Every rural person and place has a story. Change is part of that story.
“Rural Utah at a Crossroads” is part of the Smithsonian traveling exhibit Crossroads: Change in Rural America, which explores the changing meaning of rural life and identity. Utah Humanities is touring Crossroads to eight rural communities across Utah in 2024. As part of the tour, Utah Humanities and Utah Public Radio are partnering with exhibition hosts to interview local residents about change in their communities.
This interview took place at the Utah State University Eastern Campus in Price, Utah.
Jean Boyack: My name is Jean Boyack. I'm from Helper, Utah.
I feel like in a rural place, you know your neighbors, you have friends, and you help each other where you may not know who your neighbors are, like with my daughter in California, she doesn't even know her neighbors. And I don't think I could live like that.
We have so many different nationalities and everyone is — most everyone — is friendly. And that's what I like about being in Helper and Carbon County. I love to stay involved, but I don't know what I do with myself if I didn't. They say, "Oh, I'm glad it's you, I'm glad it's you, I wouldn't do that." However, I can't just sit home and twiddle my thumbs. I can't say no. I managed to be involved in a lot.
There's this called the Slovenian Home in Spring Glen, and we do a monthly dinner. And I'm involved with that, I help with that. When my children were in school, I was involved with the PTA and held all kinds of positions and ended up being a regional director for Carbon and Emery counties. I was very, very involved, and still am, with the Carbon County Democratic Party. And as far as working, I worked part-time here and there. And then my aunt, my mother's sister, had a jewelry store in Helper and whenever she needed help, I would work in the jewelry store. And then I ended up when they closed the railroad down, I had to go to work full-time instead of just part-time. And I ended up at the County Recorder's office, and I spent 18 years there.
Well, I held almost every position that was in the Democratic Party. I started out kind of working with the Democrats because when Gunn McKay was a representative, for some reason I was hired to do the 1980 Census. And he was a Democrat, and then the Democrats got a hold of me and I worked with them. I worked on campaigns for — I mean, local politics, you can do something. National, you really can't. But I worked on campaigns for County Commissioners, County Clerks, County Treasurer, County Recorder, and all of them, and attended different conventions, state conventions, until I got tired of traveling to Salt Lake and quit doing that.
But like I said, I'm still involved. Nathaniel Woodward is now our Carbon County Chair, and I thought, well, I'm so old, they'll just leave me alone. But no, he said they need me for parliamentarian at least. So that's what I'm doing right now. I have seen them kind of decide, "well, maybe I should be a Republican," and people who I know are Democrats will register as a Republican and run on the Republican ticket because they don't think they can win as a Democrat. But I see change coming.
“Rural Utah at a Crossroads” is a collaboration between Utah Public Radio, Utah Humanities, and the community hosts of Crossroads: Change in Rural America, a Smithsonian Museum on Main Street exhibition made possible in the Beehive State by Utah Humanities.
Support for Museum on Main Street has been provided by the United States Congress.
