Matthew M. Milicich | Guest Writer

Utah County is still aching. A recent campus tragedy not far from here and the steady drumbeat of school shootings across the country have left many people feeling angry, numb or both. Veterans recognize that mix. We know what it is to carry fear and still keep faith with one another. Veterans Day is our annual reminder to do exactly that.

The day began as Armistice Day, the mark of an 11 a.m. cease-fire on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. It later widened to honor all who served. Memorial Day looks back in grief; Veterans Day looks around in gratitude. Both belong to the whole community, not just to those who wore the uniform.

What should gratitude sound like when the country is raw? It does not sound like triumph. It sounds like ordinary neighbors keeping faith with small, steady promises: we will tell the truth about hard things, we will not turn our grief into threats, we will ask for help when memories

get heavy, and we will look for the quiet work that keeps a town decent.

In Lehi, we have places that teach us how. The Veterans Memorial Wall at the Lehi City Cemetery and the Memorial Building on Center Street were built for names and stories that might otherwise be lost. When we stand there, we can feel the difference between noise and witness. Noise demands a headline. Witness says a name, holds a silence and chooses the next right task.

Here are a few of those tasks that can be done this week: speak a name and learn a story; listen before we post when a rumor runs hot; report real threats to schools and law enforcement; and check on one another. Some of us are steady at 2 p.m. and storm-tossed at 2 a.m. If memories are heavy, talk with someone you trust, or call or text 988.

None of this is dramatic. It is the routine discipline military service tries to teach: do the next right thing, and then the next one after that. Many of us learned it from sergeants who expected us to be safe for one another, sober in speech, careful with our power, and watchful for the smallest person in the room. That ethic belongs in school board meetings, in church foyers, and online as much as it does on a parade ground.

Veterans Day asks civilians for something, too. Ask good, ordinary questions: What did you do? What did you learn? Who helped you come home? Not every veteran wants to talk, and no one owes a story. But the invitation itself says something vital: we are neighbors first.

Matthew M. Milicich, Retired U.S. Army

Lehi, Utah

Enlisted Oct. 3, 1983; served four years on active duty and 18 1⁄2 years in the Texas Army National Guard; retired Jan. 23, 2006.

April Slaughter | American Fork Citizen

When my daughter Jordyn was admitted to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City for treatment and surgery related to her epilepsy, I learned firsthand how fragile and exhausting hospital life can be. As a single mother, my days revolved around monitoring her care, meeting with doctors, and trying to stay strong for her through each new procedure and test.

In the middle of that uncertainty, I discovered the Ronald McDonald Family Room — a quiet haven tucked inside the hospital that offered something I didn’t know I desperately needed: rest. A place to sit down, shower, and breathe. A moment to collect myself without leaving Jordyn’s side for long.

The Family Room isn’t just a space — it’s a lifeline. It’s stocked with meals and snacks, toiletries, laundry machines, and a few cozy places to nap or gather your thoughts. It’s a simple concept that means the world to parents like me who can’t bear to leave their child’s bedside but still need a moment of human normalcy to keep going.

That experience changed me. It showed me what compassion in action looks like — not just words of comfort, but the kind of tangible care that makes surviving those long hospital days possible. When the Lehi Free Press agreed to host a donation drive this fall for the Ronald McDonald Family Room at Primary Children’s Hospital’s Miller Family Campus in Lehi, it was an honor to be involved.

This drive wasn’t just another community service project. For me, it was personally a way to say thank you for what I once received when I needed it most, and to make sure other parents and families can feel that same relief.

Over the course of October, readers and residents across Utah County donated food, toiletries, and gift cards to help restock the Family Room’s shelves. Each item — a box of cereal, a bottle of shampoo, a roll of paper towels — represented kindness and solidarity with families facing some of their hardest days.

We collected everything at the Lehi Free Press office and, on the evening of Nov. 3, delivered the donations to the Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) team at the hospital. With the help of staff and volunteers, we offloaded a large hospital cart filled with the generous contributions of our readers — tangible reminders of how deeply this community cares.
Walking through those familiar doors again brought back memories I hadn’t revisited in a long time — the fear of waiting for test results, the exhaustion that settles deep in your bones after days of little sleep, and the quiet gratitude you feel for strangers who somehow make things a bit easier.

The Ronald McDonald Family Room program is built entirely around that concept: keeping families close and cared for. Located right inside hospitals, the Family Rooms offer everything from meals and showers to quiet spaces and overnight rooms, all free of charge. The Lehi Family Room, opened in 2024, features four short-term guest rooms, a full kitchen and dining area, laundry facilities, computers, and a warm, home-like atmosphere where families can regroup.

It’s a miracle of comfort within the walls of a medical facility — and it’s powered almost entirely by community generosity. According to RMHC of the Intermountain Area, these Family Rooms collectively served more than 116,000 visits in 2024, saving families an estimated $9.2 million in travel and lodging costs.

Those numbers represent countless moments of compassion — a hot meal after a long night, a fresh shirt before a doctor’s meeting, a nap that restores the strength to face another day.
As a mother who’s been on the receiving end of that kindness, I can say it makes all the difference.

Our local donation drive was small compared to the overall needs RMHC meets each year, but it’s a reminder that collective giving adds up. When we each bring what we can — a few pantry items, a travel-size shampoo, or a gift card to help fill the gaps — we’re helping keep those Family Rooms running for the next family who needs them.

The Lehi Free Press and I want to extend our heartfelt thanks to every person who contributed to this effort — whether you dropped off items, shared the drive with friends, or offered words of encouragement. Your generosity will touch lives in ways you may never see, but that families like mine will never forget.

The Ronald McDonald House Charities team continues to rely on year-round donations and volunteer support to sustain its programs. High-need items include individually packaged snacks, paper towels, sanitizing wipes, and toiletries. Gift cards from grocery stores such as Smith’s and Costco are especially valuable because they allow staff to meet specific needs quickly.

If you didn’t have a chance to donate during our October drive, it’s never too late. The Ronald McDonald Family Room in Lehi accepts new, unopened donations year-round, and volunteers are always welcome to help prepare meals or greet guests.

For me, this project was a full-circle moment — a chance to transform a difficult chapter in my life into something hopeful and helpful. I’ll never forget the sense of peace I felt walking into the Family Room during Jordyn’s hospital stay. It wasn’t just the comfort of a meal or a place to sit — it was the feeling that I wasn’t alone.

That same feeling is what our community gave back today. Together, we’ve helped ensure that other families in crisis can find a place of calm, kindness, and care just steps from their child’s hospital room. And that, to me, is the heart of what community is all about.

Imagine you and I are identical twins. We can look however you choose.

We were uncommonly close until some family, economic, or geopolitical upheaval separated us at age 12. We haven’t seen or heard from each other since. Now we’re 40. (I’m imagining too.) You’ve missed me, wondered how I’m doing and what my life is like, and longed to share all sorts of your life’s moments.

You’ve searched for me online over the years without success, and small wonder. Our surname is Jones and our given names Robert and Michael (or Mary and Elizabeth, as you please).

Today you find a letter from me in your mailbox, four typed pages with my handwritten signature at the end, plus a small photo. (We still look alike.) You read hungrily of more adventures than you’ve had and the natural beauties of the place where I now live. I mention childhood memories you don’t recall, but we all forget different things.

You’re delighted to reconnect. Before you reach the end, you restart at the beginning, you’re enjoying this so much.

Finally, you read my last lines: “I hate writing, so I had ChatGPT compose this. It’s not all true, but I wanted to send a long letter, now that I’ve found you.”

How do you feel now?

What, after all, is wrong with letting a machine compose my personal letters? We have the technology. I asked it for specific examples of times when I’ve missed you. I didn’t supply any, so it invented them. I told it to describe the stunning sunsets here, my memories of us standing together against the world, and my adventures as an insurance adjuster in hurricane country. It invented all that too.

What’s wrong here is my reaching out with a fake human connection, not a real one. Wouldn’t you have preferred two splotchy, handwritten, awkwardly composed pages, if they were my real story in my own words? Or I could have dictated my letter and let the AI clean it up. That would still have been a letter from me, not my machine.

AI will gradually improve at pretending to be personal, pretending to connect, and pretending the verbal and visual content it generates is art. But it will never offer human-to-human connections, only empty calories: a shiny, soulless, convenient counterfeit.

The more we forget that only humans can make human-to-human connections; the more we use artificial diversions on our screens to replace actual human relationships and experiences; the more we rely in education and business on AI-generated summaries instead of actually reading what a human wrote; the more we let machines replace our own personal and artistic expression; the more we prioritize our own digital entertainment and avoid connecting and doing good among humans—the less human we will be.

When we delegate a thing to our machines, our own ability in that thing decreases. When that thing is our thinking, we invite oppression and exploitation. When we turn to our machines as an alternative to connecting with fellow humans, we diminish our ability to be human at all.

So write the letter. Don’t have Claude or ChatGPT do it.

Read the real, human-written book, not an AI- or even human-generated summary, even if the book is fiction. Whatever other human insights fiction may offer, there’s also a valuable human connection between reader and author.

Don’t pretend human experience can be reduced to content or data points, or that simulations are adequate substitutes for all human experience.

Advocate for STEAM instead of STEM. (The A is for arts and humanities.) Unmediated and unrestrained, STEM ultimately produces high-tech barbarians.

Get out and do real things in the real world with real people. Watch real people doing athletic and artistic things.

And when NPR (July 2) asks, “If a bot relationship FEELS real, should we care that it’s not?” or Ezra Klein exults in the New York Times (August 24) that AI can now be—as in replace—our advisers,  friends, therapists, coaches, doctors, personal trainers, tutors, and even lovers, say “Get thee behind me, Satan” or a secular equivalent and get back to connecting with real people. Be more human, not less.

David Rodeback lives in American Fork and was recently named the League of Utah Writers 2025 Writer of the Year.

Beky Beaton

American Fork Citizen

For most of the past year, I’ve been looking into how high school sports are paid for and who makes the decisions that govern their administration and inclusion. What I found is in the accompanying articles.

There are several reasons why I started down this path. First on the list was my own observations about how the recent additions to the sanctioned sports at our high schools have put further strain on facilities and staff members who were already stretching to meet the demands of sponsored programs.

Second, as I have moved around in athletic circles, for decades now in north Utah County, there has always been and continues to be an undercurrent of complaints that participating in school sports costs too much and excludes students whose families can’t afford to pay for it.

On the other side of the coin, however, I continue to see the great benefits of athletic participation for our students, such as improving health and personal discipline; understanding the need to give effort to achieve results; having the opportunity for character-building as participants learn to set and meet goals and deal with the emotional stresses inherent in competition including how to respond to both accomplishments and disappointments; and acquiring other life skills such as those associated with sacrificing personal motives for the good of the team or project.

It’s possible to learn all these things in other ways, but nowhere is it more likely than in organized, higher-level competition.

I want to make the case that the entire community benefits from the many ways that athletic competition teaches valuable life lessons to those who participate in it.

One example: It may seem that these classes of supervisors have little in common, but in fact, after decades of personal observations backed up by reams of research, it’s clear that business executives, military commanders and mission presidents all love to get athletes into their enterprises.

Why? Because, all other things being equal, a candidate with a background in competitive athletics has likely already developed skills and attitudes that can help them to be successful quickly in unfamiliar and stressful environments. It’s not an absolute guarantee, but it usually helps.

Accordingly, it logically follows that community members have a vested interest in financially supporting school sports and other extracurricular activities that provide similar benefits, like music and drama, even when their own family members may no longer be directly involved.

It’s no secret that Utah has one of the highest pupil-to-teacher ratios in the country. Also, our government and school leaders practice what most of us believe: that things need to be paid for as we go along.

In such an environment, the likelihood that additional public funds will ever be allocated to support school extracurricular activities is slim to none.

What’s left is that it’s the obvious opportunity and responsibility of all of us to support them, for the good of our children and the future of our communities.

So, go ahead and buy those tickets to a game or a band concert, and while you’re there, pick up something at the concession stand. When the neighbor’s little soccer player or big football lineman is selling something to help fund their team, please contribute if you can.

The more of us who do it, the less the strain will be on individual families and the greater the benefits will be for the entire community.

In November 2024, voters made a clear and consequential decision: to split Utah’s largest school district into three. While I respect that vote and am committed to helping each future district succeed, I did not support the split.

Not because I don’t believe in local control. Not because I oppose change. But because I understood what many are just now beginning to realize: splitting a district is expensive. It creates new layers of administration, duplicated services, and infrastructure challenges that don’t disappear with the stroke of a ballot.

Even though the official split doesn’t take effect until July 2027, now is the time to begin operating like three lean, independent districts. Just like a couple approaching retirement might try living on a smaller budget to test their plan, we should be practicing fiscal restraint today, not two years from now.

We need school board leaders who aren’t afraid to rethink old habits. Leaders with the mental agility, creativity and courage to fund public education without automatically raising taxes year after year. We need people who will:

● Reassess budget priorities,

● Identify smart cuts,

● Pursue alternative funding streams

● And, most importantly, honor the trust and voice of taxpayers.

Raising taxes shouldn’t be a routine. It should be a last resort.

That’s why, at our last board meeting, I voted against any property tax increases. I was outvoted 5-2.

When we increase taxes before exhausting every other option, we don’t just burden families—we set a precedent that will carry into each of the new districts. That’s not the fresh start our students, teachers or communities deserve.

So as we move into the next season of school board elections, we need to ask tough questions:

● Are we choosing leaders who can innovate, or just replicate?

● Will they protect our schools without sacrificing our stability?

● Will they say, “We can do better—not by doing more, but by doing smarter”?

The future of our schools—and our taxpayers—depends on who steps up next.

Sarah Beeson

Alpine School District Board, Seat 4

By: David Rodeback

In February, I wrote that reading aloud is for adults too, listed reasons, and suggested you try a Shakespeare sonnet. Reading aloud invites several kinds of magic into our lives, I noted. Now I’m back with three more things to read aloud, a note on how I use reading aloud in my writing, and an activity which may feel adventurous and will likely turn out beautifully. 

First, not just because it’s July, read the entire Declaration of Independence aloud. Take your time. Practice until you feel connected to the words. The Continental Congress left much of Thomas Jefferson’s original power intact. Be sure to read the signers’ names aloud. They deserve it.

This beloved excerpt, for example, is more powerful when you read aloud, especially when you read it with the whole Declaration:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Second, pick a chapter of the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, preferably the King James Version. I suggest Chapter 53 or 54. Both are beloved and relatively free of inscrutable personal and place names to trip us up.

Isaiah can be difficult; we’re only half-joking when we say a few chapters of Isaiah can stop a bullet. But some of his poetry survives translation. If you love beautiful language and want the book to come alive, read aloud. Read and re-read a few verses at a time, not the whole chapter, until the words cease to be a formless mush and begin to reveal their structure, poetry and power. Watch for the repetition of ideas, not rhyme. This is from Chapter 54:

“For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee.”

Third, Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is a masterpiece by one of the English language’s greatest writers, and it is unimaginably short by modern standards. It has only a fraction of its power if you read silently, so read aloud. Soon enough, before the most famous part near the end, you’ll encounter this passage:

“Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.’”

As a writer, I’m not in Lincoln’s, Jefferson’s or Isaiah’s league, but I read my own words aloud as I edit and revise them. For a final proofreading pass, my computer reads to me, while I follow along. It’s clunky but effective. Occasionally, when I struggle with a scene or chapter, I record myself reading aloud and listen repeatedly, until I see what I can do. It’s painful. Rarely, I listen as someone else reads my words aloud to me, which is even more helpful, but excruciating.

Whether we write or not, the effort to read aloud with inflection, emphasis and pace helps us understand the words and the author.

Here’s that adventure that may end beautifully: Find someone you can help by reading aloud, whatever they want you to read. Read to an aged or ailing neighbor or relative. Read to strangers—not strangers for long—at a hospital or senior living center. Audiobooks are a blessing, but they don’t offer the same human connection. 

Don’t exclude the possibilities of doing this for someone remotely. Don’t wait for an opportunity to fall in your lap. Seek it out, as I’ll be doing now. And don’t stop at just one visit. Make it a habit. Do some low-key, extra good in your world. Read aloud to someone.

David Rodeback, BendableLight.com

American Fork

By: Madelyn Wilson

American Fork Citizen

Every year around Pioneer Day, I reflect on a few of my ancestors who said goodbye to their homes in search of a new home; a place they felt called to by God. 

I think of Lars Peter Oveson, my great-great-grandfather who left Denmark as a boy to emigrate to Utah with his family. Upon finally arriving in Salt Lake City, he and his family were told to carry on their journey to settle Ephraim after only a few days of rest. He devoted his life to his family and to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after saying goodbye to his homeland at only 10 years old.

I think of Ruth Campkin Randall, my great-great-great-grandmother. Her family left England the year she was born to be with the Latter-day Saints in America. She and her husband, Alfred, descended into Arizona’s Tonto Basin with their children. Their wagon was chained to a tree as a makeshift brake as they walked down the steep and rocky trail. She called back to her children, weeping, “I think your father is taking us into hell!” Ruth, the devoted mother she was, faced genuine peril in order to travel to the place her family felt called to settle. 

This reflection isn’t meant to put these people on a pedestal, nor is it to erase the flaws and errors of many pioneers in the early days of the Church. I reflect to recognize what people are willing to sacrifice for a better life for themselves and their families — sacrifices we see people making every single day as they try to build a new life in the United States.

Last week, the Utah County Commissioners unanimously approved an agreement between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the County Sheriff’s Department. The approval came after four hours of public comment from residents of Utah County. About 100 people spoke in that time, asking questions and sharing concerns over the agreement; none of the commenters spoke in support of the agreement. 

One brave commenter, a 12-year-old girl named Adelaide, shared the story of her friend Ashley who was detained by ICE in January of this year.

“One day she was here, laughing with us, learning with us; the next day she was gone. No goodbye, no explanation. Just fear, silence and an empty seat in class,” Adelaide shared. “I care deeply about people in our community, and I believe no one should be afraid to go to school, walk home, or live in our city because of where they were born. … How can we feel safe when someone can just be taken from their family just like that? … That’s not the kind of city I want to grow up in.”

I attended that meeting and was moved to tears along with several others in the room who heard Adelaide’s message. I am a mother, and this trauma and grief is not something my sons should witness in their classrooms or neighborhood.

Those of us with Utah roots may often reflect on our pioneer ancestors and all that they lost in search of a better life. In manycases, those losses were due to infant and maternal mortality, violence and succumbing to severe weather conditions. 

But this is the modern, developed world. The infant mortality rate has dropped a whopping 95% in the last 200 years, and maternal mortality has dropped as much as 99%. We don’t have extermination orders in Utah County. We, for the most part, have shelter to keep us safe in severe weather. What we have now that tears families apart, that strikes fear in natural-born citizens and immigrants alike, is ICE. Our ancestors couldn’t control the weather, but this government organization’s reach in our community is something we should have a say in. 

Were it up to me, ICE would never be allowed to set foot in this community. While I am not at personal risk of being detained and separated from my family, I have friends and neighbors who are; and yes, those people are all here “legally.” In the past several months, we’ve seen ICE disregard due process and detain individuals who live here on a green card or with full citizenship — simply because they look or sound like they came from another country.

While it was stressed in the meeting that ICE is already here in our community, my fear with this agreement being approved is that we are sending a message to ICE that their strong-arm tactics are welcome here, and that the average Utah County resident is okay with that. Let me be clear: I am not okay with it, and the majority of people I know living here in Utah County feel the same. That opposition to ICE is not based on party lines; it’s based on humanity and empathy.

Latter-day Saint pioneers were migrants often outlawed by the courts, vilified on a national level and ostracized from their existing communities. The same can be said of many immigrants facing detainment today.

 If you have pioneer roots, I urge you to turn inward. If what is happening now to our Latino friends, family and neighbors were happening to your great-great-grandfather, would it be okay with you? If your great grandma were separated from her breastfeeding child, would you stand by and let it happen? Our pioneer ancestors were immigrants. Let us have the same compassion for our neighbors as we do for them.

By: Rob Shelton

American Fork Citizen

It’s past 11 p.m. on April 18, 1775. Paul Revere’s horse thunders through the Massachusetts countryside, horse hooves echoing off farmhouse walls as he shouts his famous warning, “The Regulars are coming out!” By dawn, 700 British soldiers in those distinctive red coats, marching in formation like they owned the place. 

Standing opposite them? Maybe 77 local farmers and shopkeepers, known as the patriot militia, who’d grabbed their muskets and decided they’d had enough.  A British officer rides up close to the patriot militia with his sword drawn and says, “lay down your arms, you damned rebels, or you are all dead men”.

As the patriot militia begins to disperse, someone fires—nobody knows who—and the shot heard ’round the world ignites a revolution that will reshape history. As we celebrate the 249thanniversary of our Declaration of Independence, that moment reminds us how quickly ordinary people can change the world.

Lieutenant John Carlton, my sixth great grandfather, heard that echo. When word spread like wildfire through the Connecticut countryside that British regulars had marched on Lexington, John didn’t hesitate. He grabbed his musket, kissed his wife goodbye, and joined hundreds of other farmers and tradesmen racing toward Massachusetts.

They called it the Lexington Alarm. Within hours of Paul Revere’s midnight ride, militias from across New England were mobilizing. These weren’t professional soldiers. They were blacksmiths and shopkeepers, fathers and sons, bound together by something more powerful than military training: the unshakeable belief that free men shouldn’t bow to tyranny.

When I reflect on this milestone anniversary, that’s the America that comes to mind. Not the messy political fights we see on cable news or the endless Twitter arguments. I think about ordinary folks—farmers, shopkeepers, fathers—who were willing to bet everything on a radical notion. 

The idea that all men are created equal, that we’re born with certain rights nobody can take away. It strikes me as almost impossibly bold for its time. Yet here we are, still striving to live up to that promise. Still trying to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

The men who signed the Declaration of Independence 249 years ago this July knew they were committing treason. Benjamin Franklin wasn’t joking when he said they must all hang togetheror they would surely hang separately. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to a cause that seemed impossible.

Yet here we are, almost a quarter of a millennium later, still imperfect but still striving. Still the nation where a kid from anywhere can become anything. Still the place people around the world look to when they dream of freedom. From “sea to shining sea,” we remain that beacon of hope.

None of this just fell into our laps, you know. People like my ancestor John Carlton—they dropped everything when liberty was on the line. Then came wave after wave of immigrants, folks who literally bet their futures on America, leaving behind everything they’d ever known. And think about all those young soldiers who paid the ultimate price on beaches in Normandy, in the jungles of Vietnam and across Middle Eastern deserts, believing freedom was worth dying for. 

Today’s challenges feel overwhelming sometimes. We argue about everything from immigration to inflation, from education to healthcare. Social media amplifies our differences and drowns out our common ground. It’s easy to forget what binds us together.

Americans have always been argumentative. We’re messy, loud and imperfect by design. The Founding Fathers battled over federal power and foreign policy. Hamilton and Burr settled their differences with pistols. Democracy has never been orderly.

That friction isn’t a bug in our system—it’s a treasured feature. Healthy disagreement keeps our republic honest and prevents any single voice from drowning out the rest. Hence the freedom of speech, assembly, petition and press were written right into First Amendment to the Constitution.  

What made us special then, and what makes us special now, is that we keep arguing our way toward a more perfect union. We don’t give up on the idea that free people can govern themselves. We don’t abandon the belief that tomorrow can be better than today.

As we mark the start of American independence 250 years ago, we should remember that patriotism isn’t about pretending we’re perfect. It’s about recognizing how far we’ve come and recommitting ourselves to the work that remains. It’s about remembering that this truly is “sweet land of liberty” worth preserving for future generations.

John Carlton and his fellow militiamen didn’t march toward Lexington because America was already great. They marched because they believed it could be. They sacrificed for a future they wouldn’t live to see (John passed away in 1786), trusting that their children and grandchildren would carry the torch of liberty forward. The faith that liberty is worth any sacrifice.

Now it’s our turn. We are the inheritors of their sacrifice, the beneficiaries of their courage, the guardians of their dream. The question isn’t whether America faces challenges. Every generation has faced challenges. The question is whether we’ll meet them with the same spirit that sent a Connecticut farmer racing toward the sound warning that “the regulars are coming” and of gunfire on an April morning over 250 years ago.

That’s the America worth celebrating. That’s the America worth defending. That’s the American spirit we’ll hand down to the next generation, 250 years strong and still growing.

For a change, this month’s column is not about reading books. You could say it’s about reading hope in some high school students.

Human civilization is built over generations in fits and starts and at enormous cost. On a good day, we build it slightly faster than its enemies dismantle it. We may disagree on who is building and who is dismantling lately, and how and why. But we sense there haven’t been enough good days recently. 

True, we’re surrounded by good things. Some things are the best they’ve ever been. But it’s easy to lose hope, especially if we take the 24/7 news cycle and the professional commenting class too seriously. It’s easy to look ahead and look around and despair for the future. 

I found an antidote years ago that still works: spending time with local youth. It hasn’t always been the American Fork High School Marching Band. It doesn’t have to be a band at all. But lately, it has been.

Eleven years ago, a young filmmaker named Matt Judkins read something I wrote and sought me out. He and his brother Russ were making a film about the band’s 2013 season, which involved reaching the semifinals at Grand Nationals in Indianapolis. They needed a writer.

We interviewed teachers, staff, administrators, parents and donors, but mostly we interviewed students—dozens of students. The result was a feature-length documentary I still enjoy, “Champions of the West.”

I didn’t expect that experience to teach me hope so powerfully. I invite any cynic, any outright pessimist, to spend that many hours with those youth without feeling hope, without thinking the future might be in good hands after all.

Matt approached me again last year to write for another film about the band. This time, perhaps, they would make finals at Grand Nationals. 

We named our film “Eyes with Pride,” after a marching band tradition we highlight in the film, and we decided to live dangerously. Instead of relying on narration to tell parts of the story and hold everything together, we would rely on interviews, mostly with band members. It worked. They gave us everything we needed to tell the story. And this time, I wasn’t surprised to see hope when I looked at the teenagers we interviewed.

In the footage we used—and far more that we didn’t—they were happy to talk about making finals. That goal had eluded AFHS in several attempts since 1995. But they kept returning to higher things: hard work, loyalty, discipline, friendship, service, joy.

Most of last year’s juniors and seniors were with the band in 2022, when it fell a fraction of a point short of moving on to finals. As the 2024 campaign began, these now-seasoned veterans talked about wanting to help the younger students, especially the rookies, with music, drill and other details. They talked even more about helping them feel they belonged; helping them with the challenges of a new school and new experiences; helping them keep going when things got difficult; helping them understand and believe that working to create something beautiful would be worth it in the end. 

After the season, looking back, these older students reported more satisfaction in having done these things than in finishing eighth in the final round of twelve at Grand Nationals. They had helped the younger students in all those ways. They had successfully shared what they had learned by experience: the joy and satisfaction of showing up every day, working harder and longer than you thought you could work, learning to do your best together, trying to make every performance better than the last, and finally leaving everything you had on the field.

When I was in a high school band, we donned our uniforms and marched around a little, for one football halftime show and one parade every year. I didn’t enjoy that part of the band experience, but I made happy memories in concert band, jazz band and pep band, as well as in show choir, basketball and academics, all with the help of excellent peers, teachers and coaches.

Some of us thought very highly of ourselves and our prospects back then. I suppose we weren’t as good as we thought we were. But I’m struck by this thought: the current youth with whom I’ve mingled lately may really be as good as we thought we were.

How can I not feel hope?

David Rodeback

American Fork, UT

Note: “Eyes with Pride” premiered last month at American Fork High School and will be released on YouTube and elsewhere in June.

By: Beky Beaton

American Fork Citizen

Unprecedented.

That’s the key word for the five state championships earned by American Fork athletes in one week at the end of May.

It’s never happened before at this school, and it’s not like anyone could have predicted it. Only the baseball team and maybe girls track entered the playoffs as a favorite.

The boys tennis team had just lost in the region tournament to the program they eventually beat for the state championship.

The boys track team had never won a state title before, and everything had to work out just right for them to get it.

And, the defending state champion boys soccer team was considered vulnerable after dropping all the way to third place in the league with four losses.

What the rest of the prep world didn’t know was that these Cavemen had saved their best for last.

Come-from-behind victories. Shattered personal records. Skilled stars stepping up at just the right time. Dominant performances from the team’s strongest assets. All of these and more marked a tournament season that will live on in glorious memory foreverin the annals of American Fork.

Those five hefty awards claimed in this remarkable spring now join boys swimming gold plus boys cross country silver in the state haul for the past school year, not to mention those received for the five region titles also captured during this period.

In addition, I feel obligated to point out that many of the athletes who helped earn all of this hardware will be back again next year, along with others who are building programs that were a little less successful this time around. Together they’re laying the foundation for more accolades to come.

Somebody might need to order a new trophy case.