later attack and removal. With Hashimoto’s, one side has gone hyper, tricking the body into attacking its own cells. Further, when a confused immune system creates errant antibodies that attack the thyroid, those inflammatory antibodies also convince other body cells to resist thyroid hormones present in the bloodstream.

That’s not good.

Thyroid hormones are meant to trigger important metabolic functions within cells. When the cells resist, the hormones already present don’t work well and energy levels tank. That is why a patient can have adequate levels of thyroid hormones in the bloodstream and still have symptoms of low thyroid.

The key to managing the immune system of a Hashimoto’s patient is to find out whether the patient indeed has Hashimoto’s. We then can find out what side of the immune system is out of kilter and bring it back into balance with the other. This doesn’t mean suppression, which is dangerous; it means modulation.

Once the proper laboratory panels are run – including a comprehensive thyroid panel – and after looking for blood sugar disorders, other hormone imbalances, anemia patterns and adrenal gland dysfunction, the needed approach usually becomes quite clear.

But that approach must be tailored to each individual. One size does not fit all because too many things are often out of kilter at the same time with Hashimoto’s. What’s more, doctors need time to truly listen to patients, a service that is in short supply under today’s insurance-driven health care system.

Treating Hashimoto’s, whether actively diagnosed or not, as a thyroid disease requiring only hormone replacement is fighting the wrong battle. Hashimoto’s thyroid is basically an immune system problem that just happens to be targeting the thyroid. Manage the immune system problem well and the thyroid gland will often recover stability.

Moreover, further damage – and continued symptoms – can usually be averted by finding out what triggered Hashimoto’s in the first place, managing the diet, evaluating GI function for issues, altering general lifestyle behavior and supplementing with immune-system modulating plant extracts commonly used in functional medicine.

Yes, hormone replacement may still be needed if too much damage has been done and the gland is no longer able to produce sufficient amounts. Although Hashimoto’s is the result of some form of genetic susceptibility to environmental and other triggers and can’t be reversed in the current science, it can be managed and held at bay very well to regain quality of life.

Written by East West Health Wellness Experts.

This article was first published in St. George Health and Wellness magazine.

Email: news@stgnews.com

Twitter: @STGnews

CEDAR CITY — Concerned about a shortage of masks for local health care professionals and other essential front-line workers battling the spread of COVID-19, the Southern Utah University community jumped into action.

According to a press release from SUU, staff members and student workers had made 626 masks as of April 17, with more on the way. The idea for creating the masks came from staff members in the Copy Center at SUU’s Gerald R. Sherratt Library.

“We did this because there was a need in the community and I am a firm believer in volunteering to make a better world,” Shelly Roy, the SUU Library access services assistant who first proposed the idea of making masks, said in the press release. “Our students wanted to continue working so we got them involved and they loved every minute of this opportunity to serve”

As soon as word got out, other parts of SUU’s campus began donating essential components. Library staff members donated fabric and elastic. Members of the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance also donated elastic, a commodity that is now difficult to find.

“There were a few times when we ran out of material so we were not sewing any masks and it did not feel right,” said Trecia Loveland, SUU Library copy shop coordinator. “During those times it was amazing to get a phone call or a Facebook message asking if we needed more material. It is amazing to see the kindness from people in the Cedar City, Enoch, Parowan, and Kanarraville communities showing up with materials.”

With materials in hand, staffers brought in sewing machines, and suddenly the library’s copy center turned into a mini assembly line, creating a colorful palette of critically needed masks.

Once created, the masks were distributed to various community organizations and businesses: Cedar Health and Rehabilitation, local government offices, Canyon Creek Crisis Center, Smead Manufacturing, CATS Transportation, Cedar Valley Veterinary Clinic, package delivery companies, bus drivers and individual members of the community.

“We live in such a great community and this support from SUU is our way of giving back,” said Mindy Benson, SUU’s vice president of alumni and community relations. “All of us at SUU are so grateful for our neighbors who are on the frontlines serving the community during these unprecedented times.”

More masks are currently being made. Anyone who needs one, or would like to donate materials, can contact SUU at 435-865-8440.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

ST. GEORGE — The city of St. George has paved the way for Family Healthcare Clinic to consolidate offices to better serve the community.

The 30,000-square-foot building on the south side of East Riverside Drive between Taylor Andrews Academy School of Hair Design and Millcreek High School will house 23 exam rooms, three behavioral health rooms, a dentist office and pharmacy, as well as four administrative offices, eight office cubicles and a board room.

Lori Wright, CEO of Family Healthcare Clinic, said during a recent St. George City Council meeting that the building will replace the current location in downtown St. George along with a trailer on Millcreek High School that will be moved to the west side of the city.

Other clinic offices include one in Hurricane and two in Cedar City that will remain open.

The nonprofit and federally qualified health center receives about 24% of its funding from the U.S. Congress through a three-year funding grant.

“We have received this funding since 2002,” Wright said. “We anticipate receiving this funding as long as people need health care.”

More than half of the clinics’ patients are uninsured, Wright added, and the federal grant helps offset the “steep discounts” offered to that segment of the communities.

“It doesn’t take care of all of it,” she said. “The rest is billed through insurance, other grants and wonderful partnerships.”

During the past year, Family Healthcare served more than 14,000 patients in 54,000 visits, and the new building will help the St. George clinic grow.

The clinics offer health screenings to examine an individual for a disease or a health disorder. Most screening tests are done in an effort to catch a disease in its earliest stage, preferably before the onset of symptoms.

Other health services include discounted immunizations for those qualified, women’s health care, management of acute and chronic health issues and medication-assisted treatment.

Family Healthcare treatment is focused on the integration of the mind and the body.

According to the clinic’s website, integrated care is “care that results from a practice team of primary care and behavioral health clinicians, working together with patients and families, using a systematic and cost-effective approach to provide patient-centered care.”

One important component of services is mental health, Wright said at the City Council meeting.

“We have behavioral health workers working right alongside our medical providers,” Wright added. “We are doing this to address the emotional needs our patients have, some of the depression and suicide issues that Washington and Iron counties face.”

According to the Public Health Indicator Based Information System from 2016 to 2018, the age-adjusted suicide rate in Utah was 22.2 per 100,000 persons, with an average of 647 suicides per year.

Utah had the fifth-highest age-adjusted suicide rate in the United States during this time period.

In 2018, suicide was the leading cause of death for Utahns ages 10 to 17. It is the second leading cause of death for ages 18-24 and ages 25 to 44 and the fifth leading cause of death for ages 45-64.

Overall, suicide is the eighth leading cause of death for Utah residents, but suicide deaths are only part of the problem. More people are hospitalized or treated in emergency rooms for suicide attempts than are fatally injured.

St. George Mayor Jon Pike said he is amazed at how much Family Healthcare Clinics have grown over the years, being part of the initial conversations of the startup.

“Between the (Doctor’s Free Clinic) which are related but different … they help many people in our community,” Pike said. “We have seen them both skyrocket in volume (of patients) and types of services. This is an incredible mission they have.”

Wright estimates the clinics have doubled in size in the past five years, starting with 33 employees that now number more than 100.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Wright said. “It is our pleasure to serve.”

Those who are having thoughts of suicide, regardless of age, or who are seeking help for a friend or family member are encouraged to call either Teen Lifeline’s 24-hour hotline at 800-248-8336 or the Suicide Prevention Hotline at 800-273-8255.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

ST. GEORGE — In case you missed it, here is your weekend recap of the top five most viewed stories published on St. George News from Saturday and Sunday, April 25-26.

See the related stories at the bottom of this page for five honorable mention stories.

First coronavirus death reported in Washington County, second in Southern Utah

ST. GEORGE — The Utah Department of Health announced the first death of a resident in Washington County to the COVID-19 coronavirus. The department confirmed to St. George News that a woman with underlying conditions in her 60s passed away in Washington County of the virus.

Read complete story here.

‘We are full’; Sand Hollow closes after people flood to the park

ST. GEORGE — Sand Hollow State Park near Hurricane saw an overwhelming amount of people enter into the park Saturday – so much so that they reached capacity and were forced to close their gates.

Read complete story here.

Suspected drunk driver causes crash, shutting down I-15 for almost an hour 

ST. GEORGE — Police said a driver suspected of driving under the influence had his vehicle strike another near the Green Springs Drive exit of northbound Interstate 15, halting traffic for approximately an hour Saturday afternoon.

Read complete story here.

Passenger ejected from boat after it collides with rock at Sand Hollow State Park

ST. GEORGE — A family had just started their day on the lake at Sand Hollow State Park on Saturday when their boat hit some rocks, leading to a passenger being ejected off the front, according to authorities.

Read complete story here.

Real life calamity hits home for Kalamity and Kaos dance team founder diagnosed with cancer

ST. GEORGE — Walk into The Vault dance studio in St. George on any given day and you will likely hear the teachers leading their students in cheers of affirmations.

“Say, ‘I’ve got this!’” “Say, ‘I can do hard things!’” “Say, ‘I’m awesome,’” the cheers go.

Read complete story here.

The top five honorable mention stories can be found below in the related stories.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

ST. GEORGE — The city of St. George announced that all city-owned pickleball, tennis and sand volleyball courts will be reopened starting Tuesday.

“After discussions with the Mayor, City Council, City Manager and community members, and listening to medical experts on both the local and statewide levels, we felt it was the right time to open these recreational facilities again,” Leisure Services Director Shane McAffee said in a press release from the city.

The facilities to reopen include the following:

• Pickleball courts at Little Valley, Bloomington and Vernon Worthen parks.
• Tennis courts at Hidden Valley, Larkspur, Cox Park and Tonaquint parks.
• Sand volleyball courts at Vernon Worthen, Little Valley, Sunset, Silkwood, Christensen Park, Cottonwood Cove, Cox Park, Hidden Valley, J.C. Snow, Larkspur, Shadow Mountain, Tonaquint and Sunset parks, as well as community parks on 1100 East and 2450 East.

According to the press release, there will be signage at each facility to remind people of social distancing norms and play protocol.

If any pickleball players are uncomfortable with open play, they may reserve courts for a fee of $10 per hour for private play. Call 435-627-4531 or email parkreservations@sgcity.org for reservation information.

The announcement comes 10 days after the city announced that they would be reopening several parks in St. George, including Snake Hollow Bike Park, the Skategeorge Park and Pioneer Park. At that point, St. George Communications Director David Cordero said they were advising people to still be aware of the 6-foot social distancing recommendations.

“I think it’s become a part of all of us over the last month to six weeks as we’ve kind of had that personal radar to know if we’re giving enough distance between another person or group,” Cordero said. “We’ve gotten really good at that, and we don’t want to forget that going forward. We’re not out of the woods yet, but we’re seeing a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel, and that’s a great thing.”

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

ST. GEORGE — The California Condor chick in Zion National Park, which park biologists estimated to have hatched May 9, 2019, is set to celebrate its first birthday soon.

The chick, Condor 1,000, nicknamed 1K, is the first chick to successfully fledge in the park, exciting park biologists and visitors alike since it was spotted outside the nest in September 2019.

Park officials were first made aware that the chick had fledged when a group of visitors saw it outside of the nest on Sept. 25. Park biologists confirmed the sighting later that day.

Though its first official sighting outside the nest was in September, park biological science technician Jason Pietrzak said that it was first seen in its nest by volunteers in July of 2019.

“It took a while to be 100%,” Pietrzak said of confirming that the chick had hatched.

Pietrzak said that while everything indicated the bird had indeed hatched and was healthy – the parents had been seen carrying food to the nest site – it was good to have it confirmed by human eyes.

The chick is the first to be born to breeding pair 409, female, and 523, male. According to a post on Zion National Park’s Facebook page, the chick and its parents are still regularly seen together in the park.

The female had previously mated with another male that unfortunately died of lead poisoning, Pietrzak said.

The condor chick and its parents are part of a decades-long California Condor Recovery Program, a multiagency effort led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to recover the endangered California condor population, a previous St. George News report said.

A main private partner in the effort, the Peregrine Fund, which manages day to day monitoring of the population, began breeding the carrion birds in captivity in Boise, Idaho in 1993.

One of Condor 1K’s parents, the male, was bred at the Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Pietrzak said. The female was bred at the San Diego Zoo.

Birds in the Peregrine Fund’s recovery program go to release sites in Arizona, California and Baja Mexico, according to information on the fund’s website.

California Condors that have made their way to Zion National Park are part of release efforts that take place every September on National Public Lands Day at Vermillion Cliffs National Monument in Arizona.

The female condor parent was released at Vermillion Cliffs in 2008, and the male condor parent was released at Vermillion Cliffs in 2011.

The California Condor, North America’s largest flying land bird, is a critically endangered species. Condor 1K is the 1,000th chick to be born since recovery efforts began, but one of the primary causes of California Condor deaths, lead poisoning, is largely preventable.

Information from the Peregrine Fund’s website said the following:

Long before humans arrived in North America, these finely tuned scavengers relied in part on hunters – sabertooth cats and other large predators – for carrion. Condors’ clean-up role hasn’t changed, but new hunters to the scene can unintentionally leave behind a deadly contaminant: lead from spent ammunition.

The California Condor is a hardy species that survived mass extinctions of the last Ice Age, yet the entire population was reduced to just 22 individuals by the 1980s. Scientists suspected that lead poisoning played a role in the species’ decline, and recent research by The Peregrine Fund confirmed that over half of all condor deaths are due to this one preventable cause.

Pietrzak said the Condor chick has had an important impact on educating the public about the large scavenger birds and why recovery efforts are so important.

“I think it’s huge,” Pietrzak said. “It is important visitors learn we have these magnificent birds that are so critically endangered and rare on the whole planet.”

Since the chick was first spotted in September of 2019, thousands of visitors have been able to view the bird either from the popular Angel’s Landing Trail or from the Big Bend pullout along the main canyon scenic drive.

“It’s been really huge for everybody in the park. Most condor chicks are not hatched in places where the public can easily see them,” Pietrzak said.

Volunteer efforts have played a major part in studying Zion’s California Condors and educating the public, Pietrzak said.

On any given day in the park, volunteers can regularly be seen at the Big Bend pullout with binoculars and spotting scopes to help visitors view the birds. Volunteers are also often stationed at Scout Lookout on the Angel’s Landing Trail with all sorts of educational tools, including a replica egg, a condor feather and information about recovery efforts.

Pietrzak said the volunteers have been really dedicated to the condors.

“They just love these birds,” he said.

Though the national park is currently closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some limited volunteer work is still ongoing. The chick continues to be spotted flying in the area near the nest site and has also been spotted in Springdale, which borders the park’s South entrance, he said.

Currently, there are nearly 100 California Condors in the region spanning from the Grand Canyon to Zion National Park, Pietrzak said.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

CEDAR CITY — A driver escaped injury in a single-vehicle crash Monday that sent his pickup truck off the road and into the creek in Cedar Canyon.

The incident, which was reported shortly before noon near milepost 9 on state Route 14, involved a red 2011 Ford F-350 pickup driven by an adult male.

Utah Highway Patrol Lt. Randy Riches told Cedar City News at the scene that the man had been heading east up the canyon when the crash occurred.

“Based on evidence that we’ve seen here on the scene, it looks like this gentleman may have been going a little bit fast coming around the corner here,” Riches said, adding that the driver then crossed the line onto the right shoulder where his front tire struck a large rock.

“He hit that boulder, which caused his front end to come apart and caused him to lose control of the vehicle,” Riches said. “He veered to the right and went off the embankment down in the wash and landed right in the river, kind of on his side.”

“He actually landed on his wheels first,” Riches added. “Because of the grade on the embankment, once he came to stop, he kind of just tipped over in the river.”

Riches said the man was able to get out of the truck on his own and walk back up to the road to summon help. He reportedly had no injuries that required medical attention.

“Fortunately, he was wearing a seat belt,” Riches said. “And, his airbags deployed and worked like they should have. So he walked away from this one without injury.”

The Ford F-350 sustained heavy damage and was towed from the scene.

Investigating UHP Trooper Daniel Nielson said afterward that the driver received a citation for failure to operate his vehicle within a single lane. He was also given a warning for excessive speed, Nielson said.

In addition to the UHP officers who handled the investigation, a deputy with Iron County Sheriff’s Office also responded and helped direct traffic around the crash site until the scene was cleared.

Click on photo to enlarge it, then use your left-right arrow keys to cycle through the gallery.

Scene of a single-vehicle crash involving a red Ford F-350 pickup truck on SR-14 in Cedar Canyon, nine miles east of Cedar City, Utah, April 27, 2020 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

Scene of a single-vehicle crash involving a red Ford F-350 pickup truck on SR-14 in Cedar Canyon, nine miles east of Cedar City, Utah, April 27, 2020 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

Scene of a single-vehicle crash involving a red Ford F-350 pickup truck on SR-14 in Cedar Canyon, nine miles east of Cedar City, Utah, April 27, 2020 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

Scene of a single-vehicle crash involving a red Ford F-350 pickup truck on SR-14 in Cedar Canyon, nine miles east of Cedar City, Utah, April 27, 2020 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

Scene of a single-vehicle crash involving a red Ford F-350 pickup truck on SR-14 in Cedar Canyon, nine miles east of Cedar City, Utah, April 27, 2020 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

Scene of a single-vehicle crash involving a red Ford F-350 pickup truck on SR-14 in Cedar Canyon, nine miles east of Cedar City, Utah, April 27, 2020 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

Scene of a single-vehicle crash involving a red Ford F-350 pickup truck on SR-14 in Cedar Canyon, nine miles east of Cedar City, Utah, April 27, 2020 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

Scene of a single-vehicle crash involving a red Ford F-350 pickup truck on SR-14 in Cedar Canyon, nine miles east of Cedar City, Utah, April 27, 2020 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

Scene of a single-vehicle crash involving a red Ford F-350 pickup truck on SR-14 in Cedar Canyon, nine miles east of Cedar City, Utah, April 27, 2020 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

ST. GEORGE — The owners of two restaurants in Southern Utah are in a tough spot, along with many other restaurants and small business owners thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Randy and Tami Wong own the Black Bear Diner locations in St. George and Washington City. They, along with their employees, face a long road back from the economic disaster that has resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. Revenues have dried up, making it difficult for them to keep paying their employees.

According to a press release issued by the U.S. Small Business Administration Utah District Office, the Wongs knew that SBA might be able to help, as they had previously participated in an SBA loan program during the recession of 2008.

“We lost it all in the recession and fought and clawed our way to a place where we could dream and work for a better future and actually applied and were approved for a loan of $2.9 million,” Randy Wong said in the press release. “Not in my wildest dreams would I have thought we could do and accomplish so much.”

So, when COVID-19 hit, Wong looked to the SBA’s new funding programs for help. He applied for both the Economic Injury Disaster Paycheck Protection Program loans, as he knew he had eligible expenses to qualify, such as payroll, rent, interest and utilities.

“COVID-19 started to impact us, so we adapted and (we) were settling in to deal with a drop of 30% in sales,” Wong said. “We (thought we) would fight and work our way through it. So, here we are now, seeing a $170,000 a week cash flow eliminated. First, we had no idea of how we would get through it, then the SBA said, ‘We can help,’ and now we have hope and are ready to work for our American dream.”

The Wongs were referred to and applied to Celtic Bank for the Paycheck Protection Program loan and were approved for the maximum amount they were eligible for at each of their restaurant locations.

“I just want to thank Len Erickson and Jeff Mather at the SBA Small Business Development Center in St. George. I couldn’t have done this without them,” Wong said. “I also want to thank the founders of Black Bear Diner, Bob Manly and Bruce Dean, because they really went out on a limb for me. And, lastly Celtic Bank, Jody and Kari, for working late into the night Friday and Saturday to participate in the PPP program.”

“We … are so grateful for the help of the SBA,” he added. “Wow did the SBA step up and give us and our 160 employees hope and faith that together we can get through this and come out the other side still living the American dream.”

To apply for the emergency loan programs, go to www.sba.gov/disaster or www.treasury.gov. There is no cost to apply for the loans.

To learn more about the U.S. Small Business Administration’s mission, visit www.sba.gov.­

ST. GEORGE — Washington County is set to begin a phased reopening of businesses following Gov. Gary Herbert’s guidelines starting Friday.

The goal to begin to reopen the local economy will be based on Southern Utah’s response to the governor’s wishes and upon the upcoming directives issued from the Southwest Utah Public Health Department.

The focus will be on businesses most impacted by COVID-19 closures, namely those in the hospitality industry and restaurants, Washington County Commissioner Victor Iverson said

“We want people to feel comfortable and safe as we get back to some sort of business as usual,” he said.

Fortunately, Iverson said, the pandemic has not been as severe in Southern Utah as it has been in the northern part of the state, but there is still a desire to return to “normal” life.

Iverson said while he realizes the need to keep people safe, everyone is growing weary and there has to be a prudent balance between what reopens and what does not.

“That is why the guidelines will be critical,” Iverson said. “We are really looking at restaurants. These are the businesses were are looking at right now.”

The shutdown has made many people anxious to get life back to normal, he added.

“Everyone wants our community to stay safe and our vulnerable populations cared for,” Iverson said.

Along with the St. George city council, Iverson said the Washington County government embraces the thought that the community is all in this together, needs to act for a common goal and have patience in times of crisis.

“As a county, we’ve tried from the very beginning of this to implement practices such as shutting down our senior centers, extended our meals on wheels … and made changes to our library system,” Iverson said. “We need to meet the needs of the public, but at the same time help people feel comfortable.”

For many, dealing with the pandemic is uncharted territory.

“There have been a lot of unknowns, and the unknowns have decisions being made,” Iverson said. “I am not critical  other than we need to be careful that the reaction is followed up with a plan.”

This is why the county has formulated a plan to help local businesses open, survive and thrive, he said.

“We do have more information about the virus, and there is no doubt this might be somewhat seasonal and return to some degree,” Iverson said. “We are starting to recognize the contagion rate and the mortality rate is not as high as originally forecasted.”

The initial estimates that there would be more than 20 million deaths globally and 3-4 million deaths in the United States as a result of COVID-19 has so far not become a reality. While the number of cases and deaths are high, Iverson said, local governments should make decisions based on the reality of what is happening now and not in fear of past predictions.

“There is no doubt that COVID-19 will necessarily disappear, but we need to always adhere to good health practices of washing our hands, not touching our face after handling a public doorknob and keeping our distance, especially now as long as this persists,” he said.

As the dynamics of the virus change, Iverson said, so will how government and citizens adapt.

“It is an interesting time that we live in,” he said.

Everyone in Southern Utah has been pulling together, Iverson added.

“As this came down and we began scrambling getting the business loan program up and going, people began setting up Facebook pages and volunteering,” he said. “This reminded me that this community and the great people that move here are so giving. We are really blessed.”

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

October 6, 1932 — April 23, 2020

Emory (Earl) Rhoads, beloved husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather, uncle and true friend, passed away peacefully at home on April 23, 2020, surrounded by his family in St. George, Utah.

He was a man, who, like a cat, had nine lives or possibly more, after surviving a plane crash, a brain tumor, multiple heart surgeries, and raising four sons and one daughter with his best friend and eternal companion of 64 years, Barbara Jean (Leavitt) Rhoads. 

He was born a whopping 13 pounds and 25 inches long on Oct. 6, 1932, in Willard, New Mexico to Ruby Earl Waren and William Emory Rhoads. He was the oldest of four children and had a childhood full of trials and several moves, but those hard times were eclipsed by memories of baseball, music and outdoor adventure with his extended family and loving lessons of wisdom in regards to respect for authority and women from his dear father. 

He was drafted his senior year of high school for the Korean War. He joined the Air Force and finished basic training in California. He then attended radio school and was awarded flight status from the University of Alaska after helicopter school. He served in a helicopter squadron at numerous Air Force bases until being discharged at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. He loved his country greatly, and even in his later years said that “If my country needs me in any capacity, I am ready to go.” At the time of discharge, his rank was Buck Sergeant. 

He worked many jobs in his lifetime, all of which required hard work with his hands and a deep knowledge of machinery, mechanics and woodcraft. 

He was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Feb. 13, 1958. He married his wife and was later sealed to her for eternity in the St. George, Utah Temple on June 27, 1959. He loved God and served with unflinching faith in many teaching capacities in the church and his most memorable callings are the 20 years that he served with the Aaronic Priesthood. 

His greatest joy was his family. He and his wife were blessed with five children: Steven (JC), Brian (Sally), Daniel (Valerie), Shelly (Dale), and Daryl (Jenna). He leaves behind a beautiful progeny of 29 grandchildren and 36 great-grandchildren who will miss his outlandish stories and quirky wood carvings. We love you Grump. Until we meet again. 

He is preceded in death by his parents, two sons, and grandson. Interment will be in the Tonaquint Cemetery. 

Arrangements entrusted to the care of Metcalf Mortuary, (435) 673-4221. Please visit our website at www.metcalfmortuary.com for condolences, complete obituary and funeral listings.