Wasatch County Fair Days is returning to the Heber Valley once again. 

The annual festival brings in tens of thousands of people each year between attendees, spectators and participants. 

“Every year it grows. … We’re probably pushing over 100,000 people that come through for everything combined,” Wasatch County Parks and Recreation marketing coordinator Jennifer Bowman said. 

Fair Days kicks off with the annual Demolition Derby. But there’s also the Mountain Valley Stampede Rodeo, the Wasatch County Fair Days parade and the nightly carnival with rides, fair foods and more. 

Beyond events, Bowman said there will be plenty of live music and entertainment for visitors and families. This year, in conjunction with hot dogs on July 27, there will be also be a chili cook-off for participants to show off family and go-to recipes. 

For Bowman, it’s the exhibits and livestock shows that are underrated. 

“Our exhibits, we have so many talented people in this valley and everything from jams and quilts to Legos and photos. Just the clever things that people make, create, grow are absolutely incredible,” Bowman said. 

The Wasatch County Senior Center also participates with “the largest puzzle they can find.”

“This year, I think they’re doing a 40,000 piece puzzle to put in the exhibits,” Bowman said. “Our livestock show is the largest in the state and it brings in the most money of any show in the state, which is over $1 million.” 

This year marks Erik Lappe’s 17th Wasatch County Fair Days. He is the facility and parks manager with Wasatch County Parks and Recreation. For Lappe, organization of the event begins as early as February. 

“We’re always making changes, trying to do things to make it better,” Lappe said. 

This year, Wasatch County Parks and Recreation is “rebranding” the country market to “give it new life,” Lappe said. It will now be called the Mountain Valley Market. 

“We want to sort of spice that up and make it a place that people want to go at Fair Days,” Lappe said. 

Crafters and artisans of all sorts will have booths to sell their wares, Lappe said. That includes wood carvers, metalsmiths and jewelers. 

Lappe said the hot dog meal is not an event to skip — especially if there’s interest in participating in the chili cook-off. Lappe said his team prepares about 2,500 hot dogs. Last year, just a few were left over when all was said and done. 

There will also be movie showings and a kids market where Wasatch County children can set up their own little businesses selling items like lemonade and cotton candy. 

But for Lappe, his favorite part is seeing thousands of community members come together to celebrate the dog days of summer. 

“Just how involved the community gets whether you see people you don’t see once a year or you haven’t seen for a long time. Everybody tries to come back for this for a family reunion,” Lappe said. 

He said it’s also great to see the Heber Valley community businesses appearing year after year despite the fair’s growth over time. 

For those looking to win bigger prizes, Lappe said visitors can participate in the Fair Days Parade. Families, businesses and organizations can enter to win the best themed entry prize of $500. This year, the theme is “timeless traditions.”

“Obviously we see a different part of it, but that’s one thing I’ll take from it from the start to the end, just the community helping out and looking out for people,” Lappe said. 

Wasatch County Fair Days begins on July 23 and goes until Aug. 1.

The post Wasatch County Fair Days to start this month appeared first on Park Record.

Longtime Heber City residents Ann and Michael Moulton have been practicing their regal waves in preparation to be parade marshals at this year’s Red, White & Blue Festival on July 4.

The couple, both approaching 80, has lived in Heber City for about 45 years and been community servants that entire time. But they were still shocked when festival organizer Rachel Kahler showed up on their doorstep on Mother’s Day and asked them to lead the procession from the comfort of a carriage. 

For Kahler, the choice was obvious. The Moultons have been dressing up in Revolutionary era regalia for the festival since its inception in 2022.

Ann and Michael might dress as Abigail and John Adams this year, so long as that doesn’t upstage the cast of Timpanogos Valley Theatre’s “1776: The Musical,” who will also walk in the parade. 

John Adams was not initially smitten with his future wife when he met her, writing in his diary that she and her sisters were “not fond, not frank, not candid.”

Michael sang a different tune when he recalled meeting Ann when they were studying at Brigham Young University. 

Michael’s Latter-day Saint seminary teacher would often sing with family members around Provo. Michael remembered wishing from the audience that he could date a beautiful singer. Then he met his seminary teacher’s sister, Ann. 

“We didn’t have television. My father had a great singing voice, and my mother played the piano. I came from a family of nine children. So in the evenings, we would often gather around the piano and sing,” Ann said about her upbringing in Star Valley, Wyoming. 

Upon meeting, Ann and Michael quickly fell in love. They married in 1969.

Ann never finished her music education bachelor’s degree at Brigham Young University, but Michael joked that she’s earned several honorary doctorates from her vast experience: teaching vocal lessons, singing in the Utah Symphony, leading the Heber Children’s Chorus and founding Heber City’s holiday “Messiah Sing-In” tradition two decades ago.

Music, Michael said, was the couple’s gateway to community involvement when they moved to his hometown of Heber City around 1980, and soon enough, they were thrust into the world of the performing arts.

Ann was one of four co-founders of Timpanogos Valley Theatre, which began staging productions in the Midway Town Hall in 2004. 

She’s no longer involved in the theater company, but a handful of her eight kids, children-in-law and over 30 grandchildren are choreographers, actors and members of the board of directors.

“We think that community theater is probably the best community builder that there is,” Michael said. “I would sit there in these early rehearsals, and I’d think, ‘Man, I do not want to be here. These are not my kind of people.’ Pretty soon, though, as we started to perform together and visit together, it made all the difference in the world. They became dear, dear friends.”

Ann sees theater as a great equalizer.

“You don’t look at anybody with prejudice. You all have the same goal in making a good show. You get to know each other at your best and at your worst and work together,” she said. 

While Ann’s greatest passion is the arts, Michael’s is historic preservation. He started the nonprofit Heber Valley Heritage Foundation in 2022 and previously served as chair of the city’s Historic Preservation Commission.

The Heber Valley Heritage Foundation focuses on preservation through a variety of initiatives.

For example, the foundation created the Dr. R. Raymond Green Community Digitizing Center in the Heber City FamilySearch Center. The center allows residents to create digital versions of family history artifacts and documents, especially those that are difficult to digitize, like 35mm film slides.

The foundation’s most ambitious projects involve preserving historic sites and opening them to the public. 

The foundation is eyeing London Springs, the first Latter-day Saint settlement in Heber City, near the corner of Fitzgerald Road and U.S. 40. Michael imagines a recreation of the settlement, log cabins and all. His wife’s not sure he can pull it off.

“It’s way too much. He put it all on a whiteboard, planned it all out, and I just looked at it, and I shook my head and rolled my eyes,” she joked.

Because his family has lived in Heber City for generations, Michael is especially passionate about historic preservation.

“We don’t want to turn things back the way they were. We just want to be able to remember and to celebrate our heritage,” he said.

That’s not to say Michael and Ann don’t miss certain things about Heber City that have changed since they moved there.

“We used to be able to go out the front door and get our cross-country skis and ski up through the fields. That was really sweet, but we haven’t been able to do that for years. So I miss the open spaces,” Ann said.

What was once horse and cattle pastures on all sides of the Moultons’ neighborhood is now developed. 

That’s part of the reason Michael closed his father’s 54-year-old business, Moulton Farm Machinery Company, in 2001, after about 15 years as CEO.

Even amid the growth, the couple has preserved some of their peace and quiet. When they bought their home and an adjacent lot for $75,000, they also decided to purchase a small strip of land that split their road into two cul-de-sacs. A developer wanted to turn that land into a through road, but the Moultons and some neighbors conspired to stop that plan, at no small cost.

“(Those neighbors) all died, and I’m not sure who owns it now. I guess us,” Michael said.

“We pay the taxes on it,” Ann chimed in.

In some ways, the couple has embraced Heber City’s growth.

“I can remember driving through town years and years ago, when things were slow, and nobody had discovered us yet, and thinking that the economy was in pretty sad shape. We didn’t have any flourishing businesses on Main Street,” Ann said. “When people started moving into the valley, I thought, actually, it was a great thing that they stimulated so much growth.”

Michael’s favorite thing about his hometown is the “good neighbors,” though he doesn’t know as many of them as he used to.

“Sometimes I say I know more people when I walk through the cemetery than I know when I go down to Smith’s,” he joked.

Michael spends a lot of time at the cemetery. When he’s there, he often thinks about his ancestors, Thomas and Sarah Moulton, who traveled from Iowa City, Iowa, to Utah in a Latter-day Saint handcart company before moving to Heber City in 1860.

“My thoughts turn to them walking through ankle- or waist- (or) knee-deep snow with eight kids, two handcarts, freezing to death,” Michael said. “My thought often turns to, ‘If they can do it, I can do it.’”

The Moultons are also carrying lessons from the past into the present as they reflect on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. They have been most moved by learning more about the brutality and sacrifice of the Revolutionary War.

“I think that we’re at the same point in time where we’re really going to have to make some sacrifices to keep this, in this day and age, when things are kind of conspiring against democracy and freedoms,” Michael said.

The Moultons believe sacrifice starts with community service.

Ann, for example, set a goal in March to do 250 acts of service by the end of the year, as simple as picking up litter during a walk. She’s already done over 200. 

“That’s the way we make friends. That’s the way we have community unity,” Michael said. “By serving together.”

The Heber Valley Heritage Foundation will conduct guided tours of the Heber City Cemetery on July 3, 9 a.m. to noon, and July 4, 10 a.m. to noon, as part of the Red, White & Blue Festival.

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Park City celebrated their mining heritage Monday, Sept. 4, 2017, with a 5K run, the annual running of the balls, parade, BBQ in the park and more. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

Link to full gallery here: https://parkrecordphoto.smugmug.com/PHOTOS-Miners-Day/

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The Triple Crown Softball series is back in Park City and opened up the week with a pin trading and parade on lower Main Street Monday afternoon, July 10, 2017. The series, which will last throughout the week, welcomed over 80 teams. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

Link to full gallery here: https://parkrecordphoto.smugmug.com/PHOTOS-Triple-Crown-Softball-Series-Opening-Festivities/

The post PHOTOS: Triple Crown Softball comes to town appeared first on Park Record.

Park City hosted their annual 4th of July Parade on Main Street Tuesday. The festivities added to multiple activities that continued throughout the day around town. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

Link to full gallery here: https://parkrecordphoto.smugmug.com/PHOTOS-Park-Citys-4th-of-July-Parade/

The post PHOTOS: Park City’s 4th of July Parade appeared first on Park Record.

The 5th annual Louisiana Film, Music & Cuisine celebration brought Mardi Gras to the stage at Park City Live Tuesday afternoon and evening, Jan. 24, 2017. The event kicked off with the Peace Parade in front of Park City Live, and was followed by burlesque-style dancing, entertainment, music and more. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

The post PHOTOS: Peace Parade & Bayou Burlesque appeared first on Park Record.

Deer Valley Ski Resort hosted their annual torchlight parade Friday evening, Dec. 30, 2016. Locals and vacationers who attended the event were treated to hot cider, cookies and live music to accompany the performance. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

The post PHOTOS: Deer Valley Ski Resort’s Torchlight Parade appeared first on Park Record.

Coalville hosted their annual Lights Festival Parade down Main Street Saturday evening, Dec. 3, 2016. The town turned off it’s lights and crowded around Main Street, watching as Santa and Mrs. Claus waved from the back of a pick-up truck, and as vehicles passed decorated to the max with Christmas lights. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

The post PHOTOS: Coalville Lights Festival appeared first on Park Record.

The students of Parley’s Park Elementary hosted a costume parade Friday morning to show off their Halloween costumes to their parents. Following the parade, students were invited to a haunted house on the stage behind their gym and trick-or-treating fun. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

The post PHOTOS: Parley’s Park Elementary Costume Parade appeared first on Park Record.

In this week’s collection of portraits from For The Record, we asked students at Parley’s Park Elementary what they’re dressing up as for Halloween. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

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