Sarah Calhoun speaks during the recent Governor’s Rural Summit.
SEUALG Press Release
Members of the staff of the Southeastern Utah Association of Local Governments attended that Governor’s Rural Summit in Cedar City on Aug. 2-3 and found themselves coming back with a wealth of information and ideas for the agency to use.
On Thursday morning, the event began with a panel of people in general session talking about the opioid problem in rural Utah. The panel talked about the problems and various kinds of solutions that are being used across the state. From the southeastern part of the state, Debbie Marvedakis, who works with the Southeastern Utah Health Department, spoke about measures that are being tried in Carbon County to combat the seemingly ever-increasing problem.
Immediately after, Doug Griffiths, the author of the book “13 Ways to Destroy Your Community,” presented the keynote address and spoke about how things are changing rapidly and continually. He gave a good demonstration of how business and government must evolve to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to technology and the changing business atmosphere in the world.
Later that day, Governor Gary Herbert spoke about rural development and the ideas he has for moving the needle forward when it comes to growing economies in the areas outside the Wasatch Front. He also spent time talking about something that all Utahns are familiar with this summer: wildfires and why they are seemingly becoming more frequent and intense each year. He made it plain that he felt that the management of the forests in the state has not been as good as it could be and he feels the state could do a better job if they were doing it rather than the federal government. Many states have state forest lands, but Utah is not one of those. All public forests in the state are national forests.
On Friday, Lieutenant Governor Spencer Cox and his co-chair of the Utah Governor’s Rural Partnership Board spoke about various things that are going on in rural Utah and what the board does. They are a fairly large committee and help give direction for rural development and work with the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED).
Also on the docket that day was Sarah Calhoun, who is the owner of Red Ants Pants, a Montana firm based in the small town of White Sulpher Springs, Mont. Originally from Connecticut, Calhoun went west after reading a book by a man who grew up in the town and founded the firm. Her company makes work wear for women, and as she put it “work wear that fits women.” Her company uses all American made materials and the clothing is made by Americans, some of them in her small town while others are independent contractors spread across the country. She also started the Red Ants Pants Festival each summer in the small town which draws thousands of people to the berg of 600. A foundation she founded also supports rural communities, women in leadership roles and traditional work values. In 2011, she was named Montana Entrepreneur of the year.
Throughout the conference, many workshops were also put on. Some of them included Engaging the Workforce of the Future, Addressing Rural Utah’s Housing Crisis, Rural Health Care Priorities, Utah’s GIS Mapping and Technical Assistance Program, United States Department of Agriculture/Rural Development Tools and Resources, Natural Resource Issues Affecting Utah, the Rural Online Initiative, Growth from the Ground Up (the Governor’s Office of Economic Development) and Wildfire Mitigation and Biomass Opportunities.
“I believe strongly in Rural Utah,” said Geri Gamber the executive director of SEUALG. “The Rural Summit this year offered best practices in technology, Rural Online Initiative, GIS and many other pertinent ideas and processes that only enhance agencies success stories. We are all in this together, and the Rural Summit is about collaborative efforts. I had a plethora of ideas to take home and begin my own collaborative effort for Southeastern Utah.”