INSIDER
Panguitch • Panguitch Lake • Hatch • Bryce • Tropic • Antimony • Henrieville • Cannonville • Escalante • Boulder • Fremont • Loa • Lyman
Thursday, January 31, 2013 • Issue # 981
Bicknell • Teasdale • Torrey • Grover • Fruita • Caineville • Hanksville
Back on “Discovery Road”
Local TV Show Asks: Did Maude Adams Perform Here? Kicks Off Look-Alike Contest MT. PLEASANT - The heritage-themed television series “Discovery Road” and its producers, the Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area and the Mormon Pioneer Heritage Institute at Snow College, are conducting a star search. Beginning Feb. 17, they’ll be looking for one of the great American stage actresses of all time, one who got her start right here in Utah: Maude Adams. Don’t be surprised if her name doesn’t seem familiar. “Sometimes you’d mention her to someone, they’d ask, Who’s Maude Adams?’ People forget,” said Schnectady Mayor Mansfield Showers...in 1953. Forty years earlier, people knew who she was. “The legends that have grown up about Maude Adams are without end. She is the most guessedabout person in stage life,” wrote the New York Times in 1914. Now, the producers of “Discovery Road” are guessing whether the actress may have appeared on the local stages of performance houses in central Utah. Regardless of whether she did or didn’t, the search is on for her modern-day doppelganger in a Maude Adams look-a-like Contest for young women at Utah colleges. Adams at one time was one of the highest-paid stage actresses in American theatre, earning $1 million a year. She
was the original Peter Pan in the stage musical of the same name. She was the inspiration behind the film “Somewhere In Time,” one of the greatest romances of all time in which a man falls in love with photos of a starlet and somehow travels back in time to romance her. Adams was born in Utah, a descendent of the pioneer stock who settled the Salt Lake Valley under the direction of Mormon leader Brigham Young. She left Utah and became an actress on Broadway and on international stages in the early 20th Century. “Utah can be very proud of the fact that Maude Adams was a local girl who not only made good but in her time became the most famous actress of all,” said Clive Romney, director of Utah Pioneer Heritage Arts. With local connections, could she have performed locally? “Rumor has it she acted here in Sanpete County on one or more of these stages. We have no proof of that. She might have gone underground, but it is an interesting possibility that Maude Adams, the highest paid actress in the world at that time, might have come back home and acted here,” Romney said. The fifth episode of “Discovery Road,” airing on Feb. 17 at 7:30 p.m. on KJZZ Channel 14, asks that question as it
explores the role and importance of the performing arts in early Utah, particularly in the small, rural towns that dot the U.S. Highway 89 corridor and make up the MPNHA. Opera houses and playbills were nearly as important a feature in frontier Utah as were churches and Bibles. From the beginning of Mormon history in Utah, church and civic leaders promoted the arts and their importance in the spiritual and cultural life of the people they cared for. “The pioneers brought with them - along with their wagons, recipes and Bibles music, theatre and entertainment,” says Discovery Road host James Nelson. “In the churches, hotels, boweries, dance halls, even the saloons, they sang and danced and acted every play they knew.” MPNHA Executive Director Monte Bona said, “The pioneers had a commitment to the arts.” The venues for those performances were community centers, though many of them fell into disuse and disrepair in the mid- to late-1900s. However, an awareness of cultural and architectural heritage has caused a resurgence of interest in these locations. In Sanpete County alone, (where this episode of “Discovery Road” takes place), five such venues have been restored to match
Local TV Show
Cont’d on page 2
Images of early 1900s actress Maude Adams (from left): 1) Adams in her signature role as the first Peter Pan in the J.M. Barrie musical of the same name; 2) portrait; 3) As Suzanne in “The Masked Ball”; 4) portrait. Maude Adams is the subject of an upcoming episode of “Discovery Road” on Feb. 17 on KJZZ Channel 14, as well as a look-alike contest sponsored by the Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area and the Mormon Pioneer Heritage Institute at Snow College.
PANGUITCH weather
LOA weather
Photos: Allysia Angus
The project team, (left to right) Allysia Angus, GSENM landscape architect, Darcy Edwards and Shannon Brian, Harward & Rees, and David Barfuss, BLM District Engineer, try out one of the seat walls on project closeout day.
Head of the Rocks Overlook Gets Facelift
ESCALANTE – The Head of the Rocks Overlook is a favorite stop for visitors traveling between Escalante and Boulder, Utah, along Scenic Byway 12, Utah’s Only All-American Road, the most prestigious designation within the National Scenic Byway Program. It is the perfect place for travelers to take in the natural beauty of the region. Sweeping views over the Escalante Canyons region of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM) and beyond to portions of Dixie National Forest, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Capitol Reef National Park, all the way to the Henry Mountains, have kept cameras clicking for decades. The years, however, had not been kind to the overlook. Storm drainage had created deeply eroded gullies around the edges of the site, traffic flow and parking were disorganized and haphazard, and the site did not meet National accessibility standards. GSENM, the flagship of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) National Landscape Conservation System, in partnership with the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) and the Scenic Byway 12 Foundation decided it was time to give the overlook a face-lift. Using decisions from the
Wayne/Capitol Reef Blood Drive Feb 4 & 5 The American Red Cross will be sponsoring a blood drive in Wayne County on February 4th & 5th, 2013. It will be hosted by the Wayne County Emergency Services Department and Capitol Reef National Park. Monday February 4th, 2013 2 pm -7 pm Location: 88 Center Street, Loa Tuesday February 5th, 2013 10 am -2 pm Location: Capitol Reef National Park Visitor Center According to the American Red Cross, more than 44,000 blood donations are needed daily. One donation can help save the lives of up to three people. If you have questions about the Wayne County blood drive, please contact Jeri Johnson, Wayne County EMS Director at 836-1319 or Capitol Reef National Park at 425-3791.
Scenic Byway 12 Corridor Management and Interpretive Master Plans, and the prin-
The completed project at the Head of the Rocks Overlook, which looks out across the Escalante Canyons region of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. ciples of BLM’s Guidelines for a Quality Built Environment, the BLM planned and designed the project as well as provided construction oversight. The Federal Highways Administration, via UDOT, provided Transportation Enhancement Funds to pay for the $150,000 project. A local firm, Harward & Rees, from Loa, Utah, won the contract for the construction that began last fall. They built a natural stone-veneered retaining wall with integrated seating and interpretive panels and a universally-accessible viewing platform; delineated parking for passenger and
put in a vegetated median to separate the overlook from highway travel lanes. Work was completed in mid-December just before freezing temperatures set in for winter. The last task - planting more than 400 native plants and spreading seed on disturbed areas of the site – was accomplished as snow began to fall. BLM construction oversight was provided by State Engineer Trent Duncan, District Engineer David Barfuss, and GSENM Landscape Architect Allysia Angus. —Bureau of Land Management
Flu Season Has Arrived, O Negative Blood Donors Urgently Needed The American Red Cross is in urgent need of type O negative blood donors. As a universal donor, your blood can be transfused to nearly anyone, and because of this, your blood type is often in demand. Now that flu season is affecting donors across the nation, the number of healthy O negative blood donors available to help sustain the blood supply may decrease. Currently patient demand for type O negative blood is outpacing donations, creating an urgent need situation. If you are healthy and feeling well, please schedule an appointment to donate and help save lives now. Hospital patients are counting on the generosity of donors like you. Donating blood will not cause you to be more susceptible to the flu. There is also no waiting period to donate blood after receiving a seasonal flu vaccine, as long as you are feeling healthy and well the day of donation. Thank you for making a difference! —American Red Cross
The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one’s preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizzare which seems inherent in them. —Jean Cocteau (1889 - 1963) THE WAYNE & GARFIELD COUNTY INSIDER is owned and operated by Snapshot Multimedia, LLC and is distributed weekly to all of Wayne and Garfield Counties, Utah. Its purpose is to inform residents about local issues and events. Articles submitted from independent writers are not necessarily the opinion of Snapshot Multimedia, LLC. We sincerely hope you enjoy the paper and encourage input on ideas and/or suggestions for the paper.
oversize vehicles; performed erosion remediation and constructed control features; and
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