Access Utah

Alyson Hagy’s latest novel "Boleto," explores the themes of men and horses, the American West, and the dream of a ticket out. The protagonist Will Testerman is a young Wyoming horse trainer determined to make something of himself. Money is tight at the family ranch, where he's living again after a disastrous end to his job on the Texas show-horse circuit.

USU graduate student Andrew Durso thinks snakes get a bad wrap and is working hard to change their bad reputation with his online blog titled “Life is short but snakes are long.” He has garnered an online following including editors of the magazine “Scientific American.” This Monday, Dec. 9, he is co-hosting a Blog Carnival in recognition of the year of the snake. Sheri Quinn talks to Durso about his reptile research and online success.

Craig Anderson, a resident of St. George Utah and native of Cache Valley, had a long career with the United States Agency for International Development as an agricultural specialist.

Meet Don Tillman, hero of Graeme Simsion’s new novel “The Rosie Project.” Don Tillman is a brilliant yet socially challenged professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife. And so, in the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers. Rosie Jarman is all these things.

Sherri Mills has been a hairdresser for more than forty-five years. She has had her own salon long enough to see life happen before her very eyes. She has listened to real-life problems and followed real-life outcomes—successes and failures—and through several generations, longer and more extensively than marriage counselors can.

Generations of Ogdenites have grown up absorbing 25th Street’s legends of corruption, menace, and depravity. The rest of Utah has tended to judge Ogden—known in its first century as a “gambling hell” and tenderloin, and in recent years as a degraded skid row—by the street’s gaudy reputation. Present-day Ogden embraces the afterglow of 25th Street’s decadence and successfully promotes it to tourists. In the same preservationist spirit as Denver’s Larimer Square, today’s 25th Street is home to art galleries, fine dining, live theater, street festivals, mixed-use condominiums, and the Utah State Railroad Museum.

Australian fingerstyle guitarist Adam Miller included Logan among his stops on a recent American tour. He stopped by the UPR studios to talk about finding just the right sound in a guitar; to describe his travels--including to Afghanistan to play for the troops there; and, of course, to play us a few songs, including “Carpal Tunnel Blues,” (Miller has battled the malady,) and a tune written during his wedding speech. Logan-based guitar maker, Ryan Thorell, joins in the conversation to describe his craft.

StoryCorps promotes the day after Thanksgiving as a National Day of Listening, calling listening the least expensive but most meaningful gift you can give this holiday season.

Many of us remember where we were the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Friday will mark the 50th anniversary of that tragic event. We’re going to open up the phone lines to you on Thursday’s Access Utah from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. to express your memories, thoughts and feelings.

In “The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease,” Daniel E. Lieberman—chair of the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University — explains how the human body evolved over millions of years and shows how the increasing disparity between the adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and advancements in the modern world has led to a paradox: we are living longer but are increasingly prone to chronic disease.