Heber Valley Life

Tag: Wasatch High School

  • Anastasia

    Anastasia

    “Who are You?” is the question Anya, or perhaps Anastasia, the lost grand duchess of Russia, must answer. This historical fiction is full of mystery and adventure as Anastasia is trying to remember who she is. Beginning in Bolshevik Russia, Anastasia and two con men Dmitry and Vlad survive a dangerous escape to Paris to find the heartsick Dowager Empress Marie Romanov. Anastasia is not the only one on a path of self discovery. Based on the 1997 animated film; this popular theatrical adaptation premiered on Broadway in 2017 and has continued to inspire audiences all over the world, including Heber.

    Wasatch High School has once again produced a spectacular show! Anastasia premiered Thursday, February 3rd and had showings the 4th and 5th. With a cast and crew of nearly 100 and directed by Laurie Turnblom, musically directed by Stephen Reynolds, and choreographed by Christie Moulton this is a show you won’t want to miss. The show stars Brooke Thatcher as Anastasia, Kai Haddock as Dmitry, Ethan Scott as Vlad, Cecily Rowland as Dowager Empress Marie, Enoch Fry as Gleb, Dane Roberts as Count Ipolitov, and Elissa Ross as Lily Malevsky-Malevitch. Set in Russia and Paris; plotted adventure, intrigue, and romance, harmonized with incredible music, and costumes. Add in original Broadway digitally projected backdrops, and custom props – including a spinning train car – this show is perfect for a family Valentine’s Day outing.

    Shows continue Wednesday, February 9th through Saturday, the 12th at 7pm. Tickets can be purchased at the door or online at whsheberut.booktix.com

  • Emergence Art Contest

    Emergence Art Contest

    Inspired by Our Home Town

    The majestic and varied landscapes of Wasatch County have inspired artists from across the globe since the early pioneers first settled here. Today our valley’s mountains, rivers, fields, farms, and skate parks are inspiring a whole new generation of young artists.

    The year 2020 brought about a lot of change for everyone — in Wasatch County, a group of PTA presidents representing the district’s elementary, middle, and high schools, decided to change things up a bit too. After much deliberation and discussion, it was decided that Wasatch County would break away from the Parent-Teacher Association and create their own Wasatch Parent Network — the only thing holding them back was the PTA Reflections program. For those unfamiliar with Reflections, it is a nationally recognized art contest. The WPN wanted to make sure that students in Wasatch County could continue to participate in art competitions. So they rolled up their sleeves and went in search of ways to offer challenging opportunities for K-12 artists.

    During a district meeting, it was mentioned that the Wasatch Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS) was creating a website for their art contest — Emergence. Emergence’s goal is to help, “Grow Young Artists.” The contest’s art categories include 2D drawings, paintings, graphic designs, and photography in addition to 3D works like pottery and sculptures. This seemed like a perfect match. Angie Neuberger, President of the Wasatch High Wasatch Parent Network shared, “It really came down to the Wasatch County School District, the CAPS program, the Wasatch Parent Network, and Heber Valley Life Magazine, working together to create this amazing art contest. The hardest part was that each student could only enter one category — so they had to decide if it was going to be a painting or a photograph or whatever they liked best.”

    Once submission and contest rules were decided things began to move fast. Open to all students in grades K-12 in Wasatch County School District the contest was announced in March with all entries being due just after Spring Break in April. Angie laughed as she shared, “We had 175 entries this year — our first year — which was just great and kind of a crazy time too. It was a bit tricky trying to find judges but we were really thrilled with the response from the students and those who volunteered to judge. We had six judges; all from the community and all involved with art in some way.”

    The judges had a blast and said that it was really difficult to choose; however, they all mentioned that their favorite part of the process was reading the descriptions of the artwork. The theme for the 2021 Emergence art contest was “My Home Town”. The artists’ works, words, and how they related to the theme puts into perspective just how unique and amazing our home town is.

    Angie explained that “I feel like with Reflections we couldn’t do anything like this, each school was always on their own – with this [Emergence] we all came together and we made it better.” Angie also shared that, “the way the Wasatch Parent Network, Wasatch County School District, the CAPS program, and Heber Valley Life came together to highlight the arts was just so amazing. I am so appreciative of the support everyone has given us to do our own thing. I love the name Emergence and everything that it encompasses . . . I just think the kids were so great with creating artwork that they are passionate about

    Spring by the stream
    TOP WINNER – GRADE 9-12

    HANNAH BERRETT

    Spring by the Stream

     Hannah Berrett loves creating art with graphite, but when it came time to decide which of her pieces to enter in the Emergence art contest, she decided not to play it safe.

    “I had already been working on a landscape painting, my first, and I put so many hours into it, and I was just super proud of it. I loved the story about how it was of one of my really good friend’s backyard here in Midway — and that it fit so perfectly with the theme.”

    Hannah is Wasatch High School’s Visual Arts Sterling Scholar; during her interview, she was able to talk about what a privilege it was to represent Wasatch High School, her community, her painting, and the Emergence art contest. Hannah says that she is grateful her art teacher told her about the contest and how honored she was to win and be able to present and be recognized by the school district. “I’ve done Reflections before, but it was always a little confusing; I think that this [Emergence] was awesome. It was really cool that it was more personal, and they focused more on the talent within our community instead of being a big competition.”

    Hannah developed a love for art while drawing with her grandpa, Kay Watson, who is most famous for his artwork created for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Hannah seems to be following in her grandfather’s brush strokes as she recently started a business painting all sorts of things like movie posters, album covers, and whatever people want on their shoes. The most unique thing she has been asked to paint was a skateboard deck.

    Hannah loves creating for others and shared, “My favorite part of doing artwork is when people ask me to do commissions because I love being able to not only work on the artwork but work with the people in my community. I love being able to learn more about them and being able to express something that they want into a piece of art, and it’s just amazing seeing their reactions. I get videos and pictures, and I just love it.”

    Moving forward, Hannah plans to become an Art Therapist and will be attending the University of Utah next year, where she will double major in Psychology and Visual Arts.

    A Kid in the Park
    TOP WINNER – GRADE 9-12

    LILY CHILD

    A Kid in the Park

     As an eventer in the world of Equestrian sports, Lily picked up her mom’s Pentax and started snapping photos of horses and people riding — and something happened. She found a new talent and a new passion.  Completely self-taught, Lily has been experimenting with all types of photography for the past six years. This year she enrolled in film photography — her first time taking a photography class.

    Lily’s recent obsession has been photographing her friends who skateboard. When she heard about Emergence, she knew exactly what she wanted to do. She explains, “. . . with the theme ‘My Home Town’ I wanted to highlight this little community we have here in Heber Valley. We all see the skateboard park as we drive by, and there are always lots of little kids there during the day, but at night all the big kids come out to play, and it’s so fun! We’ve got some seriously good skaters here . . . everyone is so nice and supportive of each other no matter their level . . . it’s such a fun vibe!

    Her photo titled, A Kid at the Park represents one of the more important parts of ‘My Home Town’ for Lily. “This picture is of Crew, who I’ve been best friends with since second grade. So that was just really cool that it won.” She continued, “I really enjoyed Emergence. I feel like it’s more community-centered and that the students get a little more recognition for their work and for whoever won. I think that it is cool that they are putting us in the newspaper and the magazine and that we got to go to the district office. I thought that it was really awesome that they did that for us.”

    So, what does Lily want to do next? Well, she’s got some pretty big plans. Lily says it best, “One of my all-time dream jobs would be to be a photographer for National Geographic or an outdoor adventure brand like Patagonia or The North Face. It would take me to cool places and give me the opportunity to meet such cool people and to be able to capture it all with my camera . . . it would just be awesome.”

    Simple Elegance
    TOP WINNER – GRADE 9-12

    KATIE HENDERSON

    Simple Elegance

    Katie Henderson moved to Heber when she was in 8th grade and was not too excited about living here. Katie loves to ride horses and housed her horse at a barn in Northfield. Katie shared, “I was going out to Northfield five days a week, and one day there was this blizzard, it was the coolest thing. It was so simple but so beautiful, just the prettiest thing you could ever see.” She captured the moment on film and knew it was the photo she wanted to enter for Emergence.

     “I’ve done photography all through high school and fell in love with it, so I took every single photography class there was offered at Wasatch. I’m in AP studio art right now for photography, I saw the fliers up at school, and my photography teacher told me that he thought it would be perfect for me. I take photos of Heber all the time. I probably have 100 sunset photos of Timpanogos alone. I just take photos whenever I can, and I just thought it [the photograph] fit so perfectly.”

    When asked if she used any type of sepia or grayscale filter, Katie said, “No, I didn’t use anything. It was just contrasted that morning; it was crazy cool how black and white it really did look.”

    “I’ve done Reflections throughout my life, and the thing that I loved about this contest is that it was very community-oriented and I saw that this was something special we could do close to home, and it was personal to every single person in the valley. I thought that was cool.” She also enjoyed presenting her artwork to the school board, “It was really special getting that extra boost of ‘Yay!’ from the Principle and Vice Principle and board members.”

    Katie’s photograph titled Simple Elegance represents more than just a beautiful day in our valley. Katie explains, “I’ve come to adopt that theme myself – My Hometown. Because starting from not wanting to move here to this being my favorite place in the world. I think that it is really special that I found that simple elegance about Heber that I find so amazing.”
    Katie will be attending Utah State University in the fall and shared, “I would love to at least minor in photography and get a good base there and see where it takes me.”

    Cicily Larson
    TOP WINNER – GRADE 6-8

    CICILY LARSON

    It’s a Good Life

    This painting represents how I live a good life and the beauty we all can enjoy as we slow down in life to look up. Looking up at the sky brings perspective on where we stand. One of my favorite parts about living in the Heber Valley is God’s canvas is all around me! I love how the mountains draw a line in the canvas separating the Earth from the Heavens. I love how climbing the mountains makes me feel closer to the sky as well as the Son.”

    “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

    Thomas Merton Tweet
    Naomi Hansen
    TOP WINNER – GRADE 6-8

    NAOMI HANSEN

    Natural Beauty

    “Many people like to see the attractions of a town. I, on the other hand, choose to illustrate the sights that cannot be man-made. Midway is a natural wonder and I want people to realize that through my drawing.”

    MILLIE TAYLOR
    TOP WINNER – GRADE 3-5

    MILLIE TAYLOR

    Coming Home

    “This is a picture of my home town with the most beautiful tall mountains. I like coming home to Midway because it has pretty scenery and sunsets. The painting represents how I feel when I come home after being gone.”

    Mackenzie Howard
    TOP WINNER – GRADE K-2

    MACKENZIE HOWARD

    Rainbow Ice

    “I did a picture of my family at the Ice Castles in Midway at night time. My favorite thing to do in my home town is to visit them every winter. They are so pretty at night with the rainbow colors all over them. I really like going on the slides, walking through all the tunnels, and seeing the new things they can build. It’s a special thing about our town because people come from all over to see it, even my cousins and grandma and grandpa.”

    Every child is an artist, the problem is to remain an artist once they grow up.

    Pablo Picasso Tweet
    A huge shout out to our Judges

    Jordan Daines

    Colby Larsen

    Ella Ballsteadt

    Justin Bowen

    Quinn Calder

    Liz Sprackland 

     

    Huge Congratulations
    top winners

     

    K-2         | MACKENZIE Howard

    3-5          | MILLIE Taylor

    6-8          | CICELY Larsen

    9-12       | HANNAH Berrett

    9-12       | KATIE Henderson

    9-12       | LILY Child

     

    The top seven winners in each category will have their artwork on display for one year at the Wasatch County School District’s Office located at 101 E 200 N, Heber City.

  • Wasatch Community Foundation

    Wasatch Community Foundation

    We all know that our valley is a treasure trove of natural beauty. However, have you ever asked yourself what Wasatch County’s most valuable attraction is? I believe it’s the people who live here, and that includes our amazing youth.

    Wasatch Community Foundation agrees. According to their website, ourwcf.org, the mission of their Educational Pillar is to help produce, “The Finest Youth on the Planet!” Helping our youth find their way in the world and giving them as many educational opportunities as possible is at the forefront of everything that WCF Education Pillar Chair, Jim Ritchie, does. Cassandra Smith, WCF Marketing Chair, shared that, “As one of the founders of Wasatch Community Foundation [Mr. Ritchie] helped to develop the UVU Heber Valley Campus and [continues to] assist the Wasatch School Foundation in providing scholarships to every high school senior that applies, along with our annual Kati Fischer Teacher of the Year Award.”

    WCF’s Educational vision for Heber Valley is to become an “Educational Everest.” Cassandra explains that “WCF currently has two projects underway in conjunction with further developing our Wasatch UVU campus. The first is establishing an accredited hospitality and tourism degree program. The second is supporting and partnering with UVU and Wasatch High School to develop a trade(s) program for the valley.”

    The first project is already well on its way. This fall UVU’s Woodbury School of Business will open enrollment for its Wasatch Resort Management Program (WARM). Students who enroll in the program will complete five consecutive semesters to earn a Bachelor’s degree in hospitality management. Students will attend UVU’s Wasatch Campus in Heber; while working at partner luxury hotels in Heber City and Park City. The program is unique in that students will be part of a structured cohort. According to the program’s description, “Thirty students will be admitted in the first cohort in the Fall of 2021. Cohort courses will be offered back-to-back minimizing the time students are required to be on campus and ensuring students are available to work up to five day or five evening shifts a week.” The educational experience is designed to include: group projects, case studies, guest lectures, workshops, certifications, competitions, mentoring, and more. Enrolled students will work for partner hotels receiving competitive pay and tuition reimbursement.  The goal is to have students gain valuable experiences that will help launch their careers and graduate with little to no student debt.

    The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute showed that leisure and hospitality jobs in Wasatch County grew by 64.0% from 2010 to 2019.1 Meeting these needs, by offering youth the opportunity to earn a degree and work close to home, will be a great benefit to our community and our valley’s hospitality venues. Cassandra shared that, “Donations are needed to support this program, particularly with getting the word out. Resort owners, businesses, parents, teachers, school officials, and counselors should be aware of this program and its development. We have amazing resorts, restaurants, and businesses in the Heber and Park City valleys, and we are looking for business owners and managers to partner with UVU who are willing to help create a world-class training facility and provide training.”

    The vision for training and job opportunities doesn’t stop with a Bachelor’s in hospitality management. WCF, Jim, and many others in the community are working hard to develop a second program that focuses on trade opportunities in Wasatch County. “We are looking for trade companies like, plumbing, HVAC, construction, electrical, auto-mechanics, cosmetology, culinary arts, etc. that are willing to partner with Wasatch High School and UVU Wasatch Campus to provide trade programs for our youth.” To start the development of this new program WCF will need donations, partnerships, and community support. Wasatch County has amazing youth who have a lot of talent to share. Working together for the “well-being of Wasatch County residents by uniting community resources and programs,” we can create and support local educational programs and opportunities that will help the world recognize our youth for what we know them to be. “The Finest Youth on the Planet!”

    For scholarship information visit: wasatched.org/scholarship-program

    1 https://gardner.utah.edu/wp-content/uploads/TravTourReport-Sep2020.pdf, p9

  • 5A State Swim Meet Held at Wasatch Aquatic Center

    5A State Swim Meet Held at Wasatch Aquatic Center

    The 5A State Swim Meet was held at the Wasatch Aquatic Center this weekend. The championship event was originally scheduled to occur at Brigham Young University. However, a few weeks ago, due to Covid concerns, BYU decided not to hold the meet at its pool this year. Wasatch stepped in, and the 5A meet was moved to Heber City. Since Wasatch is a 5A team, they were able to compete at home.

    Wasatch Aquatic Director Dennis Tesch believes it means a lot to the Heber Valley community to have the state championship here. “We built this pool to hold big swimming meets. We built it to be fast and to hold lots of teams. I think to the community it means that we love our sports, and we want the sports of Utah to come to the valley and have a great time.”

    Since the meet was moved last minute up the mountain, it could have caused issues with other coaches. However, according to Tesch, the 5A coaches “knew it’s a good pool. They knew we could host a meet.”

    The Wasatch Aquatic Center was built by the school district only a few years ago. It was created to replace the outdated high school pool, and an activity area for the public was included as well. “It’s a district pool, so of course district events like this are first,” explained Tesch, “and then we want to do youth sports, and it’s been great for the public use too.”

    Olympus High School won first place in both the boy and girl swim meets. Wasatch High School, however, did well, winning second and third in multiple individual races. Their highest ranking was Jayden Hicken’s second place finish in the 50 freestyle event.

    “They’re swimming very well,” said Tesch. “[Head coach Shawn Marsing] has been impressed with the swims. The team is placing high, and it’s been a good meet for them.”

    Though the public was unable to attend this year, the swim meet was broadcast online. The coaches are hoping for more public involvement next time. Tesch stated, “We hope to continue to do these, and we hope in the future the community can come and watch, instead of just watching through the tv. It would be a lot of fun.”

  • Wasatch High School Goes Online

    Wasatch High School Goes Online

    Wasatch High School is temporarily switching to an online learning format from Monday, October 12 through Friday, October 23, 2020. The school is planning to return to in-person learning on Monday, October 26. Extracurricular activities will continue as planned.

    As stated on the Wasatch County School District Facebook page, “Our in-school mitigation efforts have proven to be effective. However, the recent increase in community COVID cases has had a direct impact on our high school students and staff.”

    The Wasatch County Health Department confirmed there has been an increase in recent community spread. The Wasatch County 7-day average, as of Tuesday, was at 10.7 new cases a day, with the majority of those attributed to community spread, according to Trudy Brereton at the Health Department. “I think our community’s doing a pretty good job, but sometimes as time goes on, we get a little fatigued,” she said. “We’re not through this yet, and our spike in cases kind of reminds us of that.”

    “The teachers will still be in the building, which works because they will be able to stay within their classrooms or individual spaces,” said Kirsta Albert at the District office. “So, they’ll be able to completely distance from each other.”

    It will be different from what happened at the end of last year. For the first two days, until the end of the 1st Term, teachers will be accessible to students during their regular class times and for 30 minutes before and after school. When the new term begins on October 20, teachers will begin each class period with a Zoom call at the regular class time.

    Fall break was previously scheduled for October 14-16, and teachers will be doing professional development days on October 14 and October 19. The teachers requested an additional development day to regroup.

    “The teachers learned so much during the shutdown last Spring, that we are confident they will be taking the tools that they added to their arsenal into this closure,” said Albert.

    According to the District website, “No other District schools are approaching the threshold for closing.”

    The Wasatch School District website can be found at https://www.wasatch.edu.

  • Wasatch High Creates Innovative Homecoming Dance 2020

    Wasatch High Creates Innovative Homecoming Dance 2020

    Wasatch High School students of 2020 have missed out on many of the usual high school experiences. Prom, graduation, spring sports, and so much more was modified or cancelled completely. Homecoming was also on the chopping block. But the school district, the school board, the high school, Wasatch County Health Department, and some students, came up with an ingenious plan to save it. Thanks to them, Wasatch High School’s Homecoming Dance 2020 will be held this Saturday.

    Assistant Principal Ryan Bishop recalled, “Back in June and July, I started reaching out to see what other schools were doing.” He found that most schools were not going to have a dance. “At that point, I went to our district office and our school board, and they gave us an approval to try to work with the health department.” Bishop was hoping to come up with something for Homecoming that the Wasatch Health Department would approve. He continued, “Obviously we knew it would look different. So, I sat down with our student government kids, and we just brainstormed a hundred different things.” Sometime in the middle of august, students came up with the final idea.

    “What I really like about it is we had a lot of kids get involved. . . . It was really student-centered; the adults were just there to help them along the way,” said Bishop. Students took drone shots of the football field, and it was divided into 20 sections. Each section will be color-coded, along with assigned parking, entrance gates, wristbands, and a chaperone. 700-800 students are expected to attend, but there will only be 25-30 students in each 40×10-yard section. Digital tickets were pre-purchased over an app, to minimize contact. The dance time will be earlier than usual, 7-9pm, and masks will be distributed at the gates.

    “It’s amazing when there’s trust,” Bishop explained. “We’ve had a great deal of trust between our school district personnel, our administration at the high school, our school board, and the County Health Department.”

    Although many normal Homecoming activities were cancelled, some remained. Street painting was changed to “Chalk the Block,” and the front patio of the school was decorated by various school groups. Wasatch beat Spanish Fork 26-17 in a Homecoming football game Friday night. And a virtual Homecoming Royalty vote was held. The results were Sydney Brooksby as Queen, Kate Henderson as 1st Attendant, and Mary Santiago as 2nd Attendant.

    “We’re going to create a safe environment, and wear masks, and do everything that our health department’s asking us to do. But, we sure want to give our students some fun high school experiences too,” said Bishop. “We want to show them some sense of normalcy.”

    Parents seem to agree. According to Randy and Jen Larsen, “As parents of a Senior, we sincerely appreciate the efforts of the Wasatch School District, Wasatch High School administration & teachers, and the Wasatch County Health Department to be creative and implement guidelines that allow for some normalcy. Creating an environment that encourages social distancing and providing masks to each participant will give WHS students the opportunity for a unique, but real and memorable homecoming experience in 2020!”

  • Wasatch High to Allow Fall Sports

    Wasatch High to Allow Fall Sports

    Sports fans will be pleased to know that Wasatch High School is planning to have cross-country, golf, soccer, tennis, volleyball, and even football this Fall. Some accommodations will be made to allow the sports to go forward.

    Ryan Bishop, Assistant Principal, said that a baseball program was held this summer with 30-35 participants. Protocols included extra sanitizing and cleaning, among other things, and there were no issues with Covid. The football team has also been holding drills and practices with very limited issues. Recently, the Utah High School Activities Association released a “Best Practices” document detailing adaptations to allow fall sports to go forward.

    “If everyone will participate and help with masks and social distancing, that will help keep this going so we don’t see what happened last [time] when everything was shut down,” said School Board President Blaik Baird. “Let’s follow the guidelines in August, so we can continue to play,” said Bishop.

    All sports will have new signs to inform the public about game protocol. For players and coaches on the sidelines, masks will be highly recommended. Fans will be encouraged to wear masks when unable to social distance. There will be no hand shaking before or after games. Also, players must not be sick when engaging in practices or games. Additionally, each sport will have specific guidelines to increase safety.

    Cross Country will create spaces to avoid congregating at the finish line, use fully automatic times when possible, spread out courses, and use mountain or park courses. Golf will limit matches, courses, and people. Soccer and volleyball will encourage observers to socially distance and wear masks, and Tennis will limit region matches. Many other accommodations will also be made.

    Because of the probable large crowds, football will use a digital ticketing system. This will allow for contact tracing, if necessary. Face coverings will also be encouraged. “If we want to stay open, the key is wearing our masks. . . . [Otherwise], we would have the rest of football games with no spectators,” suggested Superintendent Paul Sweat.

    According to Bishop, “We want our kids to be able to participate. We’ll follow any guideline we can. We’ll sanitize, we’ll come early, we’ll stay late, we’ll do whatever we can to keep them healthy, so that our kids can participate at the high school level. . . . That’s our goal.”

    To see the full document from the Utah High School Activities Association, click here:

    https://uhsaa.org/news/uploads/UHSAA%20Return%20to%20Play%20Document.pdf

     

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