Mary Heers
Volunteer ProducerMary got hooked on oral histories while visiting Ellis Island and hearing the recorded voices of immigrants that had passed through. StoryCorps drew her to UPR. After she retired from teaching at Preston High, she walked into the station and said she wanted to help. Kerry put her to work taking the best 3 minutes out of the 30 minute interviews recorded in Vernal. Passion kicked in. Mary went on to collect more and more stories and return them to the community on UPR's radio waves. Major credits to date: Utah Works, One Small Step, and the award winning documentary Ride the Rails.
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In this episode, Mary's perspective on ice transforms after an unusual Christmas letter and a trip to the Olympic bobsled track. -
Mary Heers cames face to face with local reindeer and shares the fascinating facts she learned.
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Not all bones become fossils. So you can imagine the excitement in the scientific community when a fossil bed containing more than 12,000 dinosaur bones were discovered 30 miles south of Price.
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In 2017, anthropologist Lizbeth Lauderback was able to dig out the tiny bits of organic matter wedged into the stone grinding tools used by the Native Americans near Escalante. The organic bits proved to be potato starches. The stone tools were 10,000 years old.
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One of the most important lessons I learned during last summer’s long hot afternoons was that the best place to appreciate Utah’s natural beauty can sometimes be inside an art museum.
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In 1928, Elmer Cook, a rancher in Hagerman, Idaho, found fossilized bones belonging to ancestors of the modern horse. They were 3 ½ million years old.
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The minute I heard there was a well-stocked community fishing pond just five miles down the road from where I live, I dusted off my old fishing pole, slipped out of the house and threw my line into the Wellsville Reservoir.
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Beaver dams played an important role at Birch Creek, slowing the flow of melting snow and rainfall, and allowing surface runoff to filter down into groundwater. When Jay Wilde discovered the beavers were gone, he decided to do something about it.
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Mary Heers shares a little about the 15 things she hasn't been able to live without during the pandemic.
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When the last tap pounded the Golden Spike into place, the telegraph operators standing alongside tapped out the word DONE. Whistles blew and hats flew through the air – the Transcontinental was done but railroading in Utah had really just begun.
