A man accused of stabbing a 53-year-old woman to death and turning the knife on himself was booked into jail Friday on murder charges after spending almost a week in the hospital.

Police first encountered Jose Gutierrez-Torres, 39, on March 3, when he answered the door at his home near 9800 W. 10400 North in Bothwell, west of Tremonton. He was covered in blood, according to a probable cause statement.

Police went to the house because Gutierrez-Torres’ brother had called 911 earlier to report a phone conversation he had with Gutierrez-Torres. The brother said Gutierrez-Torres told him he’d done “something stupid” and that he needed help and so did his wife.

Tremonton police got to the house first that Sunday morning, and an officer tried to help Gutierrez-Torres. The officer soon found Maria De Jesus Cervantes dead in a back room. She’d been stabbed several times. About 8 inches from her head, police found a steak knife covered in blood and wrapped in a wash cloth, according to the probable cause statement.

Investigators with Box Elder County Sheriff’s Office were also called to the house. They concluded Gutierrez-Torres stabbed Cervantes and then stabbed himself.

According to the probable cause statement, a family member told detectives that Gutierrez-Torres had texted her around midnight saying he was “going to join” another family member who had recently died. A family member also said that Gutierrez-Torres called early Sunday morning saying “they are dying," and Cervantes could be heard moaning in the background.

Cervantes had also reached out to a family member, according to the probable cause statement.

She texted her daughter around 5 a.m., saying Gutierrez-Torres had a knife and to call the police. The daughter said she didn’t see the text until she woke up later.

Gutierrez-Torres was taken to a hospital that morning, where he underwent surgery and stayed for several days in the intensive care unit. Deputies booked him into the Box Elder County jail Friday afternoon.

He has been charged in 1st District Court with a first-degree felony count of murder and a class A misdemeanor count of unlawful possession of a dangerous weapon. Gutierrez-Torres is scheduled to appear in court Monday.

Elisa Gonzalez can’t remember her mother. Elsha Marie Rivera disappeared 15 years ago from Fort Worth, Texas, where she and Elisa were living when Elisa was just a baby.

But Elisa, who has grown up in Midvale with Elsha’s mother, drove to Sandy on Saturday to offer the only clue she can: a mouth swab containing her DNA, which could be checked against samples of unidentified human remains.

"I don't think she's alive. Part of me tells me she's not," said Elsha's mother, Elizabeth Rivera.

Rivera took Elisa to meet with detectives from multiple agencies who gathered at the Miller Campus of Salt Lake Community College to take reports and evidence in any missing person cases that might need a second look from law enforcement.

"If they haven't reported them missing, or if they have, it's an opportunity to come in, get updates, give DNA, give medical or dental records — anything that would help with their case," said Salt Lake City Police detective Jessica Kilgore.

Police hoped the event, “Missing in Utah,” would provide a nonthreatening venue for reporting by people who may be “hesitant to reach out to law enforcement,” Kilgore said — especially people from immigrant communities.

"That's why we're not doing this at a police station, why ... we aren't wearing uniforms," said Kilgore.

For Linda Fields, the event was a chance to enlist more officers to double-check and update the search for her husband, 77-year-old James Fields, who disappeared Monday, possibly somewhere between Sevier and Utah counties.

James Fields was suffering from an infection, which may have worsened his confusion when he left his home in Annabella on Monday to drive to his doctor in Provo, about two hours away, Linda Fields said. The doctor later called to ask why James Fields hadn’t arrived.

"He's never done this before," Linda Fields said. "I thought, OK, we're going to find him tomorrow on the side of the road, ... waiting for a tow."

But a week of rain and snow has left her fearing the worst.

"As each day goes on, you wonder how long someone can survive out there," she said.

Officers at Saturday's event made some corrections and updated some leads in the records of the investigation while the Sevier County detective on the case is out of the office for three days, Linda Fields said.

James Fields was in a gray 2012 Dodge truck with a matching shell and a Utah license plate C232PL, according to the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office. Anyone with information can call investigators at 435-896-6471.

Saturday’s event was patterned after “Missing in Arizona Day,” an annual event that has helped Arizona investigators resolve more than 25 cases in four years.

For Gonzalez and Rivera, there is not much of an active investigation to speak of. Elsha Rivera received threats from a man she knew in 2004, when Gonzalez was only about 7 months old. Elizabeth Rivera traveled to Fort Worth to take Gonzalez and keep her safe, along with Elsha’s three young sons.

A week later, Elizabeth Rivera said, Elsha went to the man's house to collect some personal items and money. The family hasn't seen her since then. Elsha's story was featured on the Dr. Phil show in 2014, with a witness who claimed to have seen Elsha being murdered. But there were inconsistencies in the woman's account, and the show produced no viable leads, Elizabeth Rivera said.

Elsha Rivera grew up in Utah and would be 39 years old now. Her children have grown up in Utah, but her eldest son, Marcos, died in a motorcycle crash last year, Elizabeth Rivera said. His death has devastated the family, she said, especially Elsha's second-oldest son — the only one of her remaining children who can remember her.

“Him and Marcos — they swore they would find her,” Rivera said.

A sensational season featured another sensational performance.

This time, it was one for the record books.

On Day 1 of the ISU long track World Cup speedskating finals, American Brittany Bowe made history on home ice at the Utah Olympic Oval. The 31-year-old set a new world-record time (1:11.61) in the women’s 1,000-meter event, winning another World Cup gold medal. Bowe now has 13 World Cup medals this season — four of which came in the 1,000. Bowe won gold at the 2019 world single distance championships in the 1,000-meter last month.

Bowe finished fourth overall in the women’s 500-meter race Saturday. She will compete in another 500-meter race Sunday as well as the women’s 1,500-meter event.

“I couldn’t be more pleased,” Bowe said after breaking the record. “It’s been a great season. This is the last race of the season, on home soil, in front of the home crowd, and 1:11.6 is remarkable. Miho [Takagi] and Nat [Kadira] [were] the first two ladies to break 1:12 with that 1:11.7. It’s tough to follow a performance like that but it also gets you excited, so I couldn’t be more happy today.”

More world records fell on the fast ice in Kearns Saturday.

Japan’s Tatsuya Shinhama set a new world record in the men’s 500-meter, skating a 33.835, but saw his time broken just minutes later as Russia’s Pavel Kulizhnikov topped it with a 33.616. Kjeld Nuis of the Netherlands made his mark, breaking the men’s 1,000-meter record with a time of 1:06.18, breaking the previous record held by American Olympic medalist Shani Davis, set a decade ago in 2009.

Martina Sablikova set a new world record in the women’s 3,000-meter, by skating a 3:52.027 after two world records set last weekend at the world all-around championships in Calgary, Alberta.

The U.S. had a couple more top-10 finishes Saturday. Olympian and mass start world champion Joey Mantia finished ninth in the men’s 1,000-meter race, while Olympic medalist Carlijn Schoutens finished 10th in the women’s 3,000. The final day of the last World Cup stop is scheduled to begin Sunday at 1:30 p.m. with the men’s and women’s 500-meter races, the 1,500-meter and the mass start.

Washington • A four-word phrase common on late-night television, exclaimed by announcers giddy about their offers: “Buy this kitchen knife that is so sharp it can slice and dice diamonds, and we’ll throw in a nonstick frying pan that can double as a satellite dish. BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! If you call immediately, we’ll include a homeopathic cure for sciatica.”

Today’s Democratic presidential candidates sound like late-night infomercials: “A Green New Deal! Medicare-for-all! Reparations for some! Free college for the young! Increased Social Security for the elderly! BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! At no additional cost, you get Modern Monetary Theory.”

MMT, which supposedly banishes nitpicking worries about how to pay for things, is the Democrats' intellectual breakthrough du jour. Although the theory remains somewhat hazy (or as Democrats say about their unempirical flights of fancy, MMT is beautifully "aspirational"), it is this:

The nation has fiat money -- currency whose issuer will not convert it into something valuable (e.g., gold) but that the public accepts is a reliable store of value. A government that controls its currency need never run short of it. Therefore (non sequitur alert) the government can borrow and expand the money supply sufficiently to allow spending to proceed without reference to government revenues, as long as interest rates are, and are apt to remain, low. In the words of three MMT believers (Stephanie Kelton, economics professor and former Bernie Sanders campaign adviser; Andres Bernal, doctoral student and adviser to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Greg Carlock, a climate researcher): “Anything that is technically feasible is financially affordable.”

Actually, MMT teaches that everything, feasible or not, is affordable in the sense that government can always come up with fiat money with which to pay for it. So, it is not just that happy days are here again; it is that never in the long human story of intractable scarcities have there been days as happy as those that MMT promises.

Two more sober men, both Democrats, are too intelligent and experienced to have written what they did recently -- a month before last week's announcement that the budget deficit for October through January was 77 percent larger than in those four months a year earlier. They wrote a Foreign Affairs essay deploring what they, and surely they alone, see as Washington's dangerous "obsession" with budget deficits. Lawrence Summers, former treasury secretary and current Harvard economics professor, and Jason Furman, currently at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and formerly (2013-2017) chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, argue that "the economics of deficits have changed," for plausible reasons that we shall come to. But first:

In Washington, the behavioral (as distinct from rhetorical) “deficit hawk” is not a rara avis, it is extinct. The current president was elected after promising not to touch the major entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) that are drivers of the deficit. When the unsustainable trajectory of the entitlements was explained to the current president, he reportedly said, “Yeah, but I won’t be here.” With a nominal Republican president and rhetorical Republicans running all of Congress until 10 weeks ago, the deficit is approaching $1 trillion with the economy humming, and the national debt heading toward 100 percent of GDP, which it last exceeded in 1946 in the immediate aftermath of a world war.

So, who is obsessed, and how does this obsession manifest itself? Try to name -- as Summers and Furman do not -- one Washington deficit obsessive. The political class, which is more united by class interest than it is divided by ideology, has a permanent incentive for deficit spending, which burdens future generations with a significant portion of the cost of today’s consumption of government goods and services.

Summers and Furman stop far short of MMT fantasy. Good empiricists, they say only this: Because soaring deficits have not kindled inflation and the interest rate on government borrowing has declined and government borrowing has not crowded out private borrowing, we can safely have more government debt than has previously been considered prudent. Summers' and Furman's prudence, however, might be crowded out by MMT's intoxicating effect on their party.

For decades, governing by both parties has been a practice in search of a justifying theory. Today, MMT rationalizes the Democratic presidential candidates’ bidding for progressives’ support, making the bidding entirely uninhibited by revenue considerations. So, to the list of memorable party slogans, from “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” to “It’s Morning Again in America,” add this: “BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!”

George Will’s email address is georgewill@washpost.com.

Sandy • As Corey Baird inched closer and closer to the goal in the 22nd minute, he suddenly fell to the ground. The whistle blew, indicating a penalty. Initially, it appeared obvious: Vancouver’s Jakob Nerwinski caused Baird to fall.

But on at least two replay angles it looked like Baird just dove to the ground without actually receiving contact from the defender. Nonetheless, the referee upheld the call, giving Albert Runsák the opportunity connect on the penalty. RSL led 1-0 for the remainder of the game.

Baird said he felt the contact from Nerwinski that caused him to fall. When asked what he saw on the sequence, coach Mike Petke demurred a bit.

“I saw Corey get played through, and then he fell down, and then the whistle was blown,” Petke said.

In response to a question from a pool reporter, lead referee Drew Fischer said, “The VAR indicated that the check was complete and the penalty kick was confirmed.”

Here’s #RSL coach Mike Petke talking about the penalty call drawn by Corey Baird. pic.twitter.com/nSqrrOOlwO

— Alex Vejar (@AlexVReporting) March 10, 2019

The sequence may have appeared questionable, but it was enough to give RSL the three points it needed in front of a raucous home crowd. The win gave RSL four points in the Western Conference standings, tying them, for the moment, with FC Dallas and the Houston Dynamo, who Real tied last week in the season opener.

By only scoring one goal, Real had to once again rely on its defense to pull it out. Keeper Nick Rimando tallied five saves, and several players blocked shots that were careening in Rimando’s direction. The Whitecaps had five shots on goal and 16 overall.

Baird said giving up more shots on goal against Vancouver may have been a product of wanting to attack more being in front of their home crowd. But with RSL’s 19 total clearances and the aforementioned defensive numbers, the team was able to defend well.

“I think our aim for the season is to give Nicky the easiest year of his career so far,” center back Nedum Onuoha said.

Petke said he liked the way his team defended, and reiterated the focus on defense because it plays so many road games to start the season. Petke added that RSL had “complete control of the game” in the first half, and was able to adjust to Vancouver’s tactical changes in the second half to hold on to the win.

“From a defense standpoint, it was a good performance,” Petke said.

Petke shifted some things in the attack against Vancouver. Last week against Houston, Baird mostly played on the left wing. But Petke opted to but Baird in the center forward position against the Whitecaps because he likes the way Baird pressures defenses up top.

Starting Baird in that position also gave Rusnák the opportunity to play more centrally on offense, which gave RSL an advantage against Vancouver’s three central midfielders, Petke said.

Against Houston, Baird provided the assist to Rusnák’s goal. He gave an assist of sorts again Saturday, drawing the foul that led to RSL’s lone goal.

“I’m looking to be dangerous every time I hit the ball, whether it’s on the ball or off the ball,” Baird said.

RSL has two consecutive road games coming up — D.C. United and LAFC. Those matchups, both against teams that made the playoffs last season, will further test just how much the team’s road form has improved. Petke said winning games at home will be “extremely important” in order to relieve the pressure on the road.

“If we could continue the rest of the season like we had the first two games — at least a tie on the road and a win at home — we’ll be in pretty good shape,” Petke said.

Utah’s losing a big chunk of a 27-point lead was not necessarily part of the script, but UCLA’s rally turned to be just a buildup to some memorable moments for the Utes in the end.

In the last two minutes Saturday, senior guards Parker Van Dyke and Sedrick Barefield delivered consecutive 3-pointers, securing a 92-81 victory over UCLA and nicely capturing the flavor of Senior Night at the Huntsman Center. Those shots enabled Ute coach Larry Krystkowiak to get co-captain Beau Rydalch into the game and then substitute for Van Dyke and Barefield, giving them proper sendoffs.

“That’s right up there with some of my other Ute memories … a really, really cool moment,” Van Dyke said. “I’ll never forget that feeling.”

The Utes made it all the more meaningful with their first sweep of a pair of Pac-12 visiting opponents this season, while earning a No. 3 seed in the Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas. Utah will open the tournament in Thursday’s quarterfinals for a fifth straight year, and nobody else in the league can say that.

A top-four finish seemed unlikely as the calendar turned to 2019 and the Utes stood 6-6, but they went 11-7 in the Pac-12 after the analytics suggested they would win six conference games. Facing a more demanding schedule in the second half of Pac-12 play, Utah went 6-3. The Utes finished 6-0 against the Pac-12’s California schools, while playing Stanford and Cal once each.

As the season went along, Utah “improved dramatically,” Krystkowiak said, “which has always been our goal.”

The Utes are not as good as they looked in Saturday’s first 17 minutes, although maintaining that pace would have been impossible. Utah built a 51-24 lead. Think about this: Coupled with a 46-23 closing spurt in a buzzer-beating victory in Los Angeles four weeks ago, those runs added up to a 97-47 domination of the proud Bruins in about 29 minutes of basketball.

Executing an inside-out plan against UCLA’s zone defense, the Utes staged “quite a clinic offensively,” Krystkowiak said, with Donnie Tillman scoring all of his 14 points in the first half.

His team ended up needing most of that 27-point cushion, though. The Bruins (16-15, 9-9) made a 22-6 run in a six-minute stretch, spanning halftime. Utah did just enough to fend off UCLA, after the Bruins made another surge to finish with 50 second-half points.

Ute freshman Riley Battin hit two 3-pointers from the corner at key moments and Barefield’s driving helped him finish with 29 points. Timmy Allen also came through, scoring 17 points amid foul trouble. The Utes tied a school record with 17 3-pointers in a season-high 38 attempts.

Utah’s interior defense was exploited in the second half, with center Jayce Johnson missing another game due to an ankle injury. UCLA got within eight points before the Utes steadied themselves.

“We just were determined to not let them do what we did to them,” said Van Dyke, remembering how Utah rallied from 22 points down in the last 12 minutes in Los Angeles, winning via his 3-pointer for the team’s only lead all day.

In this episode, the Bruins trailed all the way. UCLA’s comeback made the Utes agonize more than they should have, but it all ended well.

The Utes could find satisfaction in earning a first-round bye, having come from their dubious starting point of the Pac-12 season. “It’s a lot of fun to watch us grow as a unit,” Barefield said.

And now there’s more to do, after Krystkowiak’s last two teams lost quarterfinal games in Las Vegas.

When the final seconds slipped off the clock at the Huntsman Center on Saturday night, the Utes having defeated UCLA by the count of 92-81, it was time to reflect upon a regular season just ended.

The punctuation itself deserved mention and was indicative of the campaign in its entirety, Utah gaining its 17th win against 13 losses. The victory was nowhere near as dramatic as the one the Utes took from the Bruins in L.A. exactly one month before, a bit of scintillation that saw Utah climb back from a 22-point deficit over the last 13 minutes to famously clinch the thing on Parker Van Dyke’s 3-pointer as time expired.

This one was more … what’s the word? … wandering.

Fitting. Same as it ever was.

The Utes crushed UCLA through the first half, extending a 16-6 lead to 22-10 to 42-22 to 51-31. Utah hit 11 3-pointers in the initial span. The second half was like the first, in reverse, the Bruins crawling back, basket by basket, but, ultimately, not enough to win. For all the blessings of the first 20 minutes, the latter 20 had everyone, including the Jazz’s Donovan Mitchell, peering through their fingers at the crumbling Utah debris.

Thanks in large part to Sedrick Barefield, who had 29 points, an effort Larry Krystkowiak called “remarkable,” the Utes took the scattered bricks and rebuilt walls to victory.

What all of this meant is that Utah will go into the Pac-12 tournament with a No. 3 seed, favorably positioned to threaten to do some damage there. Or, they could simply flame out. Who knows? What was more meaningful was that the Utes, herky-jerky as they were, outdid themselves this season, having been picked to finish eighth in a league that wasn’t supposed to be all that good.

It was worse than expected, but the Utes were better. They bobbed and weaved through it to the best of their modest ability, finishing their league record at 11-7. If it is a coach’s primary charge to haul as much out of his players as possible, Krystkowiak did his share of hauling.

The Utes beat UCLA home and away. They beat Arizona here. They split with Arizona State. They beat Stanford on the road. They swept USC. They split with Colorado. They got doubled up on by the league’s best team, Washington. And well … you get the idea.

Not great. Not bad.

Not up. Not down.

But relative to expectations, Krystowiak labeled this regular season “a success.”

He was right.

Not a thrill. Not an embarrassment.

It was much closer to the former than the latter, satisfying for the patient, for those who don’t spend too much time focusing in on Krystkowiak’s $3.4 million salary, focusing in on the high-water marks of distant seasons gone by. The NCAA Tournament is getting to be a dusty memory.

As they now turn toward the league’s postseason affair, these particular Utes have a chance to cause some concern, regardless of how the odds stack up or down. They likely won’t do what they would have to do to qualify for the NCAA affair — win everything in Vegas.

They’d have better luck at any of the casinos’ craps tables.

But Barefield, one of a handful of seniors honored at the end of Saturday night’s game, was right when he called for his team to just play with joy, with happiness in their hooping hearts. This Utah team was, after all, fun to watch, at times. Beating UCLA, again, was one of them.

The Utes shot the ball well — hitting 46 percent, 45 from deep. They passed it — 16 assists. They ran the floor. They defended — at least here and there. And when the contest was over, they bumped chests, rubbed each others’ heads, slapped hands, and grinned wide.

There was fulfillment in most of it, a gassed-up tank of potential, even if that filling came on a sliding scale. This isn’t meant to sound patronizing, not a good-job-good-effort commentary. It’s meant to tell the truth, that the Utes this year humbly overachieved. And that’s pretty cool.

Now, we’ll see if they can do more — do what no one in their right mind thought they could — win that Pac-12 tourney and go to a dance nobody’s imagination had enough elasticity in it to believe they’d be invited to.

GORDON MONSON hosts “The Big Show” with Jake Scott weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM.

Donny Hageman kicked a 44-yard field goal as time expired to give the San Diego Fleet a 27-25 victory over the Salt Lake Stallions on Saturday night in San Diego.

Hageman’s third field goal of the night was set up moments earlier by a 44-yard completion from quarterback Mike Bercovici to wide receiver Dontez Ford.

Quarterback Josh Woodrum had led the Stallions on a 76-yard scoring drive in the closing minutes to go up 25-24 with just under a minute remaining.

Kameron Kelly had three interceptions, returning one for a fourth-quarter touchdown, as San Diego improved to 3-2 with the victory. Salt Lake fell to 1-4.

This story will be updated.

Ogden • Mason Peatling had 23 points and Jesse Hunt added 22 with 12 rebounds as Eastern Washington held off Weber State 80-77 in the regular-season finale for both teams on Saturday night.

EWU (14-17, 12-8 Big Sky Conference) led throughout most of the second half but could not pull away from Weber State as the Wildcats took the lead 77-76 with 1:09 remaining after Jerrick Harding made two free throws.

Hunt and Kim Aiken Jr. made four free throws down the stretch to secure the win.

Weber State’s Cody John launched a 3 at the buzzer but missed.

EWU claimed the No. 3 seed in the Big Sky Conference tourney to start Wednesday in Boise, Idaho.

Cody John and Jerrick Harding posted 24 points apiece for Weber State (17-13, 11-9), which will be the No. 4 seed.

Utah Valley 76, CS Bakersfield 61 • In Orem, Conner Toolson had 22 points as Utah Valley won its seventh consecutive game.

Jake Toolson had 13 points and seven rebounds for Utah Valley (23-8, 12-4 Western Athletic Conference). Ben Nakwaasah added 11 points. Richard Harward had 11 rebounds and three blocks for the hosts.

Rickey Holden had 15 points for the Roadrunners (16-14, 7-9).

Lacrosse

Utah 10, Bellarmine 9 • Josh Stout scored three goals for his sixth hat trick of the season and also had an assist to lead the Utes (4-3) over the Knights for their third straight victory.

James Sexton and Aaron Fjeldsted each scored twice for Utah, and Samuel Cambere, Nick Hapney and Jake Cantlon also added goals.

Baseball

BYU 5, Milwaukee 3 • In Provo, DJ McNew went 2 for 2 with a sacrifice fly and four RBIs to lead the Cougars (11-3) over the Panthers for a sweep of their series. Justin Sterner (3-1) pitched 51⁄3 innings with six strikeouts for the win.

Utah schedule changes • Due to inclement weather, the Utes will play a doubleheader against Niagara Sunday, starting at 1 p.m., as well as a third game at noon Monday.

Softball

Utah wins two in Hawaii • In Honolulu, the Utes smashed their first two opponents in the Spring Fling Tournament, pounding St. Bonaventure 14-1 and Niagara 10-1.

Alyssa Barrera went 3 for 4, scoring three times and driving in seven, while Katie Faulk, Julia Noskin, and Hailey Hilburn had four hits apiece.

UCLA 8, BYU 2 • In Los Angeles, the Cougars (10-11) scored a run in the top of the fifth to tie the score at 2-2, but the No. 2 Bruins (19-1) responded with six runs in the bottom of the inning in the final game of the UCLA/Long Beach Invitational. Libby Sugg had a solo homer for BYU in the second inning, and Rylee Jensen was 2 for 4 with a run scored.

Las Vegas • Having held off San Diego in overtime a month ago in rainy San Diego and a week ago in wintry Provo, third-seeded BYU didn’t really want to see the West Coast Conference’s No. 7 seed again, even if the Toreros were playing in their third game in as many nights.

But that’s the hand the Cougars were dealt a few blocks away from the famed Las Vegas Strip in a West Coast Conference tournament quarterfinal, and the result was altogether different from the regular-season meetings.

Like, night and day different.

San Diego took out its frustrations for three straight losses to the Cougars, including one in last year’s quarterfinal, and then some with a 80-57 beatdown at Orleans Arena on Saturday night.

“This wasn’t a [true] seventh-seeded team,” BYU coach Dave Rose said of the red-hot Toreros. “They played the top four teams in our league twice, with the unbalanced schedule. Our entire staff thought that.”

San Diego led by as many as 44 points in the second half, but the Cougars rallied in garbage time to avoid the largest margin of defeat in Rose’s 14-year tenure. The Cougars lost 102-68 at No. 1 Gonzaga on Feb. 23, which remains Rose’s worst loss.

“Not at all,” Rose said when he was asked if he had an inkling the Cougars would play their worst game of the season. “We practiced well, we prepared well.”

Then they played horribly. Rose was quick to credit San Diego for being a “really determined, together group,” and playing “terrific basketball," but said the Cougars dropped their heads early after a horrible start and reverted to old habits that plagued them in December.

“When you don’t score, that’s a part of the game that’s pretty important,” he said.

The Toreros (21-13) advance to Monday’s semifinals against No. 2 seed Saint Mary’s, while BYU (19-13) limps back to Provo and awaits an NIT bid that might not come if anybody from that selection committee bothered to stay up late to watch this debacle.

Asked if BYU would accept a bid to a lesser tournament such as the CBI or CIT, Rose was noncommital, noting that the Cougars have never been in that position before in his tenure.

“We will see,” he said.

The Cougars were never in the game. Not even close. They missed their first six shots, then turned the ball over on their seventh and eighth possessions. Looking nothing like a team that could have easily used fatigue as an excuse, San Diego made five of its first six shots and jumped to a 13-0 lead before BYU finally scored with 14:24 left in the first half on a Yoeli Childs jumper.

“A week ago, we sat in a locker room up in Provo after they beat us pretty good,” said USD coach Sam Scholl. “... We hit the reset button on Monday.”

TJ Haws missed his first six shots and didn’t score until he made two free throws with 4:16 left in the first half. By then the Toreros had a 36-15 lead. Rose said Thursday that Haws was showing no ill-effects from a collision late in the win over San Diego last Saturday, but the junior was clearly not himself.

Haws finished with 10 points on 2-of-12 shooting, after scoring 61 points in the previous two games against USD.

San Diego took a 46-19 halftime lead on Finn Sullivan’s last-second layup. The Toreros shot 53 percent in the first half and held BYU to 25 percent. It was the Cougars’ lowest-scoring half of the season and fifth-largest halftime deficit ever.

Isaiah Pineiro had 15 points and seven rebounds in the first half alone, and former Ute Isaiah Wright added 11 in the first 20 minutes. Pineiro finished with 27 points and Wright had 15.

“Isaiah Wright did a tremendous job on TJ,” Pineiro said.

USD dropped Santa Clara 62-45 late Friday night to advance. The Toreros beat Portland 67-47 in the first round Thursday. Little did anyone know they would have an easier time with BYU, which beat them 88-82 in San Diego and 87-73 in Provo.

Scholl praised the tournament format, calling it “outstanding,” but noted: “Of course, I am saying that after winning three games.”

From the same seat a few minutes later, Rose ripped on the format, questioning why a team would have only 20 minutes to shoot at a gym, as BYU did, despite coming in with a No. 3 seed. The team that played the night, or nights, before has won all four games; Pepperdine upset No. 4 seed San Francisco in Saturday’s early quarterfinal.

“Somebody has to re-evaluate this,” Rose said. “There’s too much on the line.”

Childs finished with 14 points in what may have been the junior’s final WCC tournament game. Childs was hit with a technical foul for protesting a non-call and went to the bench with 12:50 remaining, never to return. He had 14 points and six rebounds.

The Cougars dropped to 9-8 in WCC tournament games and are in danger of not getting to 20 wins for the first time in Rose’s 14 seasons.

Mount Pleasant • Jesse Raynor needed two more copies of the U.S. Army Ranger Handbook.

As quartermaster, he was responsible for making sure the men in his Mount Pleasant unit, which had been dubbed the Priesthood Protection Team, or PPT, were properly outfitted. Raynor had Microsoft Excel spreadsheets showing who had AR-15s, Kevlar helmets and vests, first aid kits and even how cold of a temperature each man’s sleeping bag could withstand. Now, on Nov. 17, 2011, Raynor was trying to ensure the last two guys in the PPT had handbooks.

“Can you do two more Ranger Handbooks?” Raynor emailed Scott Mangels, the former U.S. Army special forces soldier who was training the unit. “Let me know and I can pay online again. Also, let me know what it would cost to buy the water filtration systems you showed us. Thanks!”

Almost 7½ years later, Raynor contends the PPT was a militia whose purpose was to defend members of the Apostolic United Brethren, also known as the Allred Group. It’s a polygamous sect with enclaves across the American West.

Men in the PPT, Raynor and Mangels acknowledge, bought and learned about firearms. They wore camouflage and body armor. They marched through the forest to practice military maneuvers. They learned about emergency medicine. Mangels asked the men not to tell others what they were doing.

“It was like being in the military,” Raynor said in an interview. “We were blood brothers.”

Raynor and his two wives left the AUB community in Mount Pleasant in 2017, an event captured on the reality television show “Escaping Polygamy.” The episode’s climax features Raynor warning the show’s stars that he was part of a secret militia and that a member of that armed group might be shining a rifle laser site at the home they were trying to pack up and flee.

Escaping Polygamy

Yet Mangels, in a recent interview, contends the AUB wasn’t trying to create a militia, nor does he want that word to describe the PPT. The focus, he said, was on preparedness.

“We had [Barack] Obama come in” as president in 2009, Mangels said. “Scared a lot of people. We had the housing bubble collapse. Scared a lot of people, and people wanted to be prepared in case things go bad.”

The Salt Lake Tribune sought comment from men Raynor said trained with him. They declined to comment or denied there was a militia.

Tony Jenson, son of the late AUB President LaMoine Jenson, said he went to a few trainings with Mangels and other men but only because he had an interest in weapons and the outdoors. He said Mangels once taught him a better way to shoot pistols.

“I would have never called it a militia,” said Jenson, who lives in the AUB community 88 miles from Mount Pleasant. “Did I go shooting with some of my brothers that live by me because we're interested in guns, too? Yeah.”

Whatever was created in central Utah in 2011 might have been ignored if not for more-recent events in the AUB.

Current AUB President Lynn Thompson has been accused of embezzling church funds and molesting relatives years before he ascended to the top post, creating fractures within the sect. A blog articulating the dissidents’ views, “Turmoil Within the AUB,” recently had posts and reader comments expressing concerns about guards posted around AUB meetings in Pinesdale, Mont., and security exercises such as the searching of rooms in the meetinghouse to ensure there were no threats there.

Dissidents see these measures as signs Thompson and his supporters view the dissenters as threats. Rumors about a PPT militia, which has not been publicly discussed by insiders until now, have heightened those worries.

Jeffrey Kunz, the AUB bishop in Mount Pleasant when the PPT was being trained, said the unit was referred to as the “security team.”

When AUB members in Mount Pleasant started to describe the force as a militia in 2013, then-AUB President LaMoine Jenson shut down the group.

“We got more military than we wanted to,” Kunz said.

He added: “LaMoine said, ‘Let's just leave it in the hands of the Lord.’”

Just how large the military-type version of the PPT grew to be remains in question. Raynor said there were units not just in Mount Pleasant but also in the AUB community of Rocky Ridge — near the spot where Interstate 15 meets the line between Juab and Utah counties — as well as in Eagle Mountain and Lehi in Utah County and in southern Salt Lake County. Mangels answered many questions about the PPT but declined to discuss how many units he trained.

In the beginning

Polygamy is just one AUB belief. Rulon C. Allred formed the sect in the 1950s to continue what he believed to be the fundamental teachings of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, who commanded a militia in Illinois called the Nauvoo Legion. The AUB practices other teachings that the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has abandoned, including a sharing of assets and a belief that Adam from the biblical Garden of Eden is also God.

The AUB was the victim in one of the most-violent episodes of so-called Mormon fundamentalism. In 1977, Ervil LeBaron, who had started a polygamous church of his own, ordered the assassination of rival polygamous leaders. Two women walked into Allred’s chiropractor clinic in Murray and shot him dead.

Raynor provided The Tribune with emails, spreadsheets and other documents outlining his time in the Mount Pleasant PPT. He also provided a photograph of the patch Mangels created.

The patch sports an orange Star of David in the center and 12 small white stars on the edges. Latin words appear on the patch, too.

Mangels said the Latin contains the keywords describing the “title of liberty” from the Book of Mormon in Alma 46:12: “In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.”

Mangels, who lives in the AUB community of Rocky Ridge, had an extended and varied career in the U.S. military. According to a service record The Tribune obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, he enlisted in the U.S. Army via a Salt Lake City recruiting station in August 1986. He was on active duty for eight years.

In November 1994, he transferred into the Utah National Guard’s 19th Special Forces Group. Mangels left the military in August 1997. He re-enlisted in the 19th Special Forces Group in 2003, Mangels said, because he felt compelled to return to the military after 9/11.

Mangels remained with the Guard until April 2011, a National Guard spokesman confirmed, rising to sergeant first class before receiving an honorable discharge. An online profile from the Utah Gun Exchange promoting Mangels’ survival-supply business, Next Step Tactical, said he served multiple deployments in the U.S. global war on terror with the military and as a private contractor. The business later was renamed NextStep-Prep.

Mangels said he started his business as he was nearing his final discharge in 2011. Besides selling books about preparedness and supplies like water-filtration systems, food storage and gun accessories, he taught seminars aimed at helping people survive cataclysmic events like natural disasters and economic collapses. He said he spoke to community groups, churches and other customers across Utah and Wyoming.

Some AUB members wanted him to speak to them, too, Mangels said. One of those was Kunz, then the bishop in Mount Pleasant.

The AUB subdivision is south of Mount Pleasant, in unincorporated Sanpete County, where more than 80 percent of residents are mainstream Latter-day Saints. The subdivision was still being developed in 2011, and Kunz said the residents who already lived there and the local governments were hostile toward the new community.

While there were no specific threats of violence, Kunz said, AUB leaders included in the Mount Pleasant community’s emergency planning the possibility of an attack by terrorists or an armed mob.

Raynor said he was asked during a Sunday meeting in August 2011 whether he wanted to be part of a special group within the AUB.

He said yes.

“I really wanted to be part of God’s kingdom,” Raynor said in a recent interview.

An evacuation or exodus

Raynor said he and the dozen or so other men who entered the Mount Pleasant PPT with him were recruited because they were physically fit, hunters or gun enthusiasts and devout AUB members.

At 25, Raynor was first counselor in the elders quorum in the AUB community in Mount Pleasant. While still in the PPT, Raynor became president of the elders quorum, a position that put him in charge of the congregation’s men. Raynor, who has worked in accounting, was made the quartermaster of that PPT squad.

The PPT had two functions:

• Provide security for the AUB’s top men and the wider church community. Raynor said he drove his SUV on patrols outside AUB dances, for example, with a holstered pistol.

• Act as a militia. If hostile forces — whether the U.S. government, foreign invaders, angry mobs or whoever — came to AUB communities, Raynor explained, the plan was to move as many followers as possible to Heritage Grove Campground. It’s a commercial camp within walking distance of the Mount Pleasant AUB community. The campground has a pond and is operated by an AUB-controlled, for-profit real estate company.

Shepherding AUB members living around Mount Pleasant to the campground would be easy, Raynor said, but how to move followers from elsewhere in Utah became a point of much discussion. Insiders worried that highways and freeways wouldn’t be an option. So the PPT squads in Mount Pleasant and Rocky Ridge — a 48-mile drive apart — staged joint exercises hiking over the San Pitch Mountains, he added, trying to find the best path to march members to the safe zone.

Kunz confirmed the discussions about moving people from other AUB communities to the campground if an emergency broke out and the homes in the Mount Pleasant community ran out of space. They abandoned the idea of trooping over the mountains, he said, because it would be too strenuous for many AUB followers.

The PPT also considered a scenario in which it might have to close a road. To block or divert an enemy, Raynor said, insiders talked of detonating explosives to cause a landslide in the canyon where State Road 132 runs. That thoroughfare connects Mount Pleasant to Interstate 15. Raynor isn’t aware of explosives ever actually being assembled or detonated.

Mangels said he never heard any talk of explosives, but he did not attend many meetings in Mount Pleasant.

Gearing up

The Mount Pleasant PPT held meetings, usually in someone’s garage, one night a week, Raynor said. Exercises typically took place somewhere outdoors one Saturday a month.

Emails and spreadsheets provided by Raynor show the squad’s first few months focused on equipping and training the dozen or so men. One email from Mangels instructed the recruits to arrive at a field in Sanpete County on the last Thursday of September 2011 to learn how to navigate with a compass. The exercise stretched through the night so the squad could learn to get around in the dark, too.

Early Friday, according to the itinerary Mangels emailed, the squad members woke and were put through an exercise teaching them military maneuvers and strategies. The instructions told everyone to bring a paintball or airsoft gun.

Emails also discuss how some PPT members traveled to the Front Sight Firearms Training Institute in Pahrump, Nev., to become proficient with pistols and rifles. Raynor said PPT members were encouraged to apply for a Nevada concealed carry weapons permit while at Front Sight, or to apply for one in Utah.

A November 2011 email between Raynor and Mangels mentioned buying copies of the U.S. Army Ranger Handbook. Squad members were told to buy a specific type of camouflage fatigues similar to the light green patterns worn by the U.S. Army and Air Force.

Weapons were supposed to be uniform, too — AR-15s, Smith & Wesson 9 mm pistols and a particular steel blade knife carried in a sheath. PPT members also had to buy standard nonlethal equipment — from first aid kits to flashlights to sleeping bags.

One email shows that PPT member referred to the group as “the knitting club” before pointing the recipients toward some pistols for sale.

PPT members also received call signs. Raynor was “Professor.” The explosives handler, Raynor said, was “Dilbert.” A guy with a ready-mix company was “Concrete.”

These monikers would help ensure secrecy, Raynor said. Those privy to the PPT worried about what other AUB members would think of the militia, Raynor said. They also feared what the public would think.

"And the third thing is,” Raynor explained, “you’re more effective if no one knows you exist.”

Mangels acknowledges asking the men to not tell others about the PPT, in part because he feared that if people knew who was stockpiling food and supplies, the prepared folks could become targets. Mangels said he also was afraid of unsavory characters joining the PPT.

“You don't really want some of the loose cannons to ever join you,” he said.

While rank-and-file AUB members didn’t know about the PPT in Mount Pleasant, they nonetheless witnessed some of the operations — even if they didn’t know it.

In summer 2012, Kunz explained, squad members constructed a wire fence at the campground to keep deer from an orchard where the AUB planned to grow food to feed its community in the event of a long-term emergency.

The work itself helped finance the PPT, Raynor and Kunz said. The AUB-controlled real estate business paid PPT members with the understanding the money would be used to buy guns, ammo or other gear.

Amber Raynor, Jesse’s first wife, said she thought her husband was just busy with his elders quorum duties all those nights and weekends he was gone. She got upset thinking that AUB leaders were assigning him too much work.

As for the guns and military gear her husband bought, she dismissed it as a hobby.

Then her husband came home with ceramic plates to insert into his body armor. The plates provide protection against rifle bullets.

“I thought, ‘I don’t want to lose him,’” Amber Raynor said. “‘What’s happening here?’”

Shelby Raynor, Jesse’s second wife, said she thought AUB men were devising plans for surviving the last days, though she didn’t know anything about the PPT.

“I thought it was crazy,” she said.

Jesse Raynor estimates he spent $8,000 to $10,000 on guns, ammo and equipment. Spreadsheets and purchase orders from his time as quartermaster reveal PPT members made many purchases from Mangels’ preparedness business.

Mangels said he sometimes charged a 10 percent markup on the goods purchased through him, but he insisted that the PPT was not a moneymaker for him. He did not charge the AUB men for his time — as he had with other groups — and only asked for gas reimbursements when he drove from his home in Rocky Ridge.

Mangels said he saw the instruction he provided to AUB members as “my opportunity to serve.”

‘You need help packing?’

Mangels said he received a phone call one day from LaMoine Jenson, the then-AUB president. Jenson asked if anyone could view the PPT as a militia.

Mangels said he told him, “‘You know, in my experience, I would say not a good, level-headed person, but, yeah, I guess somebody could say that.’”

Jenson, Mangels said, then asked him to stop training the PPT.

About that time, relations with the other Sanpete County communities improved, Kunz said, and officials decided the Mount Pleasant AUB community didn’t need such a security force.

"Things aren't near as volatile as when we first arrived,” Kunz said.

Even so, AUB members in Mount Pleasant still have emergency plans in place for natural disasters, terrorism or economic collapse, Kunz said. Some of that planning came in handy during a recent mumps outbreak. A lot of his fellow AUB members don’t believe in immunizations, Kunz said. So church meetings were canceled for much of January and the infected were asked to quarantine themselves.

Raynor’s last email concerning the PPT is dated April 2013 and discusses a mixed martial arts workout. He said he stopped participating in the squad because of a conversation he had one day that would also become a factor in him leaving the AUB.

Raynor said some of the PPT men were discussing the non-AUB refugees they might also protect. Some seemed inclined to only accept doctors and others with special skills. Raynor wondered about women and children.

“I can’t imagine another religion turning my kids away because they weren’t the right religion,” Raynor said, “and I’m never going to do the same.”

Raynor was starting to question his faith anyway. He read websites that contradicted what he knew of Joseph Smith or added new dimensions to the Mormon founder’s story. Raynor also decided the AUB was too controlling of women and children. When his oldest son turned 8, the age for baptism, Raynor decided he didn’t want the boy or the rest of his family to become part of the AUB.

Kunz and Mangels both said there was no need for the Raynors to leave in a hurry in the middle of the night — as they did in “Escaping Polygamy.” Any family is free to go.

“If you want to leave,” Mangels said, “it’s like, ’Oh sorry to see you go. You need help packing?’”

Kunz and Mangels deny anyone would have pointed a laser sight at the Raynors. Mangels said he has been told the red beam was a child with a flashlight.

The Raynors now live in the Idaho Panhandle. Raynor said he sold the guns he owned, but still has the other gear from his PPT days.

In honor of National Siblings Day next month, I’m going to tell you about my sister, Erin.

One day, my sister shoved a hummingbird egg up my nose.

I was probably six years old, and she was nine. We were on a road trip to St. George. Hummingbird eggs were a type of jelly bean. They were small, and shaped like a disk.

This was around the time when she convinced me that lying on the floor of the back seat was so much better than sitting on an actual seat.

I was gullible. I’ll admit it.

This wasn’t the first time my sister had pulled the wool over my eyes. We routinely got ice cream at a place on 3300 South. She would say, “Let’s have a contest and see who can eat their ice cream the fastest!”

I would shove it into my mouth as fast as possible, so fast that it wasn’t even tasty anymore. And then I would win.

And with her full bowl of ice cream, she would say, “Congratulations. You win.” Then she would lick her spoon in an exaggerated manner, because she had so much ice cream, and I had none.

Just like Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football, I fell for it every time.

I should’ve known from the beginning how things were going to go. Apparently, upon hearing the news that my mother had given birth to me, she (as a toddler) went outside and peed on the porch. A most inauspicious beginning to sisterhood.

As a pre-teen, she would sing that song from Madness called “Our House.”

The lyrics were originally:

Our house, in the middle of our street

Our house, in the middle of our street…

But she would change the lyrics to:

My sister… in the middle of the street.

A car… came and ran over her feet.

She lay… splattered all over the street.

She got… amputation of the feet.

One time, after she’d recently returned from a church mission, she gave one of my favorite shirts to one of her friends. When I complained, she said, “I guess you don’t know what it’s like to be Christlike and charitable.”

I said, “How does giving away my clothes somehow make you charitable?”

Still, as sisters go, I could’ve had it much worse. After all, Cleopatra’s sister, Arsinoe, was seen as a threat. So Cleopatra had her poisoned, as sisters tend to do when they feel threatened. (Did you know there’s a word for this? It’s “sororicide.”)

That left Cleopatra alone to rule Egypt and then get bitten by an asp.

My sister never went as far as to poison me. At least, I don’t think she did. Maybe I can only take her at her word.

No, her modus operandi involved getting bored on a road trip, and shoving a hummingbird egg up her sister’s nose.

I tried to get the thing out, with details that I will leave to the imagination. But the darn jelly bean was stuck.

My mom started to get suspicious.

“Girls, what’s going on back there?”

My sister gave me a tissue. “Shhhh. Don’t tell mom. Now blow! Like your brain depends on it!”

We got it out, and my mom was none the wiser until some time later. But you’d think that would be a rule that didn’t require mentioning: Don’t shove things up your sister’s nose.

Even so, I didn’t want her to get in trouble. Because everyone knows the first rule of sisterhood is I can mess with my sister, but if you mess with her, the gloves come off.

So, here’s to Erin. Sisters by chance. And now friends by choice. Despite a history of nasal jelly beans.

Brodi Ashton is a New York Times best-selling author who lives in the Salt Lake City area. She’s also an occasional columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune.

Dear Ann Cannon • I am a married mother of two in my mid-30s. I have a friend (who has been my friend since middle school and one-time college roommate) who unfortunately is addicted to pain pills (and now opioids) after a couple of botched surgeries. I have tried to be a supportive friend, encouraging her to get help, etc., but the situation has spiraled out of control. I know my first priority is to my family, so I have decided to cut all ties with her. It was tearing me up emotionally (dealing with her late-night calls and rants), plus I feel she was a danger to my children.

The problem is her mother. The mother calls me constantly — telling me that I am part of the problem, because I won’t be her daughter’s friend. Her mother goes from being an enabler to being in denial. She tries to make me feel guilty. She has said my friend can’t get well without the support of her friends. She has said things like how bad I’ll feel when my friend ends up dead. I know I don’t have to take the calls, but short of that, do you think there’s any way I can help this mother see my position? If my friend was truly trying to get well, I’d like to be there for her, but she has bolted from rehab twice.

— Former BFF

Dear Former BFF • Unfortunately, this heartbreaking story is far too common. You’re all in a tough spot — your friend, your friend’s mother, you. Addiction is the worst kind of thief. It robs people of their relationships and their resources, their health and (maybe worst of all) their hope.

Honestly, as annoying and inappropriate as her behavior toward you has been, I almost feel the sorriest for the addict’s mother. It’s a terrible thing for a parent to watch a child of any age implode. That’s why she’s trying to guilt you into helping her daughter. At this point, she’s desperate. But you’re right. Her daughter is not your responsibility. You ask if there’s any way you can make the mother understand your position. Sadly, there probably isn’t. She’s looking for a miracle, and she’s praying you’re it.

I’m guessing you’ve already told her that you’re willing to help your friend when she shows a real desire to get clean and stay clean. If you haven’t, then tell her. If you have, tell her again. Then don’t take her calls unless you choose to.

Dear Ann Cannon • The neighbor’s dog barks all the time. She leaves it in a kennel all day and at night it keeps me awake with its yapping. I don’t know what to say because she is on the HOA board and has a lot of power around here.

— Sleepless in Salt Lake

Dear Sleepless • Oh gosh. Apparently, your neighbor experiences her dog’s nightly yapping as white noise — which is super convenient for her but not so much for you. As always, you have two choices. You can say something, or you can let it go. From your email, I get the impression that you’d like to talk to your neighbor but that you’re worried there may be negative repercussions for you because of her position within your community, right?

Because I don’t know your neighbor personally, I can’t predict how she’ll react. Will she be slightly embarrassed but grateful, the way you are when someone tells you there’s a bit of lettuce stuck on your teeth? Annoyed? Defensive? Even vindictive? You could check with people who’ve dealt with her to get a feel for her potential reaction.

I wouldn’t let the fact that she’s on the HOA board stop you. Yeah, she has some power. But realistically, how would that affect you? I’m pretty sure she can’t have you evicted because you expressed a concern about her noisy dog.

If you do decide to have a chat, be polite and respectful. Earn yourself some bonus points by making a fuss over her dog.

Good luck!

Ann Cannon is The Tribune’s advice columnist. Got a question for Ann? Email her at askann@sltrib.com or visit the Ask Ann Cannon page on Facebook.

Near my Salt Lake home an old pothole road is dying, kept on life support with make-do patches on top of make-do patches.

The irony is that the road borders a cemetery, and it might best serve as additional graveyard. After all, after decades of watching the poor thing suffer so, it seems time either to pull the plug or give it a much-deserved makeover.

If your voyeur instincts are aroused, you may see this patched, potholed wonder transecting from 1300 South to Foothill Drive. It’s labelled 2300 East.

Caveat: If driving, beware living potholes near its intersection with Foothill Drive.

Chuck Wullstein, Salt Lake City

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After watching President Donald Trump hugging the American Flag at CPAC, I am reminded of a quote by English writer and moralist Samuel Johnson: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Since Trump can no longer boast about his honesty and integrity, he is resorting to his supposed love of America as a shield to hide behind. Sorry, Donald, but Americans can see right through your latest gambit to hide your sins.

Richard D. Muranaka, Salt Lake City

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Breathing should be the easiest thing we do. We are born to it, and without it we die. But when air quality is poor, breathing is an effort, and solutions to this health hazard have been all too limited. Until this year. In advance of the legislative session, Gov. Gary Herbert proposed $100 million for clean air research, education and emissions reduction programs — up from $1 million last year. Legislators from both sides have productive ideas for how to spend this windfall — ideas that will make a significant difference to our air — and they are working their way through the Chambers.

But passage of air-quality bills does not guarantee funding, and this is where we the people come in. The Executive Appropriations Committee decides which bills to fund and how fully, and it is up to us to ensure they use every penny Governor Herbert proposed. This is the single most important step you can take for clean air: Go to le.utah.gov and search for Executive Appropriations Committee members. Is your representative among them? Call or email him/her. Repeat your request to each member of the committee. Let this committee know: Utahns want clean air, and we want it now.

Hope Zitting-Goeckeritz, Salt Lake City

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At the recent General Conference of the United Methodist Church, the debate over the issues of labeling homosexuality as incompatible with Christian teaching, ordaining homosexual clergy and performing same-sex marriages reached a breaking point.

“Traditionalists” approved a plan which would institute mandatory penalties for clergy who perform same-sex marriages and made it eminently clear that LGBTQIA persons were not eligible for ordained ministry. This level of orthodoxy and greater church control has never been the United Methodist way. It is an attempt to intimidate into submission all who affirm the full sacred worth of LGBTQIA persons.

We do not believe that sexual orientation should be a criterion for ordination or categorized as “incompatible” with Christian faith and life. God calls people of a variety of gifts, graces and experiences to service and ministry to reach the variety of people who need to hear the Good News of Jesus’ saving grace. The United Methodist Church has historically been a church which allowed for differences in scriptural interpretation and theology.

We, the undersigned, will not be coerced into discriminating against LGBTQIA persons. Instead, we are even more resolved to work towards full inclusion. At baptism, we accepted the freedom and power God gives to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves: especially in the church.

We resist the evil of bigotry, the injustice of exclusion and the oppression of our sisters and brothers who are sacred, special creations of God possessing the same divine spark that is within all of us. In those same baptismal vows we expressly affirm that we are in union with the same Jesus who “has opened [the church] to people of all ages, nations, and races” and some of us add to the end of that “sexual orientation.”

Through the courageous efforts of many people, especially our Bishop Karen Oliveto, the United Methodist Church has reached a defining moment in the movement towards full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people. We will not turn back now. “We shall overcome one day.”

The Rev. Elizabeth McVicker, pastor, First United Methodist Church and Centenary United Methodist Church, Salt Lake City; the Rev. Dr. C. Dennis Shaw, pastor, Hilltop United Methodist Church, Sandy; the Rev. Russell Butler, senior pastor, Christ United Methodist Church, Salt Lake City; the Rev. Rob Bruendl, pastor, Trinity United Methodist Church, West Valley City; the Rev. Gary M. Haddock, pastor, Community United Methodist Church, Ogden; the Rev. Kimal James, pastor, Ogden First United Methodist Church, Marriott-Slaterville; the Rev. Olga Hard, retired pastor, West Jordan; Pastor David Sauer, Aldersgate United Methodist Church, Brigham City; the Rev. Marv Vose, United Methodist Church district superintendent for Utah/Western Colorado

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Congestion at Arches National Park has led park officials to consider implementing a reservation system for visitors. The problem is that the current allocation system — a long wait in line to pay a nominal entrance fee, followed by an interminable search for a parking space at popular trailheads — leads to a poor visitor experience. Overuse of the park also damages the very resources that people are there to enjoy.

A reservation system will shift a portion of visitation from times when the park is overused to other times when the park is not so crowded. An economic study commissioned by the National Park Service found that a newly implemented reservation system would likely cause a temporary loss in visitation, resulting in reduced economic benefit to the Moab economy. In just a few years, though, visitation would rebound as people and commercial tour groups learned to work within the new rules. Still, overall park visitation would be capped, especially during the peak seasons.

Arches is not the only congested park in Utah. If you’ve ever waited 90 minutes for a shuttle bus in Zion National Park, you might have thought that Zion was overly crowded as well. You’d be right: Zion is considering a reservation system, too.

Has Utah’s capacity to attract outdoor tourists been maxed out? Not only is the answer an emphatic “no,” but the capacity constraints at Arches and Zion offer the prospect of spreading the benefits of national park tourism to a broader set of rural Utah communities.

Research conducted with my colleagues Tatiana Drugova and Man-Keun Kim has confirmed that Utah’s “Mighty 5” ad campaign has dramatically increased visitation to four of Utah’s five national parks.

Our study, which is being prepared for publication, found that the Mighty 5 campaign did not result in any statistically measurable increase in visits in Zion, perhaps the most congested of Utah’s parks.

However, the modeling found that the Mighty 5 campaign spurred more people to visit Arches, Bryce Canyon National Park, Canyonlands National Park and Capitol Reef National Park. Each of these parks enjoyed double-digit percentage increases in annual visitation as a result of the Mighty 5 campaign.

These results, and ongoing congestion problems at Arches and Zion, suggest a unique opportunity for the NPS and Utah’s Office of Tourism to use park tourism as part of a coordinated rural economic development strategy.

Canyonlands and Capitol Reef are relatively uncongested parks that offer high quality recreational experiences that are the equal (or near equal) of a visit to Arches or Zion. Utah is also home to large national monuments filled with scenic wonders.

The Mighty 5 advertising effort powerfully demonstrated that a well-designed and well-executed multi-media campaign can drive visitors to relatively remote areas of Utah. But instead of a campaign that focuses equally on each of Utah’s five parks, why not design a campaign that places greater emphasis on Utah’s less visited parks and public lands?

Utah already does a bit of this with its “Road to the Mighty 5” campaign, but this effort primarily featured state parks. While state parks have their constituency, they have neither the drawing power nor the economic impact of national parks.

A coordinated effort on the part of the NPS and the Utah Office of Tourism to focus promotion efforts on less-visited parks can achieve two goals. First, it would relieve a portion of the congestion pressure at Arches and Zion. Second, the increasing economic benefits of national park tourism would spread to less visited national parks and scenic public lands in Emery, Garfield, Kane, San Juan and Wayne counties.

Paul M. Jakus is a professor in the Department of Applied Economics at Utah State University. He is not affiliated with any Koch Foundation-funded entity at USU or elsewhere.

Olympia Hills is back.

Developers behind a controversial, high-density community proposed for the southwest tip of Salt Lake County say they’ve redesigned the project and are ready to once again seek public input before asking the county to sign off.

It would still be called Olympia Hills and would still be located on unincorporated county land west of Herriman, but instead of nine dwellings per acre — a density that drew intense public criticism and a veto from the county mayor last summer — the plan is to drop that to just below seven. With a total project area of 938 acres, when built out, Olympia Hills would hold roughly 6,500 households.

Developers Doug Young and Cory Shupe say they’ve also got more detailed answers to prior worries about traffic congestion, water supplies and impacts on public schools.

Open houses on the new Olympia Hills plan are scheduled for Wednesday at Herriman’s Bastian Elementary School and Thursday at Golden Fields Elementary in South Jordan, both starting at 6 p.m.

Opponents of the first proposal say they’re eager to see how it has changed.

Yet as they bring their revamped plans forward, Young and Shupe say they hope Utahns in the Salt Lake Valley and beyond take time to understand their broader vision, which goes well beyond one planned community.

“We are not a subdivision,” Young, a Salt Lake City-based developer, told The Salt Lake Tribune. “This is something that no one’s ever seen before.”

Amid Utah’s continuing population rise, they say they want to create a sustainable high-tech company town, built in patient phases that cluster residential and commercial development around new employment centers, brought in by major tech firms akin to Adobe, Google or Facebook.

“We want to focus on creating and seeing jobs come to the area rather than just housing,” Young said. “We are not marketing Olympia to builders. We are marketing Olympia to the tech companies of the world.”

A ‘company town’ for all

Playing off the history of Lark, an abandoned mining town near the Olympia Hills site, Young and Shupe say they want to provide tech employers on Silicon Slopes a single location to build corporate centers next to homes for their employees, letting residents live, work, shop and recreate — without having to rely on a car.

Likening their project to Daybreak, the successful master-planned community in South Jordan, the developers contend Olympia Hills 2.0 is firmly rooted in smart growth and the idea of closely coordinating land use and housing with transportation and job centers.

“No one will have to drive here,” Young said. "It’ll be electric scooters, things like that. I like to say, cars are optional.”

And if their vision is a success, they say they’ve received signals from officials with Utah County and with Kennecott Land, a vast landowner along the Salt Lake Valley’s west bench, that the Olympia Hills template could be applied to other swaths of undeveloped acreage.

“You could literally replicate this from Olympia Hills all the way north to Magna,” Young said.

Second time around

The first plans for Olympia Hills hit a wall of public opposition when they broke into view last summer, largely over concerns the development would disrupt surrounding residents’ quality of life and swamp schools and already-clogged east-west roads serving the area.

For many Wasatch Front residents, the debate also brought some of Utah’s wider struggles with growth, density, housing and transportation into sharper focus.

Mayors of nearby Herriman, Riverton, Copperton and West Jordan fought approval for the project last June, claiming they had not been adequately included in its review. They issued a joint statement urging that county zoning be denied over concerns about how closely packed the homes were and how much traffic they might bring.

And after the Salt Lake County Council approved the zoning, opposing residents signed petitions and amassed at a town hall in Herriman by the hundreds, eventually leading then-County Mayor Ben McAdams to step in and issue a veto. The developers then withdrew their application.

A spokeswoman for County Mayor Jenny Wilson, who replaced McAdams in January, said Friday the resubmitted plans will now come back for review by the County Council.

In a statement, Wilson said Salt Lake County had “encouraged the developer to incorporate public feedback into the planning process. We applaud their efforts to do that and encourage residents to engage and share their thoughts on this proposed new community.”

County Councilman Steve DeBry, a South Jordan resident and lone vote against the zoning last June, called the developers’ quest for feedback “refreshing” and echoed a desire that the new Olympia Hills plans “get a lot of public input and engagement on this to see where everybody stands.”

DeBry said he also wanted the plans vetted by the county’s Planning Commission and elected officials in cities adjacent to the proposed development.

“What I don’t want is to have the same pig, just with lipstick on it,” he said.

A new look

The developers hired Love Communications, a Salt Lake City advertising firm, shortly after the veto.

Nearly eight months later, the Olympia Hills relaunch comes with its own logo, website, slick graphics, a three-minute promotional video and a carefully crafted image as “an inclusive, thoughtfully developed 21st-century community.”

Beneath the glitz, Young and Shupe have also used the intervening months to address questions about Olympia Hills’ impact on surrounding communities.

They say they expect property values for existing residents in adjacent Herriman and Riverton to rise, as businesses move in and bring new job opportunities with them.

Neighborhoods in Olympia Hills will reportedly offer a blend of single and multi-family dwellings, in a range of styles and prices, all within walking distance from park spaces and recreation. The community’s trail system, the developers say, will reach far up into nearby Butterfield and Yellow Fork canyons in the Oquirrh Mountains.

The strategy of putting new homes next to work centers, the developers say, will mitigate traffic concerns for already-overloaded east-west arterials such as 12600 South and 13400 South. Added traffic, they claim, will be handled by upgraded versions of U-111 and 126000 South, and Salt Lake County has already committed $4 million to improving to those two roads within the next two years.

Young and Shupe say public transit service — relatively scant in that southwest part of the county now — will be a major part of Olympia Hills in the future, although they say those details are still forthcoming.

Jordan School District, they say, has bought land for new schools, Utah State University plans to open a satellite campus and so does a Kauri Sue Hamilton school, serving students with special needs.

The owners of the land have created a trust to donate 100 acres of the site to USU and 20 acres to Jordan School District for the benefit of future residents, Young said.

Water demand will be met by Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District, which they say had already planned to service the area. Storm drainage and sewer capacity have also been addressed, the developers say.

And while construction of Olympia Hills would likely start within two years of zoning approval, Young said its phases would be spread out over four decades.

“We have patient money,” he said. “Nobody is in a hurry.”

Public process

A spokesman for Utahns for Responsible Growth, a grass-roots group opposed to Olympia Hills, said Friday he hopes the new plans will face close scrutiny and that crucial claims about potential impacts would be independently verified.

“They say that because they’re going to do this or that, it’s going to keep traffic down and it’s going to be this self-contained community,” said group organizer and Herriman resident Justin Swain. “That’s nice, but how can you prove that?”

Mayors of six cities in southwestern Salt Lake County are halfway toward a goal of raising $250,000 for a planning and land use study of their area, with a view to possibly coordinating some of their development strategies and road improvements. Swain, DeBry and others said they hoped that study could be finished before county officials give Olympia Hills a go-ahead.

But it doesn’t appear that the Olympia Hills developers have lined up solid support yet from the once-critical mayors before their relaunch.

Herriman Mayor David Watts did not respond to a request for comment.

Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs said that the developers’ claims about traffic produced by Olympia Hills, in particular, need to be carefully analyzed. He and other area mayors recently published an opinion piece in The Tribune decrying a transportation crisis in the county’s southwest corner, with key roads already at failure rates.

Staggs questioned the claim Olympia Hills would have only a modest effect on congestion.

“That assumes everybody who lives there will work there as well, which you know is incredibly naive,” Staggs said. “There’s going to be quite a few people from northern Utah County, Riverton, Bluffdale and all the surrounding communities that are going to have to find their way there.”

He and officials with nearby cities and Salt Lake County say they’d heard rumblings the revamped Olympia Hills was coming back and a few details, but some expressed a new round of frustration at not being consulted as those plans were being overhauled.

“How have we been included? It’s been absolutely zero,” Staggs said. “We’ve not been brought in really at all to talk about how a new application might look, which is surprising."

There are four wards crammed into the building of my Latter-day Saint meetinghouse. In the hallways hang the plaques of missionaries serving in various parts of the world. With four wards, that’s a lot of plaques.

The typical mission plaque has a photo of the elder or sister, his or her name, the name of the ward, a sketch of the country or state in which he or she is serving, the name of the mission, and the missionary’s favorite scripture.

I bring this up because the plaques used to include the logo for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Newer plaques now have “Called to Serve” engraved on them instead of the church’s name. This is because the church has told businesses to stop using its logo on products they sell.

Intrigued, I went to McGee’s Stamp & Trophy at 7095 S. State St. in Midvale and checked out the plaques.

I served a mission while Elvis was still alive, so I never had a plaque. The only notice of my absence was a mug shot of me attached to a string on a world map that led to a pin in Uruguay. Underneath my picture was my name.

Check out the photo. It was taken while I was in the Language Training Mission (now the Missionary Training Center) in Provo. And, yes, I was exactly that enthused at the time.

Feeling somewhat cheated that I never got a plaque, I ordered one for myself. With a passing nod to the possibility of getting sued, I went with “Called to Serve” instead of “The Mormon Church,” which I liked but thought might be a bit much.

My favorite scripture (both back then and now) is from the Book of Mormon — Jacob 1:12:

“And it came to pass that Nephi died.”

I like it because it means that whatever misery I might be sucked into eventually would end.

I was going to go with 2 Kings 2:23-24 from the Old Testament, but a saner mind suggested that it was overly long and might not fit on the plaque:

"And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

“And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.”

OK, it’s grim. A little. But it beats the hell out of the Book of Mormon’s Moroni 9:10, which I also briefly considered. Look it up.

The plaque turned out great. McGee’s did a wonderful job. Not only does the picture make me look a little happier but also the plaque stays away from the church logo issue.

I plan to hang it in the meetinghouse Sunday. Rose Summit Bishop Geertsen will probably take it down. He’s a great guy but chooses to err overly much on the side of decorum.

Besides, I have more important things to consider. I want to know what the church has planned for military dog tags.

The ones I wore in the Army — and now have attached to my car keys — says my religion is “O-Pos.” Wait, that’s my blood type.

My religion — in the event I was so badly injured that someone with the true power and authority necessary to speed me along to the Telestial Kingdom was needed — is clearly stamped “LDS.”

Since this goes against the naming model insisted upon by church leaders, I wonder what kind of arrangement they’ll make with the military. Because The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ logo won’t fit on a dog tag.

Robert Kirby is The Salt Lake Tribune’s humor columnist. Follow Kirby on Facebook.