FEATURE — The last 12 months had moments that put Southern Utah in the national spotlight.
There was the good — becoming one of only four places in the nation to be named as host to both the men’s and women’s professional golf tours. And actor Kevin Costner setting his movie horizons on the local scenery.
And there was the bad — the shock and sadness of a father killing his family in Enoch. And two YouTube influencers made famous by providing parental advice who pleaded guilty to multiple child abuse charges.
There was also unprecedented weather, including the first-ever tropical storm warnings issued for Southern Utah, that ultimately turned out not as bad a storm earlier in the year.
For a look back at some of the year’s biggest and most-read stories at St. George News, read on.
Top story
In the most-read story of 2023, St. George News readers got an early peek at one of the most anticipated movies of 2024.
The story noted new cast members arriving to the Southern Utah set of what Costner calls his Western genre magnum opus: the four-part “Horizon: An American Saga” movie series.
St. George News got exclusive access to the set of the movie that had been closed to onlookers and media. The April 28 story broke the news “Apollo 13” astronaut wife Kathleen Quinlan, “Avatar” corporate villain Giovanni Ribisi and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” jazz band member Glynn Turman had arrived on set and joined the cast of the Old West epic.
In Washington County, wagon trains and semi trucks full of film props dot the landscape as production is underway this week. Costner has assembled a notable cast for the multifaceted film, which spans 15 years of pre-and post-Civil War expansion and settlement of the American West.
The Western also stars Costner, Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Ella Hunt, Will Patton, Luke Wilson, Isabelle Fuhrman and Thomas Haden Church.
In June, St. George News returned to the movie set to talk with Costner about his efforts to work with the Native American community, the local Shivwits Band of Paiutes, to preserve the land they were filming on. And that cooperation included trying to find the right location to film.
Costner said he sent his crew to search in a helicopter to scout a suitable replacement location.
“I said, ‘Let’s run this river, the Santa Clara, all the way to the Virgin River.’ I was throwing prayers up on what’s going to happen,” Costner said. “I secretly didn’t want to have another place. But I knew the first place wasn’t going to work.”
Later, Costner found a new spot he liked, also on the Shivwits reservation.
“It’s a good lesson for everybody; sometimes you just have to let some things go,” Costner said.
The first chapter of the four-part movie series arrives in theaters on June 28, with the second to follow a month later on Aug. 16, 2024.
Wettest year in history
After three straight years of drought, the flood gates opened in St. George with the most rainfall and precipitation since data was first recorded in the area in 1893.
That included the swelling of local rivers to their highest levels in more than a decade.
Just before 2 p.m. Wednesday, the water started rising and raging below the Clary Bridge. By 6 p.m., river water filled the entire ravine. A little downstream, Lava Flow Drive and its bridge were flooded over next to Sunbrook Golf Club in St. George.
That point was underscored at the Gunlock Reservoir, where Gunlock Falls saw torrents of choppy water, and officials were closing off some areas as needed because of debris coming off the spillway.
The unprecedented wet year included the first tropical storm in recorded history in the area, though Hilary proved to have little bite in a sideswipe and not as much bark as a spectacular string of thunderstorms in the area a few weeks later.
The Cedar City area and Iron County also experienced severe flooding from both storms and a melting, large snowpack. In May, flooding in Kane County left two hikers dead and snowpack melt washed out roads that resulted in a disaster declaration from the White House. In August, a storm flooded Iron County Jail and Cedar City Hospital.
Tragedy in Enoch
The year started with the unspeakable in a city of 8,000 in Iron County.
An Enoch man killed his wife, mother-in-law and five children before turning the gun on himself on Jan. 4. A week later, the family members slain were eulogized.
An estimated crowd of more than 800 people filled the chapel and cultural hall of the LaVerkin Stake Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to near capacity.
Memorialized at the service were Tausha Haight, 40, her mother Gail Earl, 78, and Tausha’s five children, Macie Lynn Haight, 17, Briley Ann Haight, 12, Ammon Michael Haight, 7, Sienna Belle Haight, 7 and Gavin Drew Haight, 4.
It was later determined Haight had filed for divorce from her husband. Officers discovered the husband, Michael Haight, had removed guns from the house days before the shooting.
Parenting gurus arrested
Jodi Ann Hildebrandt of Ivins and Ruby Franke of Springville were known nationally for widely viewed parenting advice videos with millions of subscribers.
In August, both were arrested on second-degree child abuse charges after Franke’s six children were found malnourished and with wounds caused by ropes dressed in cayenne pepper and honey after one child escaped from Hildebrandt’s home.
Among the actions to which the pair pleaded guilty, bounding children and leaving them outside for days in the summer heat, holding one boy’s head underwater and hanging another suspended in the air for hours.
The child appeared to be emaciated with open wounds and duct tape around his extremities, the caller added, which is what officers found when they responded to the scene, according to a statement emailed to St. George News by Lt. Jaron Studley with the Santa Clara-Ivins Police Department.
Studley said the juvenile’s condition was so severe that after being checked by Santa Clara-Ivins EMS, he was transported by ambulance to St. George Regional Hospital.
Both Franke and Hildebrandt pleaded guilty in December to four second-degree felony counts of aggravated child abuse in a plea deal. Each face four to 60 years in prison when they are sentenced in February.
Pro golf in Ivins
2023 was the year that the top tiers of professional golf committed to play in Southern Utah.
Shortly after the fairway grass had grown on the new golf course at the under-construction Black Desert Resort in Ivins, both the men’s PGA Tour and the women’s LPGA Tour announced the area will be an annual stop on their tours, bringing millions in tourism dollars to the area.
The first PGA tournament will be in October, while the first LPGA event will be in May 2025. Both will be known as the “Black Desert Championship” and bring international television exposure and tourist dollars to the red rocks of Southern Utah on an annual basis.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox was on hand touting the events as an international “chamber of commerce moment” for Ivins, the region and the state.
“You look at the black rock and the red rock and the way it’s all framed here and the way they’ve laid it out, this on TV is going to just pop off the screen,” Cox said. “I mean, honestly, people will watch this who don’t like golf just to see this place and dream about coming here, and then they’ll come here.”
Though earlier during the press conference, Cox joked, “Tourism dollars are the best because people who come leave their money here then leave us.”
The golf course opened last spring and the hotel/resort complex and residences are expected to be completed in time for the PGA Tour’s arrival next fall. An outdoor retail/restaurant “Boardwalk Village” — a first-of-its-kind for Southern Utah — will come shortly after.
Newcomers win
Contentious city council elections in Washington County and a change in local representation in Congress marked the political year locally.
After 10 years in Congress, Chris Stewart resigned to care for his family. A familiar face is taking his place, as Cedar City resident and Stewart aide Celeste Maloy was elected to replace him.
Locally, growth of a movement slow development led to a write-in candidate winning election to the Santa Clara City Council and a shake-up with three seats changing hands on the Ivins City Council.
In St. George, a battle between a newcomer and two incumbents running on a “no-nonsense” platform defeated a challenge by two candidates supported by City Council member Michelle Tanner. Newcomer Steve Kemp, head of the city’s Planning Commission, was the leading vote-getter while Jimmie Hughes and Dannielle Larkin returned to office.
Larkin decried what she said were negative leaflets distributed around town, while challengers Paula Smith and Brad Bennett said their campaign signs were vandalized.
Larkin said she was happy residents did not appear to be swayed by negative campaigning, referring to leaflets left on the windshields of cars at myriad public events that pointed out her vote concerning the city’s cancellation of a special events permit for a drag show earlier this year. Larkin was in favor of reinstating the permit while the rest of the council at the time was not.
Drag show in federal court
Public events involving drag performers and the LGBTQ+ community continued to be a hot-button issue locally.
After the City of St. George accepted, then denied a permit for the Southern Utah Drag Stars to hold a drag show in April, the group sued in federal court. A judge ordered the St. George City Council to allow the show to take place.
The show took place at the Dixie Sunbowl on July 1, drawing both supporters and protesters.
“They are kids. We want to raise them the way we want to raise them and we don’t want no outside influence we don’t agree with,” one protester said. “We’re protesting, but we’re staying civilized and just letting people know what’s going on.
While the event was primarily peaceful, Stacy Lee, who helped organize the drag show, said her daughter and granddaughters – 5 and 2 years old – were heckled by protesters as they left the event early to escape the heat.
As she was getting my little granddaughters in the car, they (the protesters) started saying ‘shame on you,’ at my daughter.” Lee said. “They called her a bad mother. My daughter said, ‘Please get away from my car, I’m just trying to get in my car,’ and they said ‘You deserve this because you brought your kids to a drag show.'”
In late November, the Human Rights Campaign and Showtime television network awarded the Drag Stars with a national award for their efforts in serving the LGBTQ+ community.
Horoscopes by Cosmic Rain
A weekly horoscope feature added to St. George News in January became a huge hit with readers, garnering over 1 million views since its inception.
This new entertainment product composed by local author Cosmic Rain provides weekly astrological forecasts and horoscopes, offering readers a unique and fun glimpse into their Zodiac signs.
The most-read horoscopes column of the year was “Strawberry Moon” in June.
“It’s a magical sky this week that culminates Thursday, June 1, when Jupiter, the planet of luck and optimism, conjuncts the True North Node of the moon at 3 degrees in Taurus — a grand meeting that hasn’t happened in almost 100 years.
The North Node represents a karmic mathematical point. Every person has their own North Node placement in their natal chart, which indicates their soul purpose and life destiny.
The North Node stands opposite the South Node, which represents a past life or early childhood and represents our comfort zone that may be used as a crutch. This axis is known as the “nodes of fate,” and the North Node is meant to direct our soul’s evolution,” Rain wrote.
Local school dominates
Crimson Cliffs High School’s sports teams dominated not just the region, but the state in 2023.
The Mustangs won state championships in boys swimming, cheerleading, boys golf, a second-straight baseball title and culminated the year with the state 4A football crown.
It was the culmination of a four-year effort for seniors who lost in the 2022 state championship game — and a school that was founded in 2019.
“All four years of my high school, we’ve been dreaming of this day. All of us have played together since the third grade, and this has been our dream, is to get a state championship,” defensive lineman Parker Andrus told St. George News.
“Even better our senior year,” Andrus said. “It doesn’t get any better than that.”
Among other local schools that earned top-in-Utah championship honors in 2023 were Pine View with its third-straight girls golf title; Panguitch in 1A girls volleyball, boys basketball and fourth-straight state boys wrestling title; Parowan in 2A boys basketball and girls volleyball; Enterprise in 2A softball; Beaver in 1A football; and Dixie’s fourth-straight drill team championship.
Fatal crashes lead to tragedy
Although there is no indication whether crashes and fatalities on local roads were any more or less in number, one week in 2023 was especially tragic in St. George.
Within 48 hours of Mardelle Parkin’s death, which happened as she was crossing the street and being hit by a pickup truck at the corner of Bluff Street and N. 500 West, her brother, Matthew Jones, was killed in the same intersection on Nov. 3. In an unrelated incident by different pickup truck, police said the driver ran a red light.
It proved to be unimaginable grief for the surviving sister.
“She and her brother were together at the scene on Wednesday evening, hugging, when she told him, ‘Nothing better ever happen to you.’
Little did she know, she said, that statement would come back to haunt her when she returned to the same intersection two nights later.
She spoke to her brother before Friday’s incident and told him she would call him back after she got some rest, as she was exhausted and heartbroken over her sister’s death. She had every reason to believe she would catch up with her brother later that night. Shortly thereafter, she received a call from a friend who was trying to tell her what happened, but in shock, she said she was unable to comprehend what he was trying to tell her until he yelled into the phone, ‘Matthew is dead.'”
Healthy growth, health options
There are now new health options in Southern Utah including for mental health, and the promise of more to come.
After a year of construction, the Crisis Stabilization Center opened in Hurricane opened near Washington County Legacy Park.
It is designed as mental health facility, providing urgent care similar to emergency rooms for physical health, officials said. It’s also a new intake for law enforcement to use in place of jail or mental wards for patients experiencing mental and substance abuse issues.
The facility will serve all Southern Utah counties for law enforcement.
“Sen. Evan Vickers, representing Iron County, told St. George News that it couldn’t be understated how crucial the centers opening is for the mental health needs of Southern Utah.
“This is a paradigm shift,” said Vickers. “This is going to change how we take care of those with mental health needs throughout our area.'”
Hurricane residents also participated in the opening in October of a larger Intermountain Health Hurricane Campus and emergency room. Residents in northern Washington County no longer have to travel 15-20 minutes to visit the emergency room at St. George Regional Hospital.
In other parts of Southern Utah, more locals received news of soon having closer options for health care with the announcements of clinic and health center projects in Desert Color/SunRiver and Washington Fields.
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