As we wrap up a year of 2020 famous Utahn’s we have visited incredible families, incredible women, prodigy’s, and more! Utah has produced an incredible batch of people that have changed the world in one way or another.
Wrapping up our list, we deep dive into the legacy of Larry H. Miller. Born in 1944 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Larry was a Utahn through and through even with his brief time outside the state. He graduated fro West High school and married his high school sweet heart, Gail. After working in a parts department for a dealership, Larry started his business journey in the automotive industry which he ended up owning more than 60 dealerships through the western U.S.
In addition to our Famous Utahn this month, we were joined by Kristen Lavalett of Local First!
The Saturday after Thanksgiving is always Shop Small Saturday. Small Business Saturday was an idea created by the credit card giant American Express on November 27, 2010. The campaign launched in order to help small businesses gain additional exposure and to change the way consumers shop within their own community during the holiday season. It is always the first Saturday after Thanksgiving.
Now that the history is out of the way, we had Kristen Lavalett the executive director of Utah’s Non-Profit, Local First, joined us to talk about their mission and their newly minted Localist Project. Kristen is also part of the business advisory board for Salt Lake City which includes Urban Food Connections and she is the VP of the Granary District Alliance. From the Salt Lake City government page, “A former journalist, curriculum developer and playwright, Kristen now leads the “buy local” movement in Utah, advocating for independent businesses on state, county, and city levels in both urban and rural communities. Her expertise in branding, campaign coordination, and collaborative enterprises have spurred economic development through place making in her hometown of Salt Lake City, and across the state of Utah.“
One of the important aspects of supporting local is buying into the buy local food movement. A couple of questions to ask when shopping and eating out includes, but not limited to, Where does food come from and am I supporting people I want to. When you analyze food connections and wonder how it gets to your plate you also wonder how other items you use in your daily life come from.
Local First is a unique non-profit with three audiences they are working to connect with. First is public education to help people understand the value of locally owned business. Culture, community, and economy. Creating a shift in community behaviors. Work with the economic development divisions in multiple counties to build relationships with the people that are making the decisions. Business owners they are able to do marketing on behalf and offer training to create local messaging.
The Localist program started fall of 2020 out of an idea that had been rattling around for a while. This was the year that it needed to be launched. It is for non-business owners, “localist”, people that care about the local businesses and supporting them. Like a public radio subscription, contribute a monthly donation starting $10 and provided with a field guide, online magazine, that is a member directory. Once COVID is under control, the idea is to start up tours and more interactions with local businesses.
You may be asking what is a local business. Kristen defined what a “true” local business is in Utah. 51% owned and operated in Utah. No franchises, unfortunately.
This year Local First launched the Shop Small Digital crawl. It was an event that could be done in person or online. 120 businesses signed up. Offering specials, fun products, sugarhouse, 9th and 9th, Murray, Sandy, Ogden, Park City, Cedar City, Moab, Springdale, etc. They put their Shop Small crawl guide on their Instagram @LocalFirst. All businesses had QR code at check out and customers could scan the code and get to entered into a prize drawing. It was a great way, during COVID, to support local businesses.
Some of Kristen’s most patronized businesses in Utah are King’s English, equal to Ken Sanders. She also loves Fisher Beer and Thyme and Place. You can keep up to date with what Local First is doing on Facebook and Instagram. You can visit the website for more information on the Localist subscription.
Kristen’s most unique thing that she has found about Utah is a first for us! She is a little bit of a history buff and she really loves ghost towns! She enjoys finding off the beaten path places. One of the more intriguing places she’s been to is Helper, Utah. The history museum in Helper talks a lot about the mining culture, local strikes, and Mother Jones. Kristen told us that you get stories you don’t hear anywhere else but in those small towns.
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This month we get ready to close out our year of famous Utahn’s with two more Utahn’s. Although they may not be fully “famous” they are definitely influential Utahn’s.
Jerry Buss is probably best known for his ownership of the LA Lakers up until is death in 2013. He was referred to by the NBA as the greatest owner in sports. Born in Salt Lake City on January 27, 1933 his mother Jessie and his father Lydus, who would end up divorced. At age 9 Jerry moved to Wyoming with his family and eventually made his home in California.
Jerry lived many lives from a chemist, being a real estate investor, a poker player, and of course as his legacy lends, the owner of the Lakers. He changed the way we do basketball. This is the cheerleaders you see on the court. The structured premium seating and music! He wanted it to be an “all-out entertainment” spectacle, and we think it worked!
Lakers owner Jerry Buss (1933-2013). (Getty Images)
John Warnock our second famous Utahn for November was much more of a Utahn than Jerry. Born and raised in SLC, he is a Utahn through and through. John is also one of the few people we’ve featured this year that is still alive! John’s legacy will be one of being a co-founder of Adobe! Yes, little ol Adobe! John was born in Salt Lake City on October 6, 1940. From Wikipedia, “Warnock was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. He failed mathematics in ninth grade but graduated from Olympus High School in 1958. He currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is married to Marva E. Warnock, illustrator, and has three children. Warnock has a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and philosophy, a Doctor of Philosophy degree in electrical engineering (computer science), and an honorary degree in science, all from the University of Utah. At the University of Utah he was a member of the Gamma Beta Chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.He also has an honorary degree from the American Film Institute.” In 2019 Kristin Murphy of the Deseret News did an incredible write up on Mr. Warnock’s visit to Silicone Slopes Summit.
Cool fact here the Adobe typeface “Warnock” is named after him!
2020 has seen many challenges in education and it was a scramble to figure out how to do graduations. John Warnock was the Keynote for the University of Utah.
We are getting ready to wrap up our year of Famous Utahn’s. For Episode 231 we decided to deep dive into Rosanne Barr, Frank Zamboni, and Nolan Bushnell. All of these Utah born people have played a significant part of world pop and sports culture!
Nolan Bushnell, is the epitome of pioneer! Nolan is known as the father of the video game and… AND he created Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theatre. Born in 1943 in Clearfield, Utah. Growing up Nolan did what most northern Utahn’s do, he worked his summers at Lagoon. It was while he was working there he realized how much people loved games and the carnival atmosphere. 1968 Nolan graduated in engineering from the University of Utah. He also attended Stanford (but we prefer the Utah adjacent stuff). In 1972 the gaming box that would take our homes by storm known as Atari, was founded in Northern California by Nolan and his business partner, Dabney. One of our favorite quotes comes from Walter Isaacson’s book, Steve Jobs. “In 1976, Steve Jobs went to Nolan to get him to put in some money in exchange for a minor equity stake in Apple. Nolan remarked, “Steve asked me if I would put $50,000 in and he would give me a third of the company. I was so smart, I said no. It’s kind of fun to think about that, when I’m not crying.”Atari revolutionized the home gaming industry. Come on, who doesn’t love a good game of Pong?! In 1978 he was pushed out of Atari. Enter stage left: Chuck E Cheese. From Wikipedia, It is known that Bushnell had always wanted to work for Walt Disney, but was continually turned down for employment when he was first starting out after graduation; Chuck E. Cheese was his homage to Disney and the technology developed there. In 1981 Bushnell turned over day-to-day food operations of Chuck E. Cheese’s to a newly hired restaurant executive. Nolan stepped down in 1984 from the board after they decided they didn’t like his proposed changes. By late ’84, the company was in bankruptcy.
Bushnell has been involved in other gaming companies, including one that has him on the board of an anti-aging game technology to help with brain function over the age of 35. Nolan has been feature in a few documentaries, awarded a BAFTA as well as many other accolades, and it is said there is a movie about his life in the works with Leonardo DiCaprio. His legacy seeps through the blood of his own children. Venture Beat feature by Dean The DeanBeat, Takahashi interviewed members of the family in 2019.
Nolan Bushnell and 1975 popular game Pong. Photo credit: Time Techland
Frank Zamboni, creator of THE Zamboni machine, was born in Eureka, Utah in 1901. His parents were Italian immigrants. That is where the Utah ties end. However, he did grow up in Lava Hot Springs, ID which is pretty close so we can still talk about him. At the age of 19 his family moved to Los Angeles. Frank and his brother Lawrence started an ice blocking business in the late 20’s to 1939. This was problematic due to electricity and the units needed for refrigeration. They turned their focus and used the equipment to open an ice rink. In 1940 they teamed up with their cousin, Pete, and opened the Iceland Ice Rink. It was 20,000 sq feet, making it one of the largest of its kind., it was even covered with a dome after realized the ice was no match for the So. Cal heat. It was a success because Frank had figured a way to reduce the rippling, from the pipes under the rink, in the ice. Frank got the patent in ’46 and created the machine in ’49. There have been 8 different variations of the machine that we know now. From the Zamboni website, From the 1949 Model A to the 500 Series re-surfacer’s of today, Frank Zamboni’s desire to develop the best possible product for his customers remains as strong in his successors over 60 years later. As Frank often pointed out to rink owners, a comment indicative of his own lifelong mission:
“The principal product you have to sell is the ice itself.”
As of today the ice rink is still operated by the Zamboni family.
Roseanne Barr, born to Jewish parents in Salt Lake City. Barr was spoken about how her parents kept their Jewish heritage secret from their neighbors and were partially involved in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Barr has stated, “Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning I was a Jew; Sunday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon, and Wednesday afternoon we were Mormons.” While in Utah was when Roseanne found her first stage, in the Mormon church. Rosanne has lived many lives. Stand up comedian, sitcom star with her name sake show Rosanne, talk show host, film star, radio, and even a candidate for presidency in 2012. Her life has not been without controversy and as of 2018, Rosanne still called Utah home.
Like clockwork we are back to the end of the month and here to give you our monthly famous Utahn! This month our focus is on Senator and astronaut, Jake Garn. We also noticed this is one of very few Utahn’s that we’ve talked about the last year and a half that are still alive!
This week we also touched on why, even if it is a bit uncomfortable, you should wear a mask in public spaces where you cannot physically distance yourself from crowds. No, you don’t need to be wearing it in your car while your drive, at your house with your family you are quarantining with, out on a run without a chance of running into someone, and so on. Use common sense. Please.
Also, our friend Nick Passey (see episodes 37, 93 , and 169) is working on NICKSTARTING his next album pressing and if you have a few dollars to send his way, we promise you will love his music! You can click on the NICKSTARTING or you can Venmo him @NICKPASSEYMUSIC. Just make sure to put a note in there it’s for the new album pressing!
Art By: Ashley Love
We will ALWAYS love your “likes” BUT don’t forget to click that little SHARE button (or retweet) *sharing IS indeed caring* You can find us and subscribe on Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Itunes, IHeartRadio, Google Play, and TuneIN. Leave us a review and Follow us on the Twitter @tnupodcast, Instagram @Tnupodcast, or on Facebook The New Utah Podcast
In 2019 we introduced a spotlight segment of infamous Utahn’s. We think it went pretty well! To lighten things up, this year our monthly focus will be on a famous Utahn!
Our first stop is Philo T Farnsworth. Utah knows him as one of our own. The creator of the tubes that made what we know as modern day television. However, there is more to the story and we did a deep dive in episode 192 for you!
Here is a link to Craft Lake City classes that we talked about. They are always adding new ones!
We will ALWAYS love your “likes” BUT don’t forget to click that little SHARE button (or retweet) *sharing IS indeed caring* You can find us and subscribe on Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Itunes, IHeartRadio, Google Play, and TuneIN. Leave us a review and Follow us on the Twitter @tnupodcast, Instagram @Tnupodcast, or on Facebook The New Utah Podcast
You may have heard that he created the technology that is was made it possible for modern day television, and you wouldn’t be wrong! However, the story goes much deeper. Philo was born in Indian Creek, Utah just outside of Beaver in 1906. When he was a young child his family moved to Idaho which is where he started experimenting because the farm had an electric generator!
Philo had been reading science magazines in his young age and had been reading about ideas that were buzzing from the late 1800’s about television and how to turn a picture into electrical pulses. By the way, he was just 14! It was on his family farm when he was plowing that he got the idea of how the pictures could be created.
Fast forward to 1926/1927, Philo was in San Francisco where hackaday.com reports, ” By 1926 he had convinced a pair of what we’d now call “angel investors” to plow $6,000 into his image dissector idea, and he moved to California to chase his dream. Having already done some development on the tube at BYU, he was ready within a few months to apply for a patent, and on January 7, 1927 he submitted an application simply entitled “Television System.”
During this time, Farnsworth would have a foil. RCA hired Vladimir Zworykin and broadcasting head, David Sarnoff, put him to work knowing that they had to be part of the television creation. Then it just became a messy legal battle. According to Hackaday, “Sarnoff offered Farnsworth $100,000 for his image dissector patent. Farnsworth stubbornly refused this princely sum, setting off a patent war between the boy inventor and one of the largest corporations in the country. RCA sued Farnsworth, claiming that Zworykin’s 1923 patent had priority even though he had never made a working version of his iconoscope, or “reduced to practice” in patent law parlance. RCA won the first round, as well as a subsequent appeal, but in 1934 a judge sided with Farnsworth, partly on the strength of handwritten notes made by Justin Tolman, Philo’s high school chemistry teacher. Tolman had sketched out Philo’s blackboard drawings at Rigby High all those years before, providing support for Farnsworth’s claim that he thought up the idea of electronic television at least a year before Zworykin’s patent was issued.”
Philo had well over 300 patents in his lifetime. His genius was mind-blowing. From Investor.com, In July 1969, when Neil Armstrong used a Farnsworth camera to transmit his moon walk, the amazed inventor turned to his wife and said, “This has made it all worthwhile.” Unfortunately he died in 1971 at the young age of 64. If you want to pay respects, he is buried in the Provo, Utah cemetery. His statue has been standing at the US Capitol building, since 1989. It is about to be replaced with one of voting pioneer, Martha Hughes Cannon. There is a battle between Utah and Idaho about who should get the statue. Obviously we vote Utah!
