Building a better life When Kristin Fowles looks at the youngest of her three sons, she sees a happy, healthy baby boy. But others might have been alarmed by Jacob’s appearance. While in his mother’s womb, Jacob’s mouth did not form properly, and he was born May 11 with a cleft lip and a cleft palate. Over the next few years, the boy will endure surgeries, dental and orthodontic care to transform his appearance, closing the openings where the roof of his mouth and his upper lip did not join.
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How common are clefts in Utah? Utah has among the highest rates of orofacial clefts in the U.S. and internationally. For 1995 through 2003, the rate in Utah was 1 in 450 births (or 22.2 affected newborns per 10,000 births). The Utah Birth Defect Network estimates that, on average, more than 100 affected children are born in Utah every year. Approximately 65 will have cleft lip with or without cleft palate, and 35 will have cleft palate alone.
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Space explorers will land in Salt Lake City Buzz Aldrin will be here. So will M. Scott Carpenter, Alexei Leonov, and, of course, retired Utah Sen. Jake Garn. If you ever wanted to meet an astronaut or a cosmonaut, your chance has come. On Oct. 9, the Association of Space Explorers will convene its annual Planetary Congress at the Grand America in Salt Lake City, and several events planned as part of the elite gathering will offer Utahns a unique glimpse at Aldrin, one of the first men to walk on the moon, or Leonov, the first man to walk in space.
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My advice to all of you is . . . oh, nevermind I would really like to find the guy who invented advice and have him beaten senseless. It wouldn’t be a real stretch. He was most of the way there when he started giving it. Then again, it was probably a woman. I say this because most of the advice I’ve received in my life has been from women. It came first from mom, then my sisters, teachers, assorted girlfriends, eventually my wife, and now my daughters.
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Parent vs. teacher Every teacher has said it to a parent -- or wanted to: "If you’ll only believe half of what your child says goes on at school, I’ll only believe half of what she says goes on at home." Skewed perceptions are often behind problems between parents and teachers, and better communication is usually the cure, teachers, administrators and parents say.
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A chance to play with the pros Sure, it takes blood, sweat and tears to get eight young musicians up onstage with the Utah Symphony. But for one soloist, it will also take garlic, vinegar and mustard. Flutist Christina Lee, 17, came down with a bug days before her scheduled debut with the orchestra and couldn’t draw enough breath to play properly when she rehearsed with conductor Keith Lockhart.
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Party chat leads to a Utah music institution It all began at a Halloween party nearly 40 years ago. Bernadette Velick, then a newcomer to Salt Lake City, was chatting with Gale Dick and host Gloria Hess about the dearth of chamber music in town. "We had just come from St. Louis, where there was an active chamber-music society for years and years," Velick recalled. The trio joined forces with other music lovers -- including Velick’s husband, Sidney, and Dick’s wife, Ann -- to form the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City, which brings the world’s top string quartets, piano trios and other chamber groups to town.
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