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For Halloween, neighbors turn their Utah suburb into Barbieland

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For Halloween, neighbors turn their Utah suburb into Barbieland


South Jordan • Jamie Tucker said it was Liz Teran, who lives a few doors down from her house on The Island in the Daybreak community, who had the idea that has transformed their neighborhood.

“There’s only one person to be for Halloween, and that’s Barbie,” Tucker recalled Teran saying, after a group of them went to see this summer’s “Barbie” movie.

Tucker’s daughter, Maile, responded, “We need to make Barbieland happen.”

So this month, ahead of Halloween, the neighbors on Port Royal Lane and adjacent streets on The Island have transformed the outside of 18 houses into their version of Barbieland. The neighbors are expecting to attract thousands of visitors this October, thanks in part to a pair of TikTok posts that have each been viewed 2 million times.

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(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Deidra Smith, left, talks with her neighbor Jamie Tucker, center, about additional home decorations in a section of Daybreak that has collectively created a Barbieland-themed community for Halloween on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023.

Tucker’s house represents “classic Barbie,” with pink lantern strings and vinyl-and-plastic pink covers on the house’s columns, pink Adirondack chairs on the porch, and matching human-sized pink toy boxes labeled “Ken” and “Barbie.”

Tucker sometimes greets visitors to the neighborhood in the iconic hot-pink cowgirl Barbie outfit, similar to the one star Margot Robbie wears in the movie. Maile Tucker is dressed in the gold disco Barbie outfit; one sister has a cheerleader Barbie costume, and another sister has been dressed as “original” Barbie.

“It feels really great to have a house that is part of Barbieland,” Maile Tucker said. “I love it.”

The other houses on Tucker’s street continue the theme. There’s Camping Barbie, with skeletons in wigs sitting in a pink raft on the porch. Disco Barbie has a d.j. station, a mirror ball, and a neon pink sign with one of the movie Barbie’s iconic quotes: “You guys ever think about dying?”

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One house features Weird Barbie — based on a version of the doll, portrayed in the movie by Kate McKinnon, that gets played with too hard — in all of its neon glory, taking a more architectural approach to decorating with metal swirls and designs.

There’s also Pool Party Barbie, Barbie Pet Shop, Haunted Barbie, Barbie Bedtime and — for fans of more traditional seasonal colors — Halloween Star Barbie, which features purple, orange and black, with hints of pink.

At the Haunted Barbie house, the lawn has been turned into a graveyard, with headstones for Ruth Handler (the creator of Barbie) and Sugar Daddy Ken (a short-lived collector’s edition), as well as one that reads “R.I.P. the Patriarchy.” The headstones, along with the toy boxes on Tucker’s porch and several other items on the street, were created by Alicia Holm, who runs a prop rental business, MadefromHolm.

Drawing a crowd

“Everybody really likes Halloween around here,” Tucker said, adding that Daybreak doesn’t have a formal Halloween decorating contest.

One street behind Barbieland is “Hogwarts on the Island,” a home by Oquirrh Lake that is decorated fully to a “Harry Potter” theme, including Dementors, an ode to Quidditch and a replica of The Burrow, the cluttered home of the Weasley family. Last year, thousands of visitors came to see it, according to some of the neighbors.

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“It was just kind of mayhem on Halloween,” said one neighbor, Amy Williams.

People parked on the bridge that leads to The Island, Williams said, blocking off the road — to the point where her kids had to park a distance away and walk into the neighborhood. Even on Sunday, they couldn’t get in to get their backpacks.

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A home is decorated in a “Classic Barbie” theme from the movie “Barbie” in a section of Daybreak that has collectively created a Barbieland-themed community for Halloween on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023.

Williams said that this year, “it’s like, ‘Well, if everybody’s coming anyway, why don’t we?’ You let more people get in on the fun.”

So Williams took on the Barbieland role of Midge, Barbie’s pregnant friend. Williams, who has three kids, wears an inflatable toy under her dress to simulate a baby bump.

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Williams is an actor at Hale Center Theatre and “a huge Barbie fan,” she said, adding that she owns her mother’s original Midge doll from the 1960s. (The pregnant Midge doll was canceled shortly after it was introduced in 2003.)

A pink banner in front of Midge’s Dream House reads “Midge and Allen are expecting a girl.” There’s also a figure Williams brought previously of Jack the Pumpkin King, from “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” dressed as Alan, Ken’s drab friend (played by Michael Cera in the movie). Williams said she has convinced her husband to dress on Halloween as Alan — who, in the toy line’s original canon, was Midge’s husband.

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Amy Williams, dressed as “Midge” from the movie “Barbie,” stands outside her decorated home in a section of Daybreak that has collectively created a Barbieland-themed community for Halloween on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023.

A ‘mojo dojo casa house’

The Kens in the neighborhood are also getting into the act.

Dave Mantyla rocks the Day-Glo outfit worn by the movie’s Ken, Ryan Gosling, when he and Barbie arrive in the real world. The house he shares with his fiancee, Terra Spencer, features quotes from the movie and replicas of the set, including a sign made by Spencer pointing the way from Barbieland to the real world.

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“My fiancee was the instigator,” Mantyla said. “She got added to the group message and kind of got us all involved.”

On the other end of the street from Tucker’s house, Teran and her husband, Justin Gallegos, are now living in Barbie’s Dream House — with pink shag carpet, a pink mirror, vanity table, chair and wardrobe, which holds pink shoes, clothes and accessories. (The wardrobe, Gallegos said, was designed by Kenzie Bates, who runs the event planning business Kenzie’s Events. Bates also made the signs, in the Barbie style, that identify each of the houses.)

“She’s the mastermind. … She thought of it all,” Gallegos said of Teran. Gallegos, who wears a white Ken jumpsuit as he points out the house’s decorations, joked that Teran “let me spend the night.” (If you saw the movie, you get it.)

A few doors down from the Teran/Gallegos house, the Paladini family has created a “mojo dojo casa house” — a reference to Ken’s masculine makeover of Barbie’s Dream House — with a flaming purple banner, images of Gosling’s Ken, as well as a Coors beer sign, an inflatable motorcycle, a full-size horse mannequin (wearing a pink boa), and a saloon-style door.

Gallegos said the owner sometimes comes out with a guitar, strumming a Matchbox Twenty song. (Again, if you saw the movie, you get it.)

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(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Justin Gallegos, dressed as “Ken” from the movie “Barbie,” answers questions outside his home in a section of Daybreak that has collectively created a Barbieland-themed community for Halloween on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023.

A community united in pink

Nearby is Lorie Rimington’s house, which is dedicated to Barn Barbie. Rimington, who used to ride horses, also wears the cowgirl outfit from the movie. She said she saw her neighbors doing it, and jumped at the chance to get involved.

“The first thing I knew is we had to have pink, pink, pink,” Rimington said. She bought cans of spray paint and painted some pumpkins. Then she bought some hay bales and went from there. Her porch now includes an inflatable cow, a vinyl sticker of a pink barn door, pink cowboy boots, and a lit sign in the window of a cowgirl silhouette.

Rimington said she has 3,000 pieces of pink candy to pass out to trick-or-treaters — as well as pink toys, necklaces and Barbie slap bracelets.

The movie, she said, was entertaining and funny, and she loved its big message.

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“You can be empowered to do anything you want to do, especially women. And who doesn’t want to be in pink?” Rimington said.

The fun of decorating her house has also deepened her sense of community, she said.

“When we started, I only knew a few neighbors,” Rimington said. “It has gotten all the neighbors together, and we know each other really well. It built that camaraderie and community together.”

Diedra Smith, who moved to the neighborhood with her husband two months ago, also found that sense of community through Barbieland. Her character is Astronaut Barbie, and she built a rocket out of metal trash cans and a tomato cage in her front yard.

“We didn’t know a soul,” Smith said. “After collectively coming together with this. I know everybody now. …

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“Anyone can do this: Get together with their neighbors [and] come out with a plan,” Smith said. “Do it for a cause. Do it for a purpose. Bringing joy to people’s lives is really important, clearly to all of us in Barbieland.”





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Utah

Retired Utah public employees who volunteer in emergencies may see changes to their pay. Here’s why.

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Retired Utah public employees who volunteer in emergencies may see changes to their pay. Here’s why.


Utah lawmakers will consider changes to how recently-retired public employees are paid if they later choose to work or volunteer as emergency responders during the upcoming legislative session.

The change is largely administrative, Kory Cox, director of legislative and government affairs for the Utah Retirement System, told lawmakers on Tuesday. The proposed bill would change the compensation limit for first responders like volunteer firefighters, search and rescue personnel and reserve law enforcement, from $500 per month to roughly $20,000 per year.

Some public employees already serve as first responders in addition to their day jobs, Cox and other advocates told the Retirement and Independent Entities Interim Committee at a hearing Tuesday. The current statute has forced those employees to put their service on hold after they retire in order to keep their retirement benefits.

Volunteer firefighters do get paid, despite what their title suggests. Volunteer organizations pay their emergency responders every six months, said Cedar City Fire Chief Mike Phillips, so their paychecks almost always amount to more than $500. Switching from a monthly compensation limit to an annual compensation limit means new retirees can keep up their service, or take up new service, without jeopardizing their retirement benefits.

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“As volunteer agencies, a lot of our employees are government employees,” said Cedar City Fire Chief Mike Phillips. “They work for county and state governments because they allow them to leave their employment to come help us fight fires.”

Clint Smith, Draper City fire chief and president of the Utah State Fire Chiefs Association, told lawmakers Tuesday that volunteerism, “especially in rural volunteer fire agencies,” but also across Utah and the United States, is “decreasing dramatically.”

The National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) reported 676,900 volunteer firefighters in the United States, down from 897,750 when the agency started keeping track in 1984. A U.S. Fire Administrations guide book about retention and recruitment for volunteer firefighters published last year wrote that the decline “took place while the United States population grew from nearly 236 million to over 331 million in the same time frame, indicating that volunteerism in the fire and emergency services has not kept pace with population growth.”

The consequences, the guide says, are “dire.”

Roughly 64% of Utah’s fire agencies are volunteer-only, according to the U.S. Fire Administration.

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“Anything we can do to help make sure that [volunteers] are not penalized when they separate from their full regular [employment] with the state, to be able to still act in that volunteer capacity is vital to the security and safety of our communities,” Smith said Tuesday.

It was an easy sell for lawmakers. The committee voted unanimously to adopt the bill as a committee bill in the 2025 legislative session with a favorable recommendation.

Shannon Sollitt is a Report for America corps member covering business accountability and sustainability for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.



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Utah State basketball just beat Iowa on a neutral floor to remain undefeated

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Utah State basketball just beat Iowa on a neutral floor to remain undefeated


The Utah State Aggies just grabbed a statement win.

Through four games under new head coach Jerrod Calhoun, the Utah State Aggies had looked impressive, averaging exactly 104 points per game and a margin of victory of exactly 40 points in four wins.

The thing was, the Aggies didn’t play any team that is expected to be near their level, as Alcorn State, Westminster and Montana all play in lesser conferences than the Mountain West and Charlotte was picked to finish eighth in the 13-team AAC, which is considered about on par with the MW.

Finally on Friday night, Utah State faced a team in the Iowa Hawkeyes of the Big Ten that not only was more its equal, but was thought to be better, and accordingly was considered a comfortable favorite.

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With the contest being played on a neutral floor in Kansas City, Utah State kept things close for the first 28 minutes or so and then used a surge to take the lead partway through the second half and held on down the stretch to claim the 77-69 victory and move to 5-0 on the season.

With the loss, an Iowa team that is considered to be a potential NCAA Tournament squad moved to 5-1 on the campaign.

The Aggies got off to a nice start and led for most of the first 10 minutes of the game. Things were pretty even throughout most of the rest of the first half, though Iowa put together a little run and led by four at halftime.

At the 12:52 mark of the second half the Hawkeyes went up by four on a dunk from leading scorer Payton Sandfort, but the Aggies responded with a 9-0 run over the next 3:42 to go up by five, 58-53.

Things stayed close for the next few minutes but Iowa never got closer than a point and Utah State created some distance, largely behind Mason Falslev and Karson Templin.

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A dunk from Central Arkansas transfer Tucker Anderson with 54 seconds to play quelled any remaining chance the Hawkeyes had at a comeback after they had cut the deficit from seven to four on a 3 by Brock Harding.

Falslev led all scorers with 25 points and finished with a double-double, as he added 12 rebounds to go along with three assists, two steals and a block.

Ian Martinez added 13 points and Anderson finished with 10. That pair stuffed the stat sheet, combining for 11 rebounds, eight steals, seven assists, and two blocks.

Team-wise, things were rather even statistically except for rebounds and fast break points. The Aggies outrebounded the Hawkeyes 47-31 and scored 21 fast break points compared to just four for Iowa.

Next up for Utah State is a Thanksgiving Day game against St. Bonaventure at Disney World.

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Avian flu affecting Utah turkey facilities, UDAF confirms

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Avian flu affecting Utah turkey facilities, UDAF confirms


TAYLORSVILLE — Four new cases of avian flu outbreaks have been reported in Utah, affecting three Piute County turkey facilities, the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food said in a press release.

“Between November 10 to 19, 2024, three turkey farms in Piute County totaling 107,800 turkeys and one backyard flock of 253 birds in Salt Lake County were confirmed positive for HPAI,” the department said. “Though the overall risk to public health remains low, HPAI is a serious disease, requiring rapid response, including depopulation of affected flocks as it is highly contagious and fatal to poultry.”

There are currently five poultry farms in Utah under quarantine, according to the department.

In the backyard flock because it’s so deadly, all but 33 birds died. All the turkeys are being depopulated because it’s highly contagious,” said Caroline Hargraves with the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.

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Officials said affected birds were depopulated within 24 hours of the reported outbreaks, and that impacts on food supply are expected to be limited.

“State and federal personnel are on-site to ensure all requirements for disinfection and proper disposal are followed,” the department said.

Officials said that poultry owners should “practice strong biosecurity and monitor flocks for signs of illness.”

The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food asked poultry owners to report sick birds to the State Veterinarian’s Office at statevet@utah.gov. They also said that people interacting with sick birds should take special precautions including using personal protective equipment.

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