Access Utah

Luma Mufleh was raised in a wealthy family in Jordan, but left that life behind to come to school in America. After graduating from Smith College, she moved to Georgia to begin a life for herself. She did not have family support and was struggling on her own. One day she made a wrong turn and came across a group of refugee boys playing soccer. She says they were barefoot, playing with an old ball, and having the time of their lives. Mufleh continued to watch the boys play, and on her third visit, joined them. That was the beginning of her Fugees organization, which grew from a focus on soccer to include education and more. Luma Mufleh continues to help hundreds of refugee boys and girls through Fugees Family. www.fugeesfamily.org

Cache Valley residents Roy and Kathleen Sneddon have been living with their son’s disappearance since 2004. 24-year-old David Sneddon was last seen hiking in China, leaving no physical trace. The Sneddons and several sources in Asia believe David was kidnapped by North Korea. The Sneddons believe their son is likely one of many who have been abducted and held captive in North Korea.

It’s Summertime! The kids are out of school and life slows down for some of us and speeds up for others. Trips to favorite vacation spots and into the backcountry ramp up. On Monday’s Access Utah, we’ll come together as a UPR community to share ideas for summertime trips, activities, traditions and stories.

Frank Montoya, Jr. is a retired FBI special agent and senior executive. In addition to running FBI field offices in Honolulu and Seattle in the course of his career, from February 2012 to May 2014, he served in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as the National Counterintelligence Executive, in which role he was head of national counterintelligence for the United States government.

Jeff Meldrum is Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology at Idaho State University. He is author of “Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.” He is a leading expert on Bigfoot or Sasquatch, or the term he prefers: “Relict Hominoid.” He says “...[I]t is one matter to address the theoretical possibility of a relict species of hominoid in North America, and the obligate shift in paradigm to accommodate it, but there must also be something substantial to place within that revised framework. There must be essential evidence to lend weight to the hypotheses, and counter the critics’ various aspersions. I was once confronted by a colleague, who declared, ‘After all, these are just stories.’ My response: ‘Stories that apparently leave tracks, shed hair, void scat, vocalize, are observed and described by reliable experienced witnesses. Hardly just stories.’”

Iconic Utah outfitter Ken Sleight began his river-guiding career in Glen Canyon during the mid-1950s, just as the Glen Canyon Dam blueprints jumped from the drawing board to remote desert terrain. The pulse of the Colorado River through the canyon would soon be halted by a cement wall and Glen Canyon backfilled with water. Sleight knew the condition of the canyon was terminal. He used every ray of daylight to memorize every detail of the canyon before inundation: to learn its 125 side canyons, to observe Native American ruins and mining relics, and to immerse himself in the lives of seminal guides who preceded him like Dave Rust, Bert Loper, and Moki Mac.

Anthony Doerr ’s “All the Light We Cannot See” was one of the most-mentioned books on our most recent UPR Community Booklist . The book was published in May 2014 and in September of that year Anthony Doerr visited Utah for several events as a part of the Utah Humanities Book Festival. He dropped by the UPR studios for a fascinating conversation with Tom Williams about “All the Light We Cannot See” and related topics. We’ll revisit that conversation today. The New York Times bestseller “All the

Today, as a part of Utah State University’s Year of the Arts, we’ll focus on the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, which is looking forward to a grand re-opening in September after renovation and expansion. We talk about a new book, “Collecting on the Edge: Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art.” We’ll talk with the museum’s Executive Director and Chief Curator, Katie Lee-Koven; writer, curator, and museum director Bolton Colburn, who edited the book; and independent curator and corresponding editor for Art in America, Michael Duncan, who wrote an introductory essay for the book.

The Bennion Teachers' Workshop for the Perpetuation of Democratic Principles is a program made possible by an endowment to Utah State University's Mountain West Center for Regional Studies. The endowment was created by Ione Bennion, a teacher and community activist, to "provide an atmosphere and the educational resources to explore the concepts upon which democracy is built, the conditions under which it flourishes, and the dangers to its existence." Taught by Utah State University faculty and guest speakers who represent the latest scholarship in the topics presented, the workshops focus on giving inservice and pre-inservice teachers practical tools that they can use in the classroom.

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