LDS Student Helps Emergency Service Agencies Prepare

An 18-year-old LDS student is helping the Utah County Search and Rescue Team get prepared for mass casualty scenarios. Trent Clifton, a Springville High School student, has worked with the team for more than two years, making 16 backboards for the emergency services agencies in the county. "It is really important for us to have these boards, especially right now with the Olympics coming," said Utah County Sheriff's Sgt. Tom Hodgson. "Clifton saw we had a need and he took it upon himself to fill that need." Clifton spent about 30 hours creating the boards, but acquiring money and materials for the project took much longer. "Probably going door to door was the most difficult aspect of this project for me," Clifton said. "I really don't like doing that." But Clifton will face that same prospect soon. He plans to serve an LDS Church mission before studying orthodonia at BYU.

LDS Boy's Eagle Scout Project Outfit's Homeless Shelter

When LDS Church member Mark Brockbank found a new homeless shelter that needed furniture to get it started, he found his Eagle project. Brockbank stood up in Church on Sunday, January 13th and asked his ward for donations, only to be overwhelmed by the response, "We got a lot of stuff on Sunday," Brockbank said, including refrigerators, furniture, food, clothes and toys. Starting at 7 am on Wednesday, January 16th, Brockbank and 15 friends, most LDS Church members, collected the donations in a large moving truck and brought them to the shelter.

LDS "Inspirational Pair" Asked to Carry Olympic Torch

Pat West and Mike Taylor have been asked to carry the Olympic Torch on February 4th as an "inspirational pair" because of their stories. Taylor, 55, suffered permanent brain damage from a collision in a baseball game while on an LDS Church mission 35 years ago. He learned to talk and walk all over again, graduated from college, wrote a book, and has successfully lobbied the Utah Legislature on bills and taught hundreds of people computer skills at Deseret Industries. West suffers from multiple chemical sensitivity and has been unable to leave her house for the past ten years. She lives on just mashed potatoes, boiled carrots and water -- anything else makes her sick -- and the family's food is cooked in a shed outside her home because the gas and cooking odors would make her ill. West hopes to be well enough for her husband to wheel her along the route in a wheelchair.

1923 Strawberry Queen Remembers Her Reign

LDS Church member Grace Chipman, 96, still remembers how she was chosen as Pleasant Grove, Utah's first Strawberry Queen. The young women in local LDS wards sold tickets or "votes" and whoever sold the most would be queen. But Chipman won without selling a single ticket -- her boyfriend and sister sold the tickets and won the contest for her.

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