A pillar of Recycle Utah’s mission is education, and they’ve worked through partnerships to start at the beginning, education the next generation. 

Their programs for kids in Summit County are offered in and out of the classroom, and they educate over 5,000 elementary students a year, according to the Recycle Utah website. With curriculum designed to align with Utah Core Curriculum Standards, Recycle Utah educators visit classrooms for lessons on basic recycling, natural resources, conservation needs, alternative energy and climate change, to name a few.

Out of the classroom setting, Recycle Utah organizes summer camps and field trips through community partners like Summit Community Gardens and EATS. Camps cover topics like pollution and the benefits of buying local, and field trips include tours of the recycling center and the Three Mile Canyon Landfill. 

But what about for adults who want to keep learning well past their school and summer-camp years? That’s why Recycle Utah started their Green Drinks series, held every two months, six a year. 

“It’s our main adult education program,” said Chelsea Hafer, Recycle Utah’s community outreach manager. “Each Green Drinks, we have a different topic, and we have different speakers.”

The format is actually a national program, she explained, where an international network of people who work in the environmental field meet up at informal sessions in their cities. A simple website lists the locations around the world where these meetings are met and also provides resources for new people to launch a Green Drinks series.

The concept began in 1989 at an England pub when two eco-conscious parties met by happenstance, pushed their tables together and began chatting, according to the Green Drinks website. Edwin Datschefski, one of the pub attendees and an employee at The Environment Council, built a website in 2001 in his spare time, and it has since spread.

“I think the strangest thing about Green Drinks is that the goals are so vague and the benefits hard to quantify — but they are undoubtedly there,” Datschefski writes on the site. “When you have seen people come and make new links and learn and argue and set up new schemes and get new jobs etc, it is a good feeling.” 

He explains the concept he created as biological because it is distributed, viral and adaptive: having no central organization, spread by word-of-mouth and different based on each city. 

Mary Closser, Recycle Utah’s education director, started the Park City “chapter” of Green Drinks in 2021 with its bimonthly, second-Tuesday-of-the-month format.

“Depending on the topic, there will be speakers. Some of them are more like a presentation format, and some of them are more like tabling,” said Hafer.

The ad hoc structure is the beauty of Green Drinks, and one way Recycle Utah organizes theirs is by hosting the events at Summit County Green Businesses.

Recycle Utah initiated the Green Business program in 2016, and the group has since grown to over 30 members. It’s a point system for measuring the eco-conscious practices at a business, Hafer said, with three designated levels achieved through green actions. The action categories are energy, water conservation, materials management, transportation and thriving community and equity. 

This program is now a joint effort of Recycle Utah, Park City Municipal and Summit County Sustainability teams, the Park City Chamber of Commerce and Utah Clean Energy, Hafer said. They’re also currently in the process of restructuring and relaunching the program.

One of the already-appointed green businesses is Este Pizza Park City, which is where the next Green Drinks event on Tuesday, Sept. 10, will meet. With a focus on waste, speakers include Tim Loveday, Summit County’s landfill manager, Andy Hecht, the Park City Community Foundation climate fund manager, and Wasatch Resource Recovery, Hafer said.

“The landfill filling up, we talk about it every time we teach kids, and I think it’s a really important thing for people to know about because it’s a very big issue in our county,” Hafer said. “So Time Loveday was an obvious pick (for a speaker).” 

The topic of waste will of course discuss the landfill and ways to lessen the loads taken there.

“Thirty percent of the landfill is organic, including cardboard, that could be diverted,” Hafer said. “In Park City there’s a big movement towards diverting food waste as the first choice because I think a lot of people, hopefully, recycle and know the rules about curbside recycling. Food waste is a lot of what is taking up volume in the landfill, that’s why the Community Foundation has their Zero Food Waste goal.”

All these issues, and possible solutions, will be discussed during the Sept. 10 event, held from 5:30-7 p.m. It’s a slight deviation from their usual 6-8 p.m. time in order to accommodate for the presidential debate, Hafer said.

“We’re going to have speakers from 6-6:45 p.m. and then Este is going to air the debate, just so that people can watch it,” she said.

There will be drinks for purchase and light appetizers available.

Park City Mountain will host the next event scheduled for Nov. 12, when topics will include “protect our winters” and “dark skies.” Tickets, which are free, for all Green Drinks events can be reserved on the Recycle Utah website at recycleutah.org/events.

“Most of the people who come come to every single one because it’s always a new topic, and people are always able to learn more. Almost all of the information is incredibly interesting,” Hafer said. “If people have not been, they definitely should come because there’s always something new to learn. I learn something new at every one.”

The post Recycle Utah’s eco-conscious education programs are for adults, too appeared first on Park Record.

Park City Mountain announced Friday that a longtime employee is transitioning into a new role for the 2024/25 season, and she’s more than qualified.

Sharon Ottoson is now the resort’s senior director of base area and village operations, closing the chapter on her previous position as senior manager, product sales and services.

It’s a classic story of loyalty — Ottoson has been employed at Park City Mountain since 2004, two decades to learn the brand, the ins and outs, the beating heart. She started as manager of the central reservations team, a job that brought the U.K. native to Park City, where she’s stayed ever since. 

“There are so many things I love about Park City — the beautiful mountains, the seasons, the world-class amenities within a small-town heart, to name just a few,” she said.

At the resort, she later took over oversight of all resort services: lift tickets, season passes, ski school sales, call center, auditing and vault. After that, the senior manager role, in which she continued to work by her own mantra.

“For me, it’s all about the guest experience,” Ottoson said. “At Park City Mountain, we have the opportunity every day to create moments and memories for guests who visit us from near and far. I deeply value the many details, hard work and care that goes into every step of that journey.”

And what’s more influential to the guest experience than the mountain’s base area, the front door to the resort?

Her new role will involve overseeing parking and transportation, public safety, building maintenance, mountain housekeeping, sign shop and uniforms — small details with larger impact and require an intimate understanding of the full-speed engine that is a world-class ski resort.

And after 20 years, she’s the expert for the job.

“Over the past 20 years, my many roles have all been focused — in one way or another — on connecting with our guests and employees, anticipating their needs and providing a high level of customer service and an elevated experience,” she said.

Ottoson worked in event management for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, and was an employee through the merger of Park City Mountain Resort and Canyons Resort in 2015. She’s also helped roll out resources like the Express Lift Ticket Pickup service and the MyEpic Mobile, a hands-free Epic Pass app. She’s also on the board of directors of EpicPromise and is part of the Vail Resorts Employee Hardship Relief Grant Committee. 

So, why stay at Park City Mountain?

“First and foremost, my coworkers keep me coming back,” she said. “I truly feel that I have a second family at Park City Mountain.”

Plus, she gets to work for a company that aligns with her passions.

“My work with the EpicPromise Foundation — which donated $5.7 million through partnerships with 32 local nonprofits in Park City alone last year — has been a humbling experience. And the ski and snowboard industry provides an opportunity to live and work in a beautiful mountain environment.” 

She said she goes all in, an approach that goes beyond her job at the resort to her hometown as well. Graduating from Class 18 of the Leadership Park City program was one way of doing more to understand the place she calls home.

“To spend a year interacting with passionate and dedicated individuals was incredibly rewarding and opened my eyes to the many ways we can be stewards of this special place and give back to our community,” she said.

She’s come a long way since the days of her youth, operating traditional English pubs in the U.K. But even that contributed to where she’s at now.

“Pubs are often cornerstones of the community, gathering places where you come as you are and all are welcome,” she said. “In addition to lessons about operating a business, running a pub taught me how to connect with guests of all generations, personalities and backgrounds — and that is definitely a skill I use every day at Park City Mountain.” 

Now Ottoson and her husband, Greg, live in Heber.

“I am most proud of the opportunities I have had to mentor or share knowledge, to see others flourish in their careers,” Ottoson said. “The number of people who, 20 years later, I am still able to connect with because of our time together at Park City Mountain means a lot to me.”

The post New senior director of base operations builds on 20 years at Park City Mountain appeared first on Park Record.

The Creative Academy wrapped up its summer series of cooking classes taught by Deer Valley Resort’s team of culinary experts. The most recent chunk heavily featured fan-favorites from their pastry chefs: carrot cake, chocolate chip cookies, devil’s food cake and tres leches cake.

Chef Jhonatan Noguera, a pastry chef at Silver Lake Lodge, taught the Tres Leches class, drawing from more than just his professional knowledge: his personal experience growing up in Yucatan, Mexico. 

“Today, my job will be teaching you how to make the emblematic cake from Latin America,” he said. “This cake is fairly famous, at least in the south of Mexico. Why? Because you just have four ingredients: it’s just eggs, sugar, flour and vanilla. That’s it.”

The dessert, made by pouring a mix of three types of milk — evaporated milk, condensed milk and whole milk — over a spongy cake, and topped with whipped cream, has many different versions based on the country of origin, Noguera explained.

“Everyone in Latin America has their own version. Some of them put alcohol in the mix of the tres leches. Some of them use a different cake,” he said.

Some places top the cake with pastry cream and chantilly cream, which is made with heavy cream, powdered sugar and vanilla, while others top it with Swiss meringue, made by whipping sugar and egg whites. 

For the class, he taught the Mexican version, which starts with making the cake.

While the hour-and-a-half long class wasn’t enough time to have each person make the cake from scratch, Noguera called on volunteers to demonstrate the main steps.

For the cake, the key to its airy texture is through first whipping the egg whites, then carefully mixing the other ingredients without deflating or losing the air. 

The pastry cream — made with egg yolks, milk and heavy cream, sugar, vanilla and corn starch — involved baking techniques of tempering, said Noguera. After heating the milk, the process of tempering would introduce the hot liquid slowly into the whipped egg yolks to avoid scrambling or cooking them. Then cooked over heat, it thickens to a yellow cream from the corn starch.

Swiss meringue is one of the three types of meringue, Noguera said, which are Swiss, Italian and French. The Swiss style heats egg whites and sugar in a bowl over a boiling pot of water, a technique called a bain-marie, then adds cream of tartar and vanilla and uses a stand mixer to whip until thick. Then, it can be pipped and will harden, holding its shape.

Noguera demonstrated each step, having volunteer attendees try techniques hands-on. The key to working with these ingredients is confidence, he said.

“In your mind, you’re thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t want to mess it up.’ And then you go slow. When you do that, there’s two things that can happen. You can mess it up, and then you can take longer to do it,” he said, and the room laughed. “So don’t be afraid to do it.”

After showing each recipe, Noguera’s assistants passed out pre-prepared ingredients for attendees to use and assemble their own cake to take home.

First, scraping the caramelized layer off the cake so it can absorb the milks. Then, the tres leches mix — four milks in this case with the addition of heavy cream — poured over the baked and cooled cake. Next, pipe the pastry cream over the top and spread with an offset spatula. And last, a layer of Chantilly cream to top it off.

Noguera brought out pre-made cakes for people to try both Swiss meringue and Chantilly cream styles, his favorite the meringue, having grown up with that version in Mexico.

“In Mexico, we use meringue. Why? The sun where I am from is pretty hot and humid. If we use Chantilly cream, it’s going to melt,” he said. Plus, heavy cream is expensive, but the base of the meringue, eggs, are more common. 

Deer Valley’s Creative Academy offers classes throughout the year with topics that range from cakes and cookies to barbecue, salads, mixed drinks and cuisine from around the world. Visit deervalley.com/things-to-do/activities/creative-academy to learn more and stay tuned for their next round of fall-time classes to be announced soon.

The post Deer Valley culinary class teaches Tres Leches cake, other pastry classics appeared first on Park Record.

The nationwide search is finally over for KPCW’s new president and general manager, and this new hire isn’t new at all.

Juliana Allely has been the director of finance with KPCW for the last 10 years and has lived in Park City for 18 years.

“A lot of people have asked me, ‘Oh, how long have you been in Park City?’ And when I say 18 years, they’re like, ‘Oh, well, where have you been?’” she said with a laugh. “You just didn’t know about me, which is good because that means the finances, everything’s running the way it should.”

Managing the NPR affiliate’s finances actually served as a useful step toward this leadership role, Allely explained, which she took over as interim after the departure of former president Renai Bodley.

“With finances at almost any organization, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s going on, whether it’s for profit, nonprofit, 10 million people, 10 people — if you know the money coming in and going out, you’ve got a good idea of what the company is all about,” she said. 

Allely’s skill lies in seeing a whole picture through these numbers, and most of her professional career has been as a certified public accountant.

After graduating from the State University of New York at Buffalo, she moved to New York City to work for an accounting firm, then to the Boston area for a job with Deloitte, a global audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk management and tax services company.

She married her husband, also a certified public accountant, whose job with Rossignol skis would bring them west to Park City in 2005.

“We came out and visited in October of 2005 and just loved it, the community, the weather, the fresh air, the mountains, just so beautiful,” she remembers.

Transferring to the Deloitte office in Salt Lake City, Allely continued to work until taking a break to raise her two daughters, now a senior and freshman in Park City School District.

After about six years out of the traditional workforce, Allely saw an ad in The Park Record that KPCW was hiring a bookkeeper.

“My oldest was pretty self sufficient, my youngest was more or less, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll just interview.’ … I still really wasn’t dealing with grown-ups a whole lot,” she said with a smile. “A lot of kids shows in my life back then.”

She pulled out a flip phone and gave the office a call, and an interview and a few short days later, she got the job. It was the perfect trifecta for Allely, a longtime NPR lover and experienced nonprofit accountant, whose niche with Deloitte was nonprofit groups like universities, healthcare systems and schools.

Over the years, almost two decades now, Allely has seen plenty of growth in the area, both in the city and the radio station.

“As dramatic as it is, it still feels like a town, a community. It doesn’t feel like this big, giant strip mall after strip mall after strip mall metropolis,” she said. “The growth in the town has certainly helped us grow as well.”

Part of that growth involves finances, sure, but also a community-wide buy-in on the value of a public radio station like KPCW, she said.

“The station has been savvy with how to help the community understand what we’re doing here and why it’s important and why they should support it,” she said. “I mean, this really is everyone’s station.”

Now as the organization’s president and general manager, Allely will continue to spread that message both by supporting their news and programming teams and by participating more with fundraising efforts. 

But first, she’s developing an even more intimate understanding of how the radio functions, on all fronts, not just the finances. 

“For radio, especially with NPR, each hour has a clock, and knowing every minute down to the second, even what’s happening each minute. I don’t have a handle on that, (though) I have a rough idea because I’m a consumer,” she said.

More community outreach means more time in the public eye, she said, a definite change of pace from her previous role. 

Most importantly, nothing’s really changing with her at the helm, and she’s committed to maintaining their mission to serve Summit and Wasatch counties. 

“Having an educated, informed community is going to make a healthier, safer community for everybody,” she said. “If you are an engaged consumer of our product, whether you’re a reader or a listener, and whether it’s music or news, we’re just happy to hear back from you that you’re enjoying what we’re doing and that you support it.”

Her favorite on-air program right now is their Fresh Tracks Fridays, she said, which Christie Dilloway hosts from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every Friday.

“On Fridays, the top of the hour, we have a new song every hour,” she said. “It might be a song that’s been out there for a little while, but it’s definitely not been in our playlist. And so it’s fun to just hear something really new on Fridays.”

Visit kpcw.org for more information on their mission and programming, and don’t hesitate to say “Hi” to Allely around town.

“Everybody has been giving positive feedback when they heard this announcement, so I’m flattered and do appreciate that,” she said.

The post Juliana Allely steps up as KPCW’s new president and general manager appeared first on Park Record.

People trickled in toward the epicenter on Main Street, moving as if with a collective consciousness, a cheerful zombie army out in force on a sunny Monday morning.

But not just any Monday — the 128th annual Miners Day, a Park City staple.

The national holiday honoring laborers took on a Park City twist in the 1940s, when the city’s Miners Union Day — established in 1896 to give miners a day off — merged with Labor Day. The city has since celebrated Miners Day in recognition of the town’s most influential laborers and mining heritage.

In recent years, the mornings begin with the dog-friendly Miners Day Bark City 5k Run, which Patrick Saucier and his dog Aspen won this year, and the Miners Day breakfast. Saint Mary’s Catholic Church cooked a classic spread of eggs and pancakes.

And then there was the Running of the Balls, a play on the Spanish tradition in which bulls are let loose to chase people through the streets. In a more Park City Rotary fashion, golf balls fly down Main Street.

Hands raised for Parkites? A loud cheer. Anyone visiting from out of town? Less loud, but more enthusiastic, cheers. A visitor came from Illinois to see a friend, and the two stumbled on the event and joined the fray, buying balls from the last-minute sales offered up to the minute before the drop.

Darryl Goldberg held his kindergartner son, Max, on his shoulders for a better view of the ball track on Main. He and his wife, Anna, had moved to Park City in December from Long Island and were celebrating their first Miners Day as locals. They purchased a silver ball, one of 200 balls priced at $100, for a chance to be the winner of the “Silver Strike” contest and earn a first-place prize worth $3,000.

Almost 20,000 yellow golf balls were sold for this 21st iteration of the event, with proceeds helping raise money for Park City Rotary’s Community Grants and Scholarship programs. The group gives $30,000 in small grants to organizations that have less than $1 million in their budgets and large grants of up to $100,000 to organizations that have $2 million in their budgets.

The anticipated event happened in a flash, a satisfying patter of balls bouncing on pavement as they poured from the drop tower, newly built this year, and tumbled down toward the people racing in front. Volunteers then sorted the balls, and people dispersed, either to restaurants for a drink or early lunch, or to find a spot along the parade route.

“What a Park City scene,” one announcer said from a balcony as the balls were picked up below him and the chute was quickly disassembled to make way for the parade.

Unlike the sea of people lining the street for the Fourth of July parade, the Miners Day parade had a much more relaxed feel, sparsely attended in places. 

“It’s nice,” one local said with a laugh, a section of shade on lower Main all to herself minutes before the start of the event. She and her friend attend both summertime parades in support of their husbands, Park City firefighters who march in the events, this year in dress uniforms with shiny, silver decorative axes in hand.

Though a smaller lineup, floats ranged from individuals running for political offices to businesses to public service staples like schools, police officers and firefighters. Some were decorated in the mining spirit with helmets and pickaxes, fake beards and chests of gold, but it wasn’t a requirement.

Like the Fourth of July parade, the route finished at City Park, where the rest of the day’s festivities would commence: concerts hosted by Mountain Town Music, a fenced-in beer garden, sack races for the kids and a collection of food trucks. The Friends of the Park City Library hosted their usual Miners Day book sale, which raised money for community and librarian programming.

Mucking and drilling competitions returned this year for the first time since before COVID, and people in the industry could compete for a $1,000 first-place prize.

The two essential mining tasks — carving holes in rock and scooping large amounts of broken up ore, also known as muck — are extremely loud and extremely dusty, attendees seated in the metal risers quickly realized. Hosted during the midday heat, in full sun, it was also a demonstration of the hard labor that inspired the holiday. 

All that didn’t stop 74-year-old Remijio Portillo from taking first place in the mucking event, filling his two-cart machine with ore using its electric loader in 50.92 seconds. Brian Still, a competitor from South Jordan, was the first-place finisher for drilling, boring two holes in the 10-ton piece of sandstone with the fastest time of one minute and 55 seconds.

With the competitions completed an hour and a half ahead of schedule, the sprawl of City Park was packed with families to enjoy the day off work or out of school. Not even the gridlocked traffic down the canyon could dampen the day, a bookend to summer, leaving the impatient wait for ski season’s return.

The top 10 winners of the Running of the Balls are:

1. Adam Oldenburg
2. Adriane Juarez
3. Alex Nichamin
4. Amy Christensen
5. Amy Sorensen
6. Asher Murphy
7. Benjamin Hughes
8. Beth Armstrong
9. Bloom Pamela
10. Catherine Knaus

The winner of this year’s Silver Strike ball is Eileen Gallagher. Here is the full list of 50 winners: cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0795/4772/8148/files/2024_Winner_List_by_First_Name.pdf?v=1725314292

The post ‘A Park City scene’: Miners Day returns for 128th iteration appeared first on Park Record.

The annual Running of the Balls, hosted on Miners Day by the Park City Rotary club, is a fundraiser which drops thousands of golf balls down Main Street. The purchase of a golf ball enters individuals into the chance to win a series of prizes, while simultaneously supporting the club’s grant programs.

Prizes this year included season passes at Deer Valley and Park City Mountain, a Delta Airlines gift card, as well as ticket packages and certificates for local entertainment, events, dining, lodging and spa treatments.

A newer addition is the “Silver Strike” contest, where 200 silver golf balls race for one winner of a first-place prize worth $3,000.

This year’s Silver Strike winner was Eileen Gallagher.

Other winners with the top 50 balls, are below, listed with chute position, ball number, order number and name:

1. 37 – 7010 – #3910 – Adam Oldenburg
2. 41 – 884 – #2481 – Adriane Juarez
3. 8 – 7274 – #3018 – Alex Nichamin
4. 23 – 7122 – #3968 – Amy Christensen
5. 48 – 4403 – #3777 – Amy Sorensen
6. 7 – 2314 – #3915 – Asher Murphy
7. 19 – 2207 – #3599 – Benjamin Hughes
8. 29 – 940 – #2403 – Beth Armstrong
9. 13 – 4455 – #3845 – Bloom Pamela
10. 12 – 2375 – #3159 – Catherine Knaus
11. 2 – 12617 – #3390 – Chuyong Capalleja
12. 28 – 12487 – #3924 – Danielle Carlino
13. 1 – 11 – #3102 – Donald Valenzano
14. 44 – 6652 – #3680 – Eric Hoffman
15. 30 – 7199 – #2453 – Hamilton Easter
16. 47 – 6075 – #2630 – Heather Wilk
17. 20 – 6016 – #3476 – Jan Curran
18. 9 – 8496 – #2439 – Jeffrey Wooster
19. 39 – 2070 – #2970 – Jennifer Rosier
20. 43 – 9068 – #3884 – John Wyson
21. 32 – 6154 – #2498 – Kate McChesney
22. 49 – 1359 – #2383 – Katie Wiest
23. 14 – 141 – #2540 – Katie Wilking
24. 33 – 2044 – #2443 – Ken Karlson
25. 3 – 3197 – #2730 – Kenneth Hanifan
26. 40 – 7070 – #2930 – Kerry Fleming
27. 24 – 3914 – #3952 – Kimberly Bell
28. 22 – 1816 – #4004 – Lee Hyson
29. 6 – 5895 – #3290 – Leslie Thatcher
30. 46 – 10772 – #2531 – Malena Stevens
31. 10 – 10442 – #3079 – Martha Tanner
32. 27 – 1756 – #2789 – Maurice Hickey
33. 25 – 10374 – #2366 – MC ending in 6330
34. 18 – 362 – #2586 – michael carroll
35. 17 – 7769 – #2888 – Michael Pfeiffer
36. 38 – 7066 – #3425 – Miller Hales
37. 34 – 12761 – #2624 – Patricia Britten
38. 45 – 9849 – #3021 – Patricia Hofmeister
39. 42 – 6849 – #4087 – Randy Cassidy
40. 11 – 2364 – #3527 – Richard Gilroy
41. 36 – 4007 – #3984 – Richard Jordan
42. 4 – 4836 – #3374 – Rick F
43. 21 – 123 – #2980 – Ruth Povinelli
44. 59 – 3906 – #3382 – Seth Garecht
45. 15 – 2466 – #3045 – Shannon Farrington
46. 16 – 8456 – #2420 – Steve boyd
47. 31 – 1158 – #3857 – Teresa Clarke
48. 5 – 1294 – #2588 – William Eubanks
49. 35 – 6625 – #2434 – William J Ciraco
50. 26 – 4788 – #2984 – Zachary White

The post Winners of 2024 Running of the Balls announced appeared first on Park Record.

A wind-swept cacophony animates the Tagge’s Fruit & Veggie farm stand — sounds of cars, rustling trees and cheery conversation fill the wood-and-metal structure along Highway 89 outside Brigham City, a much bigger version of the Park City stand at S.R. 244 at the entrance to Canyons.

The road north of Salt Lake City was once dotted with farm stands, known for the area’s peaches, when Thayne Tagge and his wife Cari purchased the farm and stand in 1997. But now, their numbers are dwindling.

For these longtime farmers, it’s becoming a scary reality to see fellow growers burn out or pass away, leaving the land no longer ripe for fruit, but for developers. It’s unsurprising given the stunning location: nestled on the hillside in the northernmost part of the Wasatch mountain range, overlooking Willard Bay to the west, dwarfed by Willard Peak to the southeast. Location, location, location.

So, why not sell, join the growing number of retired farmers and end the long hours of hot, sweaty work? Because this land isn’t just special for its beauty, it’s also the perfect microclimate for growing fruit trees, which is why the family decided to place their land into a legacy trust, legally requiring their 130 acres be used for farming and to never be sold. Forever.

The best use of the land

Thayne and Cari weren’t born into a farming family; they started as sellers, picking raspberries in Bear Lake then selling them at Salt Lake City farmers markets.

Their customers one day asked about peaches, Cari said, so they bought boxes of peaches from a farmer off Highway 89 in Perry to sell at markets, too. A joking remark from Thayne — “I might as well buy your whole farm” — quickly turned into reality, and the farmer agreed to sell the 27-acre plot and stand and trained Thayne to run it.

They had no idea at the time, but they’d basically struck gold.

“This area, because of that mountain breeze, the water, the lake effect, on a hill facing west, it gives us degrees of warmth so we don’t freeze out. This is the best place, I’m saying this, in the state to grow fruit because of those factors,” said Thayne, now 27 years later. 

Farmers are at the mercy of the weather, his son Chad says, walking the tightrope between May freezes and August hailstorms. One bad hailstorm can wipe out an entire season’s crops, their entire livelihood. The Tagges’ location protects them from those extremes, but the world keeps trending toward worse. 

“Everything now, the word for it is extreme: extreme winds, extreme hail, extreme rain, extreme heat. Everything’s in extreme mode,” said Thayne. 

For some neighboring farmers, it’s too hard to sustain, even in an area as rich as theirs.

“We’ve seen farmers sell their land all the time, and this last year, three farmers came to us to buy their orchard to farm, and it just breaks our hearts,” said Cari. “It’s sad to see farmland disappear. It really is. This land, farming is the best use,” Chad adds.

Along with their ideal microclimate, the water access from Pineview Reservoir is key to growing the best produce. Fruit is thirsty, Chad said, and the area’s farmers actually have first water rights to the stores.

And with technology, it’s become even easier — a few taps on his phone, Thayne’s request for water can be delivered to his fields in minutes, distributed through drip irrigation for the best efficiency.

While the area is known for its peaches, with land optimal for stand orchards, it’s proven good for growing all kinds of crops. As the Tagges have purchased more land in the area, they’ve added and experimented with their offerings. Now, they grow 27 varieties of peaches, the newest being their doughnut, or flat, peaches, as well as blackberries, raspberries, nectarines, pears, apples, apricots, cherries, sweet corn, carrots, greens, zucchini, peppers, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, garlic, potatoes, winter squash, hard squash, tomatoes … the list goes on.

Building a legacy

Though Thayne and Cari didn’t come from farming legacies, they’ve started one. They’re inspiring the next generation to know the benefits of eating from the land.

But first, they have had to work up a clientele, often through adding a personal touch to every interaction. That looks like personally answering every call, Thayne said, counting 92 calls by 1 p.m. just that morning.

“When I first started here, no one would stop at my stand. It sucked because I’m right in the middle,” Thayne said, “Now they’re saying, ‘We only stop at your stand because you’ve got everything, and we appreciate you helping us.’”

They built fruit stands across the valley and in the Wasatch Back, participate in farmers markets from Ogden to Provo every day of the week and distribute through their community-supported agriculture (CSA) produce box program from Logan to Spanish Fork, with now over 1,000 members.

Their “famous” farm is now a massive network and a huge mantle to pass on, and two of their four kids, Laci and Chad, have stepped up to the task.

The two grew up working on the farm, planting seeds, pulling weeds, thinning the peach trees and selling at farm stands. 

“My mom would say, ‘Hey ride with me. I’ll give you five bucks to ride with me all day,’” Laci said.

The parents always gave the choice to choose a different career or to carry on their parents’ work. So, Laci stayed, working fulltime to manage their warehouse, distribution and CSA program, getting married and raising her own family in the farm. 

Chad took a detour, moved to Boston to earn a Ph. D. in biomedical engineering. After graduating, he moved back to Utah to work in that career. He was comfortable with a job designing medical equipment. But then he took a second look.

“Eventually it was more of a fear that if (Thayne) passed away, they would be like, ‘Chad, we need your help.’ And I would be in the field like, where’s the pipe that is buried?” Chad said.

So Chad quit his job and came back to the farm, learning side-by-side from his dad on everything it would take to run their operations — not at all a reluctant return, he said.

“I get to work with my dad at the peak of his career, not many people get that opportunity,” Chad said. “How cool is that to be able to see your dad in his element, the peak of his performance and everything, and then get to get all that knowledge passed on.”

For him, it’s not just about getting to work with his dad, but with his kids, too.

“My boy just turned 9 yesterday, and then my other boy is 6, and then I have two daughters, a 10 and a 4 year old, so now they get to work with me. That’s how we were raised, where we were able to work with my parents,” Chad said. “This is just now keeping on a legacy.”

Preservation for the future

The family works together as a carnivalesque blur, with a comfort and freedom particular to familial intimacy. A gentleness to the bickering, a laugh beneath the chide. 

In a row of their now 3-year-old doughnut peach trees, Thayne pulls weeds as Chad thins excess green fruit from the branches. Laci’s 4-year-old son, “little” Thayne, and Cari pick the rosy-colored peaches and fill the belly of Cari’s makeshift shirt basket.

Still young, little Thayne is already learning how the farm is run, fingernails ringed in soil, his smile stained with blackberry juice. He walks hand-in-hand with his grandfather through the rows of peach trees, a vision of everything they’ve worked for — and everything they’re committed to preserve.

Preserving the land — ensuring its best use, farming, will be its only use. Preserving the jobs — hundreds of employees work to pick, package, distribute and sell their products, and each job would disappear if the land became housing. Preserving the beloved Brigham City peach — a tradition for the greater area, who every September come together to celebrate “Peach Days.”

“It’s got to work. People need to support us, and if they want, we want to stay around,” Thayne said. 

With the legacy trust, the land will continue to pass down to two people, requiring that it always be used for farming and that it can never be sold. Any other land the Tagges buy to grow their farm will also be added to the trust.

One of the best ways to support Tagge’s Famous Fruit & Veggie Farm is through their 15-week CSA program, with weekly produce boxes for one, two or four people. Visit their website, taggesfruit.com, to learn more and for information on their farm stands and market locations.

The post Family farm protects their 130 acres in legacy trust appeared first on Park Record.

A few months ago, Clayton Steward packed all his belongings in his Jeep and drove west, joining The Park Record’s staff as its new photographer, sight unseen.

His first assignment? A hot air balloon ride over Heber Valley.

“I was very proud of myself as being, new guy on the scene, here’s my photos, here’s my first take,” he said. “There were photos in that that I was like, ‘OK, I’m glad I didn’t totally blow this assignment for the first time.’”

And his work hasn’t slowed down. Steward has kept pace with the never-ending stories to tell in Summit and Wasatch County, despite them being “small towns.”

But Steward is no stranger to small towns — in fact, that’s what attracted him to the position in Park City to begin with.

“I’m from a small town called Montrose, Missouri. It’s south of Kansas City, about an hour. … I went to the second-smallest high school in the state of Missouri at the time, graduated with nine people in a public school,” he said with a laugh.

He grew up on a 40-acre farm, over the years home to row crops, horses, cattle and even raccoon hunting dogs, whom his dad raised and trained.

“A very noisy farm to grow up on — it wasn’t peaceful in the traditional sense,” he said.

After graduating from high school, he left as a college basketball recruit, a power forward, for the University of Saint Mary. It was there, working on a Bachelor’s degree in digital communications, that he decided to pursue photojournalism. But he’d always loved photography.

“Looking back now, we have a lot of photos of me as a kid with a point-and-shoot in my hands,” he remembers. “There’s one picture of me at the zoo, carrying a camera around.”

Trained in journalism first, a college mentor connected him with Francine Orr, longtime photojournalist with the Los Angeles Times, who recommended he go to graduate school. So, he applied to the University of Missouri, or “Mizzou.”

“Part of the Mizzou method is hands on. Everything you do is going to be hands on, not through the student lens, but through the community lens,” Steward said. “So you’re doing reporting that people living in the town are actually going to be reading.”

Accepted, he completed a Master of Arts in Journalism, with an emphasis in photojournalism, in two years, earning real-world experience at The Columbia Missourian, a student-run daily newspaper. 

School prepared him well to join The Park Record as the only full-time photographer and photo editor, managing a team of freelancers and juggling the image requests of the reporters. 

“There’s so much opportunity here,” Steward said. “There’s so much opportunity for me to drive the visual storytelling that we’re doing, and I think that’s been the most exciting part. I feel like being someone right out of school, you don’t get that at other papers.”

The style he brings to the visuals at The Park Record are “slow and methodical,” he said. He considers himself a documentary photographer. Ideally, he spends months with a subject, capturing the moment as authentically as possible.

“Those are the stories that I get really excited about because, A, they’re challenging, and B, they’re so authentic. When you start spending so much time with someone, their mask falls away, they start to not notice the camera,” he said. “I just love getting to be like, ‘Can I come back tomorrow? Can I come back later? Can I come back this evening?’”

A lot of that strategy comes from his time at Mizzou, when he shadowed subjects for his master’s research focused on the ethics of photojournalism for healthcare stories.

“I’m really interested in any story that is very vulnerable in subject matter, where someone is letting you into their life in really important and tough moments,” he said. “I think when it comes to healthcare stories and healthcare communication, sometimes it gets hard when it’s coming top-down, when it’s like, ‘This is what the doctors say. This is what this health organization says,’ compared to when you flip the hierarchy upside down and you say, ‘This is what it’s like for a person with X to live in this community.’”

In addition to this on-the-ground photo coverage, Steward also brings his writing background to the job.

“I think writing is important because it’s the foundation for all reporting,” he said. “There’s the art side of photography, where you can put two photos together and you can create a third meaning — it’s called the third effect — but you’re straying away from the journalistic tradition of relying on captions for information. Someone without captions, they can get to a totally different place.”

More than just describing what’s happening in an image, Steward said he sometimes likes to include a short quote in his captions. And sometimes he writes his own stories to accompany his photo coverage: Grant Fisher’s training for Paris, toxic weed pulling, opera in the park, baby olympics and back-to-school scenes are some of the topics he’s covered himself for the paper, and there are plenty more ideas brewing. 

And in each instance, he looks for ways to get behind the masks of his subjects, when they don’t realize he was there.

“When it goes to print, … they say, ‘Oh my gosh. When did you take this photo? I don’t even remember.’ That’s my goal anytime I’m doing an in-depth piece,” he said. “That’s what I’m looking for in Park City.”

To reach out with any visual story ideas, email Steward at csteward@parkrecord.com.

The post Park Record adds a new face behind the lens appeared first on Park Record.

In a couple weeks, seven Park City culinary experts are headed to New York City to showcase their talents in five meals held at the James Beard Foundation’s new venue, Platform.

The events, scheduled for Sept. 26-29, are designed to bring the culinary world of Park City to the New York scene, said Ginger Wicks, the executive director of the Park City Area Restaurants Association.

The group leveraged a longstanding relationship with the James Beard House, a kitchen the James Beard Foundation opened in 1986. The organization is committed to “celebrate, support, and elevate the people behind America’s food culture,” their website says. Similar to the Beard House, Platform, located in the Market 57 food hall, is a “state-of-the-art show kitchen, event space, and educational hub for outstanding culinary arts programming.”

“When we learned about their new venue,” Wicks said, “… we reached out to them and decided this would be an amazing collaboration to bring Park City’s culinary talents and amazing award winning spirits to New York to show the city and to bring awareness to all that Park City has to offer in terms of our amazing culinary scene.”

The association opened applications to their members who would be interested in creating a meal, and winners would be sent to New York to cook at Platform. Funding for this event comes from a Summit County Restaurant Tax grant, the association said.

Of 16 submissions, five chefs and two spirits, and their makers, were chosen:

• Executive Chef Seth Adams of Riverhorse on Main
• Executive Chef Michael Showers of High West Distillery
• Executive Chef Clement Gelas of Courchevel Bistro
• Co-owner and Executive Chef Matthew Harris of Tupelo Park City
• Vice President of Food & Beverage Operations and Corporate Chef Zane Holmquist of Stein Eriksen Lodge
• Co-owner and Master Botanical Distiller Sara Sergent of Alpine Distilling
• Beverage Manager Holly Booth of High West Distillery

“We have so much diversity in our culinary scene, and this is going to bring awareness to all of it, and it’s an amazing platform for Park City to be on,” said Wicks, pun intended, perhaps?

Jennifer Wesselhoff, the president and CEO of the Park City Chamber/Bureau, also explained the benefits of this opportunity to showcase Park City out east.

“Food is such an incredible part of a community’s character and an essential part of how we define ourselves as a community,” she said. “What message are we trying to share about Park City and Utah’s cuisine?”

There’s Rocky Mountain game, like elk and bison, also Utah’s trout farms, lamb from Morgan Valley and products from local dairies and cheese makers, Wesselhoff said. These are all elements in the menus created for the September events.

“Dinner: Riverhorse on Main,” at 7 p.m. on Sept. 26, features Adams’ menu, which blends Utah and New York elements — Utah lamb, New York duck, a wild game sausage and New York apples. “Cocktail Party: High West Distillery,” at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 27, includes Showers’ take on a bison tartare and a Utah elk schnitzel. At “Lunch: Courchevel Bistro,” noon on Sept. 28, Gelas will create three styles of trout: cured, in a salad and bouillabaisse, in a stew. Harris’ “Dinner: Tupelo Park City,” at 7 p.m. on Sept. 28, highlights some produce grown in Utah, like Green River watermelon, Utah peaches and Gold Creek Farm’s feta from Kamas. And at the final event, “Brunch: Stein Eriksen Lodge,” Holmquist will serve Utah products like honey and Rocky Mountain elk.

Each event will have drink pairings by either Alpine Distilling or High West Distillery, cocktails like Alpine’s “Moon Walker,” “Elevated Gin & Tonic” and “Alpine Negroni,” or High West’s “Old Fashioned,” “Espresso Martini” and “Spritz.”

For Holmquist, who was born and raised in Park City and has spent most of his career as a chef in the area, this event is a culmination of his life’s work.

“I’ve tried very hard my whole life to bring light to Utah and Utah food in Park City,” he said. “We’ve always had this weird stigma around our liquor laws and our food … and we weren’t known for our cuisine and what we do here.”

But now, Park City has developed a rich culinary scene with plenty of talent, he said.

“I think it’s such a special family to shine and show that off in New York and let the public know (Park City’s) amazing — biking, skiing, fly fishing, but the food’s pretty dang good too,” Holmquist said.

The post Park City chefs take New York City stage at James Beard Foundation events appeared first on Park Record.

For Park City couple Logan Jones-Olson and Kristen Roscher, bringing an Upgrade Labs center to the Wasatch Back is their way of giving back to the community, bringing a resource from which they’ve both benefited.

Upgrade Labs is a “medical spa” — not as relaxing as a traditional spa, not as training-centered as a gym and not exactly a doctor’s office. Rather, it combines elements of all three using technology-focused approaches to physical health, strength and recovery.

“We think of it in three parts: recovery, performance, which is like exercise, and then cognitive enhancement,” Jones-Olson said.

Dave Asprey started the franchise. He’s the founder of Bulletproof Coffee, author of “Smarter Not Harder: The Biohacker’s Guide to Getting the Body and Mind You Want” and host of “The Human Upgrade” podcast. He’s called the “father of biohacking,” which a decal at the entrance to the new Upgrade Labs location defines as “the art and science of changing the environment around you and inside you so you have more control over your own biology.”

Asprey started upgrade labs in 2017, and Park City is its seventh location. Marketed as a “human upgrade center,” many of the facility’s treatments center around light and electromagnetic energies, which are designed to positively impact a person’s own energetic field, to “upload” a better version of oneself.

Jones-Olson, who has followed Asprey for a while, decided to visit the Upgrade Labs in Riverton and learn more about the brand and was sold when the experience helped him recover from a nerve injury that he’d long since given up on. 

“Two summers ago, doing yard work with her, I had a pinched nerve. I went to all the doctors, did surgery and I couldn’t move my thumb,” he said. After a month of treatments in their pulsed electromagnetic field therapy machine, PEMF, it could move again. 

With construction finishing up just in time for their soft opening on Saturday, all their equipment is now installed and ready for use. The treatments are set up in stations around the space in Kimball Junction, guided by trained staff for members to use based on their needs. 

“What we like to start with is, first, you,” said Jones-Olson. “What’s going on with you? What are you working on? Any injuries? Are you trying to work on sleep, are you trying to work on working out more?”

They then conduct a cell health analysis scan using electrical sonar to measure the body for weight and composition. Based on these results, they recommend the treatments best suited for their needs and goals — recovering from injuries or chronic pain with tools like the red charger, a full-body red and infrared LED light therapy machine, or the big squeeze, a suit designed to drain the lymphatic system by inflating air from feet to head.  

“The lymphatic system basically carries all the junk in and out, and if we’re not moving and detoxing, this can help people,” Jones-Olson said.

The PEMF machine is a favorite, he said. Essentially, two electric blankets are rigged to send electromagnetic currents to the body, charging it like a battery.

“Our bodies are made of energy with voltage levels, and when our voltage levels are at the right level, we feel good, our body does what it’s supposed to, it heals properly, etc. But as we age or get injuries, the voltage levels drop,” he said.

Laying in between the blankets, the 12-minute treatment is set to the person’s comfort level. It “charges” the body where needed, Roscher explained, so some people feel it in their feet or hips, others their stomach, or on the left or right sides. It’s especially beneficial for people with chronic pain or inflammation, she said.

“You’re going to feel like popcorn in a microwave, in a good way,” she said.

Performance options at Upgrade Labs incorporate AI into exercise programs, like their AI adaptive bike and AI cheat machine. These adapt to individual bodies to strengthen more evenly. 

Their cryotherapy chamber is recommended for both recovery and performance, with sessions from 30 seconds to three-and-a-half minutes that can chill to 175 degrees below zero. 

“Cryotherapy decreases inflammation, boosts metabolism and immune system function, turns on the body’s fat-burning mechanisms and significantly increases deep and REM sleep. It’ll also maximize endorphin rush — the body’s feel-good hormone,” their website says.

While both Jones-Olson and Roscher have nine-to-five jobs of their own — his in marketing, hers in real estate — the opportunity to work on something together has been rewarding, they said.

“So far so good. … You know how the ultimate test of a relationship is ‘Can you build Ikea furniture together?’” said Roscher. “We do pretty good,” Jones-Olson responds, and the two laugh.

As a one-stop-shop for efficient treatments, the couple said Upgrade Labs is actually cheaper for the access it provides, and they are excited to introduce it to the Park City area.

“For me to hear our members say, ‘I already do yoga, and I go to my doctor’s office that does something similar, and I have a red light panel at home.’ But they still want to come here because they think of it as an ‘and.’ It’s not ‘instead of,’ it’s an ‘and,’” said Roscher.

They will be open with discounted memberships starting Saturday, with a grand opening event on Oct. 11-12. The weekend will include a ribbon cutting, tours of the new center, an introduction to the brand’s performance and recovery technology, discounts, prize raffles and more. Mayor Nann Worel will join the festivities Oct. 11 at 2:45 p.m. and founder Asprey will hold a meet and greet on Oct. 12.

For more information and to sign up for a free intro tour, visit upgradelabs.com/park-city.

The post New Upgrade Labs center an ‘and’ for Park City community appeared first on Park Record.