Access Utah

Many are responding to an invitation from the LDS Church to participate in a new effort to help refugees. The church has launched a new website,, and Utah Refugee Center executive director Deb Coffey told the Deseret News that her phone has been ringing off the hook. "I've got people all over the state doing service projects," Coffey said. "My phone is blowing up; my email is blowing up. It is unbelievable what's already happening." We talked about refugees and Utah in December, when Gov. Herbert was the lone Republican governor to say his state would accept Syrian refugees. We’ll talk about refugees again today in the wake of this groundswell of energy on this issue.

Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva are producers of the duPont-Columbia Award-winning NPR series Hidden Kitchens, and two Peabody Award-winning NPR series, Lost & Found Sound and The Sonic Memorial Project, with Jay Allison. They are also the producers of the Hidden World of Girls and the Hidden Kitchens heard on NPR Morning Edition. The series inspired their first book, Hidden Kitchens: Stories, Recipes, and More from NPR's The Kitchen Sisters, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year for 2005 and nominated for a James Beard Award for Best Writing on Food.

During a long and distinguished career with the U.S. State Department, Ambassador Christopher Hill was sent to some of the most dangerous outposts of American diplomacy, from the Balkans to North Korea to Iraq. In his memoir, “Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy,” he takes us from one-on-one meetings with Slobodan Milosevic, to Bosnia and Kosovo, to the Dayton conference, where a truce was brokered. He draws upon lessons learned as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon early on in his career and details his extensive experience as a U.S. ambassador.

All her life, Emily felt different from other kids. Between therapist visits, sudden uncontrollable bursts of anger, and unexplained episodes of dizziness, things never felt right. For years, her only escape was through the stories she crafted. It wasn’t until a near-fatal accident when she was twelve years old that Emily and her family discovered the truth: a grapefruit-size brain tumor at the base of her skull. In her new memoir, “All Better Now,” Utah writer Emily Wing Smith chronicles her struggles with both mental and physical disabilities, the devastating accident that may have saved her life, and her way through it all: writing.

We recently received an email from a listener: “I wanted to suggest a potential topic to explore in an upcoming show. I came across an article in the [Odgen] Standard Examiner the other day about a man getting arrested for an unpaid ambulance bill. He died while in jail."

Temple Grandin didn’t talk until she was three and a half years old, communicating her frustration instead by screaming, peeping, and humming. In 1950, she was diagnosed with autism and her parents were told she should be institutionalized. Instead, she went on to become professor of animal science at Colorado State University and a world leader in designing humane facilities for livestock. She is a prominent author and activist in the autism field, and her life is the subject of a 2010 HBO movie.

The murder/suicide involving a prominent Cache Valley couple has shocked the community and highlighted issues of suicide, depression, mental illness, and other issues among the elderly. We’re going to talk about these issues on Access Utah today. Tom Williams is joined by Pat Sadoski, with Cache Valley Senior Consulting; and Amy Anderson, with the Sunshine Terrace Foundation. We’ll also hear some recorded comments from commentator Thad Box.

In his early 20s, Benjamin Franklin embarked on a “bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection,” intending to master a list of thirteen virtues. He soon gave up on perfection but continued to believe that these attributes, along with a generous heart and a bemused acceptance of human frailty, laid the foundation for both a good life and a workable society.

UPR is presenting quarterly folk music programs, featuring musicians from around Utah. We hope you joined us for the most recent program Saturday evening. We’ll continue the conversation and music with four musicians: Hal Cannon and Greg Istock from 3hattrio, Cory Castillo, and Todd Wilkinson.

In "Frank: The Voice" (2010), James Kaplan told the story of Frank Sinatra's meteoric rise to fame, subsequent failures, and reinvention as a star of live performance and screen. Frank Sinatra was the best-known entertainer of the twentieth century-infinitely charismatic, lionized and notorious in equal measure. Kaplan examined the complex psyche and turbulent life behind that incomparable voice, from Sinatra's humble beginning in Hoboken to his fall from grace and Oscar-winning return in From Here to Eternity.