Heber City Americana musician Alicia Stockman was driving home after a horrible house show in Dallas when her engine block cracked and began leaking coolant into the oil, which may as well have been a terminal diagnosis for her car. She “limped” her way to a Kia dealership in Grand Junction, Colorado, where she called her ex-boyfriend and parents, in tears and beside herself. 

“I was 36 at the time. I was not a young kid. I was a full-ass grown adult,” she joked. “My parents came and picked me up, and we towed my car home, and I sold it for salvage. It was this dark window of time when everything was upended, and I didn’t know what to do.”

Stockman had been contemplating a move to Nashville, Tennessee, but at that moment, she realized she wanted nothing more than to be safe at home in Heber City. 

“The whole point of leaving was to run away from my problems. Then, coming home, (I had) no other (option) but to face them head-on and be upset,” she said. 

The experience inspired the title track on her latest album, “Homebound.” The album’s lyrics, which Stockman wrote between 2021 and 2026, explore break-ups, bowling and, most often, place. 

For example, “Jerkwater Town” is an ode to a small town and its residents who refuse to abandon it. Though it mentions a train and “our own Dairy Queen,” bringing local favorites like the Heber Valley Railroad and Dairy Keen to mind, Stockman actually wrote it about an artsy town of 2,000 people in West Texas called Marfa.

“Marfa is a weird word, and no one knew what I was talking about, so I took it out of the song, which, at the end of the day, serves it better. I’ve had people from all over be like, ‘This is my hometown you’re talking about,’” she said.

Meanwhile, “League Night” is indisputably an ode to Heber City’s Holiday Lanes. 

“Growing up in Heber, it was every birthday party, every gathering. … My boyfriend is in the league on Tuesday nights in the winter, which is 34 weeks long. That is almost a human child’s gestation period,” she joked. “I’d spend a lot of time there being like, ‘This is such a vintage vibe. It’s so weird. It’s got so much character.’”

The track’s been a hit at shows, so much so that one family showed up to a concert in Layton in matching bowling shirts. 

“Bowling is like Dolly Parton. It brings everyone together,” Stockman said. 

But “League Night” hasn’t been nearly as much of a crowd-pleaser as the album’s closer, “Crimson Blues.”

“I would not know which song to end a set with, and I’d be like, ‘Do you guys want to hear a song about murder or bowling?’” she said. “You would think there would be more debate, but 98% of the people not requested, screamed the word, ‘Murder!’”

“Crimson Blues,” Stockman explained, is a clapback to bluegrass murder ballads.

“They’re all in major keys, and they’re just fun, upbeat songs about killing women for various reasons that aren’t very compelling,” she said. “This is … my unhinged, slightly psychotic, true crime-loving murder ballad.”

Moving from bowling to a murder ballad in the span of a few tracks is a reflection of Stockman’s growth as a songwriter in the five years since her last album, “These Four Walls.”

“The rule of thumb is you have to write 100 songs before you really have your voice,” she said. 

Stockman feels she finally found that in “September.” She’s particularly proud of the lyric, “The first frost feels like closure, nature’s way of starting over. The woman I’ll be next fall, will I know her?”

Stockman’s voice, she said, is more “pedestrian” than “poetic.” She uses visual imagery to paint scenes of particular moments in her life or conversations she’s had. 

Stockman’s growth in the past five years hasn’t been restricted to her songwriting. She’s also become more comfortable identifying as an artist instead of just “someone who plays music on the weekends.” These days, musicianship is her primary source of income, despite the fact that she doesn’t put too much effort into her social media presence and barely pays attention to her streaming statistics. 

“It’s been a really weird space to navigate, to release a record in this day and age of AI and Ticketmaster and all that stuff,” Stockman said.

Her focus has been playing shows, selling merch and making in-person connections with fans and fellow musicians. 

“(A fan) emailed me to tell me that he had to get an MRI. They asked him what he wanted to listen to, and he picked my music to help calm him while he was there,” she said. “That’s worth all the Spotify streaming numbers.”

Stockman’s work has been especially focused on her hometown. She started a house concert series as an incubator for local and touring musicians and hopes to launch songwriting workshops. 

Stockman’s determination to move to Nashville a few years ago was driven by her desire to be part of its music scene and explore more of the world outside of Utah.

“I live one block from where I went to kindergarten. There were many times when I wrestled with the idea of feeling ashamed about living in my hometown still. It’s a pretty small town, or it was. So, 17-year-old me was really disappointed in mid-30s me for not going anywhere,” she said.

But Stockman has realized she doesn’t need to move to a music mecca; she can create one where she grew up. 

“Once I embraced it, it changed things for me, and I started to build community in a way that I think I had been kind of avoiding,” she said. “I am on a mission to force my friendship any time I meet a new musician in the area. … What those cities have that we don’t have as well is that networking and that cohesiveness.”

Though Stockman has lived in Wasatch and Summit counties her entire life, it wasn’t until the last few years that she finally felt at home.

“The theme that I say about the record is, ‘Home is big enough to hold all the versions of yourself,’” she said. “Coming home, you can be who you were before and who you’ve become now. You don’t have to pick one or the other.”

Stockman’s next local shows are at Heber City Main Street Park on Thursday, and on Aug. 29 and 30, Le Depot Brasserie in Park City on Sept. 4 and St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Heber City on Sept. 12. Learn more at aliciastockman.com.

The post Heber City musician Alicia Stockman finally comes home appeared first on Park Record.

Some kids participated in soccer or chess clubs in elementary school, but Ryan Shupe spent his free time recording albums and touring. 

Ryan’s father, Ted, formed the PeeWee Pickers youth band in 1979, inspired by his son’s fiddling talent. As a member of the PeeWee Pickers, Ryan toured Europe and even played before President Ronald Reagan gave an address to the Utah Republican Party in 1982 during a picnic in Hooper.

The band was so prominent in Utah’s bluegrass scene that Shupe, now the frontman of Ogden band Ryan Shupe & the RubberBand, is still recognized as a PeeWee Picker.

“When I got introduced to (Grammy-winning musician Alison Krauss), … she was like, ‘Ryan Shupe from the Peewee Pickers. I know you guys!’” he said.

The PeeWee Pickers was far from the only band Ted organized or mentored. His fingerprints are all over Utah’s bluegrass scene, even in Wallsburg, where the 12th annual TedFest music festival will be held Friday through Sunday in his honor. Ted died in October in West Valley City at the age of 86. This year’s festival will continue, organized by Ryan.

Ted began TedFest in 2014 to celebrate all genres of roots music: Americana, folk, bluegrass, gospel and more. 

“(One year,) we had a Uyghur fellow who was an incredible flamenco guitarist. Every year, we’ve had this Latin band … There are bagpipes sometimes, and rock,” said Jamis Johnson, Ted’s bandmate in swing ensemble Swing Creek. “But it’s all based on acoustic music.”

TedFest, Johnson said, is a way to show that genres that have fallen out of the mainstream are still alive and well.

“I just went recently to the Gallivan Center where Hot House West (Swing Orchestra) was playing. …. There were hundreds of dancers, and I would say they seemed like they were all in their 20s,” Johnson said. “This is an older form of music that’s being rediscovered by kids.”

At this year’s TedFest, each of the roughly 20 performing bands will share some thoughts about Ted during their sets. Johnson remembered Ted as gregarious, even when dealing with the countless issues that can arise as a touring musician.

“(One time,) Ted was driving up to a gig in Park City, and the bass fell off the roof of his car. Somebody picked up the pieces, and Ted had his bass rebuilt,” Johnson said. “It sounded like hell, but he still played that bass all the way up to the end.”

Ted first learned upright bass as a kid so he could play in his mother’s dance band, Merle Shupe and the Star Dusters.

Johnson described Ted’s mother as “a real force.”  Two weeks before she died, Merle visited Johnson’s home. Johnson played “All of Me” on the piano, and, although she couldn’t even walk up the stairs by herself, Merle insisted on getting up when she heard his playing.

“She said, ‘Ted! Ted! Get me up. This guy, he thinks he can play “All of Me.”’ So Ted took her over to the piano, and she sat there and she played ‘All of Me,’ just banging it out,” Johnson said.

Like his mother, Ted was also a musical force of nature. Every day, he would wake his children two hours before school so they’d have time to practice their instruments.

“I wonder, would I be (a professional musician) without my dad? Probably not,” Ryan said. 

He added, “When (the PeeWee Pickers) got older, then he started another kid band for my other siblings. And then, he did that again for another band and another band and another band.”

About 35 musicians Ted mentored attended his funeral. 

“He really liked finding these young musicians and putting them into an ensemble and teaching them how to play and getting them out and playing shows,” Ryan said.

Ryan said Ted’s passion stemmed from wanting to share the “gift of music” with his children and other young people. Now, TedFest carries on that mission — and ensures its namesake will be forever remembered.

“Down the road, people will say, ‘What is this TedFest?’” Ryan said. “It’s started by the guy that they dubbed the father of Utah bluegrass music.”

See the full lineup at tedfestmusic.com. Tickets benefit Vibrant America, the nonprofit Ted founded to preserve folk and roots music.

The post TedFest in Wallsburg to honor ‘father of Utah bluegrass’ appeared first on Park Record.

Eighteen-year-old Heber City folk singer-songwriter Canyon Cottle’s debut album, “September,” which was released in February, is littered with nods to the Wasatch Back. 

“Kids Up in Kamas,” for example, is an ode to both the eastern Summit County town and Heber City’s agricultural roots.

“I’m almost jealous of the kids up in Kamas for having everything that this town was. … Things (have been) growing exponentially, especially after COVID,” Cottle said. “That entire town just reminds me of what it looked like (in Heber City) before I was born. When I was younger, we’d drive up and go to the swimming pool. It looked almost like a ghost town in certain spots because it was just so quaint.”

The second track, “Pine Canyon,” refers to a scenic drive on the titular Midway road. 

Meanwhile, the title track mentions driving past a tree in front of a house with initials carved into it. This lyric is not based on a specific location. It was, in fact, by Cottle’s grandmother after he showed her the song during a camping trip.

“She was like, ‘Can I write some lyrics for you? It needs to be more preppy and lovely and happy and goo-goo eyes.’ I was like, ‘OK, Grandma, whatever. I’m writing songs about painful crap,’” Cottle joked. “She’s like, ‘Yeah, but what about love and romance?’”

A tree with initials carved into it is something Cottle would brand as cliché. Incorporating the lyric anyway is Cottle’s embrace of the simple, tender aspects of life and a shout-out to both his grandmother and the countless engraved aspens in Heber City.

The album’s structure is based on the progression of the seasons. Cottle wrote “Lovely, Aren’t They” on the banjo in the driveway of his house, taking inspiration from the falling leaves surrounding him. In the song, he likens the arrival of autumn to the death of a relationship.

“For a lot of people, that’s the most heart-wrenching, painful thing to ever experience, watching something wither and die. For me, that’s pretty natural. That’s normal. I watch crops die and disappear in the fall. The corn stalks kind of wither and go away, and you have to clean them up, and leaves, and all the things. That’s life,” he said.

Lead single “Smoke in the Sky” also takes inspiration from a breakup. Cottle’s gravelly growl at the beginning of the acoustic chorus intentionally imitates a chainsmoker’s cadence.

The song’s guttural feeling clearly resonated with listeners. Despite being the first song the teenage songwriter had ever released, it was a breakout hit, with over 175,000 streams on Spotify alone since its release last April. 

The experience inflated Cottle’s ego quite a bit, he joked.

“Spotify has an app where you can check your stats 24/7 and look at things. Not the most healthy thing you could do with your life,” Cottle laughed. “(A few days after the song was released), I’m in the commons of Wasatch (High School), and I flip it up to see if anyone looks over my shoulder to look at the stats with me. And there were 40 people listening to the track at the same time.”

Cottle attributes the song’s popularity to its catchy hook and producer Luke Despain’s placement of the song on official Spotify playlists. On top of that, the stylistic influence of the stratospherically popular folk singer Noah Kahan probably helped.

Having a song with more streams than there are people in the entire Wasatch Back has been surreal for Cottle: getting side-eyed in school hallways, being asked for a few autographs and being recognized in Walmart by a little girl who called him that “singer guy.”

It’s a far cry from Cottle writing his first songs on guitar and piano in his freshman year, often procrastinating math homework at the Wasatch County Library by going down a rabbit hole of live performances by artists like The Backseat Lovers, a Provo-formed rock band, and Billy Joel. Those influences, along with performing in Timpanogos Valley Theatre and High Valley Arts productions as a kid, formed Cottle’s stage presence.

“It was cool to be able to lay my heart out for people to look at — which is the weirdest thing to say — and to have them take pictures,” he said. “It’s exciting because your heart races. You get on stage, and then it’s like the mic disappears because you close your eyes, and then you just play, and it turns into fun.”

Songwriting is fulfilling for an entirely different reason, he said.

“I think songwriting takes in all the different parts of your brain and meshes together what a human sounds like,” he said.

Now that Cottle has graduated from high school, he’s ready to explore whatever challenges the adult world throws at him through songwriting. He plans to move away from the obvious Kahan influence to a raw, emotional indie sound inspired by artists like Phoebe Bridgers or Lizzie McAlpine.

“I want them to feel it more. I feel like there’s a lot of wholesomeness in the music right now,” he explained. “(I want to write) songs with deeper harmonies and melodies that kind of converge, and then build, and then drop and disappear out of nowhere, where it’s just stomach-dropping.”

Cottle hopes to continue writing music throughout his life and to make it a full-time career, whether by opening a recording studio or becoming a professional songwriter.

He’s both excited and concerned by the idea of becoming as famous as someone like Kahan, whose tiny hometown of Strafford, Vermont, has become a bit of a tourist hotspot for superfans because of the lyrical references to it in Kahan’s songwriting. 

As someone who’s experienced more fame than most teenagers, Cottle has had concerns about the same happening to Heber City if he were to become a sensation. For now, Cottle is content with being beloved locally.  

No matter what the future holds for him, Cottle hopes to look back on this season of life with fondness.

“I think I’ll look back (at) now knowing that I tried to embody some sort of positivity or hope,” he said.

Cottle’s next performance will be from 9 to 11 p.m. on Saturday at Jade’s Cafe. He will also be performing at the Heber City Red, White & Blue Festival on Saturday, July 4.

The post Heber City is at the heart of folk musician Canyon Cottle’s songwriting appeared first on Park Record.

Heber City musician Luke Despain began writing songs on the piano at 12 years old, so when he was introduced to editing software Music MasterWorks in his music class a few years later, he was ahead of the curve.

“When all the other kids were just randomly putting notes on the score, I was 10 minutes into a song that I was making,” he recalled. “It was like LEGOs for music. I’d never played around with a software like that before.”

If a Digital Audio Workstation is like a pile of LEGOs, Despain is now a master builder. He’s composed and produced albums, singles, soundtracks and commercials for clients ranging from indie filmmakers to multi-million dollar companies. He’ll be kicking off Heber City’s summer concert series at Main Street Park at 7 p.m. on Saturday with a selection of his solo work.

Despain never imagined he’d be making music full-time when he was 15, uploading a composition called “African Drums” to YouTube — which, to his surprise, garnered over a million views. 

He now realizes that, other than his choice of drums, the song sounds nothing like the music of any of the continent’s 54 countries. 

Coincidentally, Despain ended up serving a mission in Sierra Leone for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He met his wife, Hazel, at his missionary homecoming. 

The pair only dated for a few months before tying the knot. They were, as Despain put it, a “very typical Mormon couple.” Despite that, the couple spent much of their 20s soul searching and ultimately left the church.

That spiritual journey serves as the inspiration for much of Despain’s solo work, such as his instrumental piano album, “Dichotomies.” 

“I grew up … thinking that there is good and bad, and right and wrong, and evil and holy,” he said. “(Now, I’m) accepting it all. It’s all what it is. It’s all God. It’s all experience. It’s all consciousness. And sometimes labeling things certain ways comes with less acceptance and less presence and less living.”

Despain hopes his music prompts existential thinking but is presented in a whimsical way, reflecting how his own existential journey gave him a greater appreciation for all aspects of his life — including his upbringing.

“A lot of the values we grew up with, like treating others the way you want to be treated and being present and the importance of family and community, those things are really cool,” he said. “That’s what we love about the community in Utah.”

Being close to family was part of why Despain and Hazel chose to start their family in their hometown of Heber City instead of Austin, Texas, where they previously lived. 

It was in Austin where Despain began composing and producing music for clients. 

At first, he was mixing albums for friends for a few hundred dollars per job. Eventually, he began taking on more ambitious projects, like the soundtrack for indie Western film LeGrand, starring Ethan Wayne — son of John Wayne — as the titular character’s father. For Despain, who had never seen a Western before working on the project, it was a valuable learning experience. 

He also began producing music for corporate ads, like a TaylorMade Golf Company ad, released last year, that remixes the swings of a Qi35 driver into a 30-second track.

Some musicians would feel stifled creating music for a company, but Despain enjoys it.

“I actually find it really helpful to give me some boundaries because if it’s just like, ‘Make an amazing song,’ where do I start?” he said.

Despain also finds it heartening when companies choose to hire an artist like himself instead of relying on AI. After all, the entirety of his income comes from making music.

Despain’s dream is to open a hybrid coffee shop recording studio in Heber City. He thinks the demand exists — he said the music scene has grown exponentially since when he was a kid.

Despain has worked with a few local musicians in the two years he’s been here — most recently, producing folk musician Canyon Cottle’s debut album — and is hopeful that the music scene of his hometown will continue to grow. 

“(Music) can bring in anybody and make anyone feel a certain way,” he said. “I think that’s what I like about it the most, is the fluidness and how easy it is to express feelings and connect with people.”

The post Heber City producer Luke Despain kicks off Saturday Sunset concerts at Main Street Park appeared first on Park Record.

Almost four years ago, then-20-year-old wildland firefighter Rebekah Epperson was fighting a blaze in Idaho for the Utah County Fire Department when she lost her footing on a dirt road and tumbled 20 feet down the side of a sheer cliff. She landed wrong on her right leg, but she thought it was fine.

“I was able to jump back up, and I was like, ‘I’m OK. I’m good.’ I had some little burns across my stomach, but it wasn’t as bad as it should have been, because I could have been dead,” she said.

But she started to feel pain in her leg as soon as her crew got back to camp. Her chief told her to go home and rest. The next morning, Epperson realized she needed to go to the hospital.

They did an MRI scan, and the doctor came in, and he’s just like, ‘Did you walk in here?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I walked in.’ And he’s like, ‘How?’” Epperson recalled with a laugh.

The scan found that Epperson had torn almost every single muscle in her right leg. 

But the reality of her injury hadn’t hit her yet. She thought that after her leg healed, she would come back, invincible, and the whole ordeal would just become a legend in her long and storied firefighting career. Little did she know that her injury would instead serve as the origin story for her career as a musician.

Several scans, doctor’s appointments and physical therapy sessions later, a physician broke the news to Epperson that she would never fully recover from her injury.

“He walked in, and I was like, ‘So, are you going to have to chop the leg off?’ And he gave me this look of, ‘Now’s not the time to joke, because this is serious.’ That was when I was like, ‘Oh, crap,’” Epperson said.

She had lost about 30% of the connecting muscle and tendons in her leg. She was using a full leg brace and crutches at the time and was told that, even as she recovered, she would walk with a limp for the rest of her life.

Firefighting had been Epperson’s dream for years. Through Utah Valley University, she’d earned an associate’s degree in emergency medical services and was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in fire science. She was hoping to become a fire captain. But her injury forced her to face the fact that her career was over.

“It almost felt like a death sentence, like someone had let go of a guillotine string,” Epperson said.

That night, after breaking the news to her family and the fire chief, she picked up her guitar and started strumming. 

At that moment, she began writing a song called “Change My Mind,” a somber folk tune about the hopelessness she felt. Almost four years later, Epperson still sings it to herself on bad days. 

Under the stage name Rebekah Blaine, Epperson released the single a few weeks ago.

It took some time for Epperson to become Blaine. Epperson had always been into songwriting, but never thought she would play her music for anyone other than herself and her family.

Epperson started playing guitar and songwriting in middle school. She grew up “dirt poor” in a trailer park in Heber City and got a smoking deal on her first guitar.

“I was sitting there playing one of the guitars in the shop, and the guy felt bad because he’s like, ‘Oh, you can’t afford a guitar. Well, we’ll give you this one on a discount,’” she said. “I still have the guitar. It is the worst-sounding thing I’ve ever played.”

Epperson’s first attempt at songwriting was “very much middle school poetry, and (she) didn’t know how to rhyme,” but she kept at it, albeit in private.

After her firefighting injury, Epperson moved back in with her parents in Heber City and spent most of her days sitting on the couch and watching “Scooby Doo.” 

Epperson, who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also spent a lot of time praying, asking God what she was supposed to do now that she had lost everything.

“Every time I’d pray about it, I just kept getting the answer of, ‘Pursue music.’ And for me, I was like, ‘This is a stupid answer because what am I going to do with music?’” she laughed.

But she gave in, started playing more for family and friends and began recording music.

Epperson’s first recorded song, “The Story,” released last November, is a Christmas song about the birth of Christ sung in the country tones of Dave Stamey. 

“He was the son of a carpenter. He wasn’t anything big or special. … And I feel like I relate to that,” Epperson said. “When I wrote ‘The Story,’ I wrote the story of Christ, but I also felt like I was kind of writing my story as well.”

While faith informs Epperson’s songwriting, her music isn’t confined to one theme or genre. 

She’s currently recording her debut album. One song is inspired by Irish folk music with some bagpipes thrown in the mix. Another song’s lyrics focus on some of the “weird comments” she gets when she tells people about her injury.

“Since I’m so young, I get told all the time, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re so resilient,’” she said. “They’re just like, ‘Well, be grateful it happened when you were young. … You have your whole life ahead of you.” And you’re like, ‘Yeah, but it was still hard.’”

Epperson hopes that, as Rebekah Blaine, she can “make things a little bit lighter for people who are going through hell, like (she) was.” She’s already gotten comments on her TikTok posts from fellow wildland firefighters who were forced to retire.

“Being able to talk with them and be like, ‘You’re not alone in this,’ has been such a blessing,” Epperson said. “It was a horrifying accident, and I’m going to be affected by it for the rest of my life. But in an odd kind of way, I’m grateful for it.”

Epperson will be performing under the moniker Rebekah Blaine at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday at the Wasatch County Library. She will also perform at the Thursday Market on Main events at Main Street Park beginning in June.

The post Former firefighter heals through music after life-shattering injury appeared first on Park Record.

The energy at Wasatch High School Latinos in Action’s celebration of cultures showcase on Friday instantly topped that of many live shows. 

There was no awkward head-bobbing or distracted chatting from the crowd packed into the school auditorium. Instead, there were screams of support from parents holding bouquets, dancing in the audience and cheering that rivaled the Super Bowl. 

When Wasatch High School ninth grader and resident hype man Jafet Farías wandered on stage in a blazer and sunglasses to belt out Don Omar’s 2010 hit “Danza Kuduro” for the first act, the entire auditorium lit up with phone flashlights dancing like a swarm of excited fireflies.

Timpagonos Middle School student Salome Urquijo was a tad more timid than Farías was. 

Wearing a colorful traditional Mexican dress and flower crown, the 12-year-old student danced with the girls in Andres Caceres’ Latinos in Action class. Meanwhile, the boys donned masks resembling elderly men and sombreros, which they twirled on canes like spinning plates during the Michoacán folk dance Danza de los Viejitos (Dance of the Little Old Men).

Urquijo said they planned the dance for a year, but she still had stage fright.

“There are so many people here,” she said beforehand. “It’s people bigger than me, and I feel nervous.”

Wasatch High School Latinos in Action teacher Ana Alejandre said giving students a safe space to share their talents was one of the reasons she founded the cultural showcase four years ago.

“There’s a teacher friend of mine. She said, ‘This, for some kids, is going to be the only time that they really perform in their life on a stage where they have this many people watching them,'” Alejandre said. “Just to see them feeling so proud up there, it’s like, ‘Yes. That’s what we’re here to do.'”

Alejandre also founded the cultural showcase to foster interest in Wasatch High School’s Latinos in Action class.

Latinos in Action is a national program focused on empowering Latino youth through four pillars: leveraging personal and cultural assets, excelling in education, serving the community and developing leadership skills. Wasatch High School’s Latinos in Action class was founded about a decade ago, with Alejandre beginning to teach it four years ago.

“The first year that I taught Latinos in Action, none of this was happening. … Kids didn’t sign up for (Latinos in Action). I had to invite students to join,” Alejandre said. 

But once the group started holding the annual cultural showcase four years ago, kids became interested in the class. The showcase itself became wildly popular, with Alejandre estimating that this year’s crowd was three times the size of the first showcase’s. 

There were a few poetry and vocal performances, like the guitar-strumming and serenading of Wasatch High School senior Yandell Parra’s three-man band, Grupo CLAY, but the bulk of performances were dance numbers.

A standout performance was by a group featuring Wasatch High School alumni Milly Vieyra and Mayra Castro. The group performed a dance popular during July festivities in Guerrero, Mexico, when residents celebrate the saint Sr. Santiago Apostol. 

The group wore heavy, handmade sombreros that looked as if they were made of orange flowers, as well as wooden masks that distort their voices to sound deeper when they yell. They danced to a repetitive flute and drum melody, stomping the ground to represent growing flowers and cracking whips to imitate lightning.

“Every dance has a story behind it,” Castro said. “We’re basically representing the farmers.”

It wasn’t just students and alumni who danced, but school district employees, too.

High school counselor Angie Orjuela-Beltran performed a dance number with her fiance, father and mother. 

“Sometimes resources are not available for (students) because of the language. So, the job that they are doing helping them is amazing. I really love and admire my daughter,” said Angie’s father, Carlos Orjuela. 

Dance became a staple of the Orjuela family as soon as they immigrated to the United States about 20 years ago.

“We were not dancers before, but then, when we came, basically, we realized that dance is something that is joining the family together,” he said. “We enjoy it. So we dance on every occasion that we have the opportunity.”

Assistant High School Principal McKenzie Neiufi also performed a dance number with her family, though they had much less practice, according to her husband, Amoni. He learned about the showcase earlier that evening, when he’d just gotten home from work. The family practiced for about an hour before they were thrust into the spotlight. 

The Neiufis performed a Polynesian dance number to “Mate Ma’a Tonga” by Tupou Loto’aniu and made it through about half of the dance onstage. 

“There’s still more to that dance,” Amoni said. “Maybe next year, we’ll do the whole thing.”

The Neiufis’ performance was an example of how the culture night was for everyone, despite being organized by Latinos in Action. 

Junior Aim Jivon got the crowd clapping along as she sang Thai pop songs, while sophomore Daigh Marshall performed Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” in American Sign Language as twelfth grader Avery Green jammed on the piano. 

For Alejandre, the “culture” in culture night refers to Wasatch High School’s culture as well.

She grew up in Ogden after her family immigrated to the United States from Michoacán, Mexico, when she was 8 years old. She estimated that her family was one of five immigrant families in her school district. There certainly wasn’t a cultural showcase back then; her heritage felt like a secret she had to keep. 

When she began teaching in the school district, she was pleasantly surprised by the number of Hispanic students and the variety of cultures students came from.

“You can see that kids are just into it. They want other people to see. They want to show what they know because it’s hard to any other place,” Alejandre said. “That’s part of the school.”

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The Kimball Arts Festival took over Main Street again this year, bringing local and visiting artists to town to show and sell their work Friday, August 12 — Sunday, August 14, 2016. The festival featured not only artists, but also food vendors, bands and kids activities. (Photos by Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

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