More than 15,900 applications on behalf of 27,270 students were submitted for the Utah Fits All Scholarship.

The application window for the inaugural K-12 school choice scholarship program opened Feb. 28 and closed on Monday. Utah lawmakers appropriated $82.5 million over the past two years to start the program, which will launch this fall with 10,000 scholarships awarded.

Scholarships can be used to pay for private education options such as private school tuition, educational software and hardware, microschool tuition and after-school programs. Each scholarship is $8,000.

“With the application period closed, I’m excited to see that 27,270 children have applied for the Utah Fits All Scholarship,” said Rep. Candice Pierucci, R-Riverton, sponsor of HB215, passed in 2023, which created the program.

“This is an exciting time for families and students in Utah as we increase options and opportunities for students in our state,” said Pierucci, chairwoman of the House Education Committee.

Passage of the legislation was a sea change in Utah education policy in that it expands the use of public money for private education choices far beyond existing programs for families of children with disabilities.

Scholarship awards and waitlist information will be provided to applicants on May 3, according to ACE Scholarships, which is managing the program under contract with the Utah State Board of Education.

Scholarships will be awarded based on the guidelines in HB215, which describe three levels of preference:

⋅Students whose family income is at the 200% federal poverty level or less.

⋅Students whose family’s income is between 200-555% of the federal poverty level.

⋅All Utah K-12 students regardless of family income.

Jackie Guglielmo, vice president of education savings account programs at ACE Scholarships, said “high demand for the Utah Fits All Scholarship Program is proof that Utah families are hungry for high-quality educational options.”

ACE Scholarships “is committed to ensuring the application and award process runs as smoothly as possible and we will continue providing frequent updates to applicants,” Guglielmo said.

Robyn Bagley, executive director of the parent advocacy organization Utah Education Fits All, said supporters were “not at all surprised to see such high demand for the Utah Fits All Scholarship as profoundly illustrated by the 27,270 student applications submitted to the program in its inaugural year. The outstanding response is indicative of parents’ growing inclination to shape their children’s learning journey.”

According to Bagley, nearly 13,000 individual student applications were received less than a week into the application period.

“We look forward to hearing the stories of what the scholarship students experience and accomplish in their first year when given the power to customize learning to fit their unique needs, values and passions,” Bagley said.

Pierucci said the Utah Fits All Scholarship “will empower families to make the best decisions for their kiddos in providing opportunities to learn in a way that makes sense for them.”

Hockey fans in Utah have recently learned that the Arizona Coyotes will be relocating to their state. I’m sure one question fans have is: What are they getting in the former Coyotes organization, what do they have, what do they still need and where are they in the contention cycle?

To highlight this, I’m going to focus on the core players either on the roster or in the pipeline who are age 25 or under, who can be part of the foreseeable future in Utah.

Centers

Logan Cooley, Barrett Hayton, Conor Geekie, Jack McBain

Cooley may be the most important player currently in the Utah organization. Having an elite NHL player or two is a near necessity for winning a championship. Clayton Keller is excellent but isn’t an elite NHL player. Cooley is the organization’s best shot at that type of player based on his talent level and how he’s played at various levels the last few seasons. As a 19-year-old rookie, he recorded 44 points in 82 NHL games. He’s a dynamic skater, puck handler and passer who can make a lot of high-end skilled plays at a top pace. He’s not that big but competes well. He has the makings of a potential star No. 1 center that Utah can build a winner around.

Hayton and Geekie are both very good young centers. Hayton is a several-year pro who hasn’t lived up to the billing of his fifth overall selection in 2018, but is a middle-six center in the league. Geekie is a recent top-15 pick still in junior hockey, but was very good in the WHL this past season. Geekie is a bit bigger than Hayton, Hayton is a little more skilled, neither are great skaters, but both compete well and make a lot of plays with the puck. The hope is they can be the 2/3 punch down the middle, in some order, with Cooley leading the charge for this organization.

Wings

Daniil But, Josh Doan, Dylan Guenther, Clayton Keller, Matias Maccelli

This is the strongest position for Utah currently. Keller is a star who was a high pick from the beginning of the current rebuild. He’s a dynamic forward with high-end skill and hockey sense who plays with pace and will be a high-producing forward for a while.

Maccelli has developed phenomenally — after being a fourth-round pick in 2019 — into a legit NHL scorer. He went that low because he’s not that big or fast, but has overcome those issues because of how good his puck play is. Maccelli is super smart and skilled with the puck and can run an NHL power play off the flank. To go with Keller and Maccelli are top-tier young prospects in Guenther and But.

Guenther’s first full year as a pro went very well. He was a productive AHL player before coming up to the NHL and scoring 35 points in 45 games for the Coyotes. He’s a big winger who skates well and while he can make plays, it’s his elite shot that defines his offensive value and should make him a valuable top-six wing on a good team with a chance to be a legit top-line winger.

But was a high first-round pick a year ago. He had a strong year versus men production-wise even if his ice time wasn’t amazing on a top KHL team. The toolkit he has looks like an NHL player. He’s huge at 6-foot-5 and maybe taller. He skates quite well for a guy his size. He has very good offensive skills and he’s able to finish chances well. But is a year or two away from the NHL, but he has the potential to be a top-six wing as well.

Josh Doan is a high second-round pick from 2021, and the son of organization legend Shane Doan, who looked quite good as a rookie pro as well and is showing indicators he could be a middle-six wing in the league given his skill, size and compete level.

Between Keller, Guenther, But, Maccelli and Doan, Utah has a potential large part of its future on the wing built out already especially since that’s a position that can be more easily plugged in through free agency.

Dmitri Simashev, the sixth overall pick at the 2023 NHL Draft, has the potential to be a major-minutes, all-situations defenseman in the NHL. (Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

Defensemen

Sean Durzi, Maveric Lamoureux, J.J. Moser, Dmitri Simashev, Juuso Valimaki

Utah has some good young talent at defense, but between their forward and blue-line situations, there is a need for more on defense in terms of building a contending group.

They made a good initial step last summer though drafting Dmitri Simashev with the sixth overall pick. He will play in Russia for another year, but he’s a big, athletic defenseman who has some skill and competes hard. He has the potential to be a major-minutes, all-situations defenseman in the NHL.

Lamoureux has some offense/puck-moving questions, but his massive frame, plus strong skating and physical play could make him a second or third-pair defenseman.

Moser and Durzi have played big roles on the recent Coyotes teams. I don’t know if on a contender they are going to be the leaned-on type of defensemen they were this season given that neither are amazing skaters. Both are very smart and competitive players though, and Durzi has the creative mind to run an NHL power play well.

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Goaltender

Michael Hrabal

Utah used a high second-round pick in 2023 on Hrabal, who is one of the better goaltending prospects in hockey currently. He doesn’t project as a true impact starting goalie, but he looks like a future NHL goaltender given his massive frame, good quickness, and hockey sense. He projects at least as a tandem starter with a chance to be a legit starting goaltender.

Projecting NHL Utah’s future

Utah has spent quite a few years rebuilding, starting way back with picking Dylan Strome third overall in 2015, and after a lot of seasons of losing in Arizona a new fan base in Salt Lake City could be in position to benefit from the assets they’ve accumulated.

They have a desirable group of young forwards. They have a strong potential top center in Cooley, and a good nucleus of talent to build a contending top-nine group around. Even though they didn’t have a good season overall, Arizona still finished middle of the pack in the NHL in goals scored and has room to grow with the development of their young forwards.

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They have some good young blueliners, but continuing to build out their group of young defensemen is still a priority for this organization. It remains to be seen how Simashev is going to be as a pro as he develops, even if he’s a highly promising player. Maybe a second-round pick like Artyom Duda hits, but for now this is the area of the organization that needs more high-end depth. Utah has another high pick this season in a defense-heavy class; maybe the team will pick up another top prospect there.

Overall, this is an organization trending slowly in the right direction. If they even got average goaltending this season they could have pushed for a playoff spot and were at points this season. I can see them becoming a legit playoff contender over the next two to three years, and if they acquire or develop one or two more premium young players they could form a core that can be a contender down the line.

(Photo of Logan Cooley: Norm Hall / NHLI via Getty Images)

It’s unclear how a 1896 document signed by President Grover Cleveland approving Utah as a state ended up at a Boston-based document auction this spring, but it’s now finding its home in the Beehive State.

Anthony Christensen, the founder of Anthony’s Fine Art & Antiquities, announced the gallery’s purchase of the document in its neoclassical gallery on Monday afternoon.

The building itself is historical — it formerly was the Immanuel Baptist Church built in 1911 — and throughout the gallery hangs the work of artists like Walter Rane, Arnold Friberg and Minerva Teichert. The sun peers in through the stained glass ceiling and around every corner is a treasure like Louis Comfort Tiffany’s The Good Shepherd stained-glass window or H.L.A. Culmer’s landscape of the Grand Canyon.

It took decades of trying for Utah to become a state, but there was something else that Christensen emphasized when he first announced the sale.

Christensen quoted from a letter John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail Adams about how what has become known as Independence Day in the United States would be remembered.

“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival,” Adams wrote. “It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

Paraphrasing this quote, Christensen recalled how the Latter-day Saint pioneers celebrated July 4 and lit bonfires in what is now known as Big Cottonwood Canyon even as they faced military opposition. “They wanted to be part of America, that was their heritage,” Christensen said.

With that as a backdrop, Micah Christensen, art consultant and European art and furniture expert, said Anthony’s Fine Arts & Antiquities has been in the business for 40 years and has purchased many historically significant objects throughout the decades.

“But this one really strikes at what we feel like is part of our stewardship,” Christensen told media in a press conference. “Which is to make sure that things that are meaningful to the state find their way back here and are celebrated and understood in context.”

The document — a handwritten letter penned in iron gall ink — sold for $27,188 at auction. Christensen said there were several documents from the federal government that were sold at auction. “But what’s uncommon is there would be one that was so specific to the state of Utah.”

“I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of State to cause the Seal of the United States to be affixed to my Proclamation admitting the State of Utah into the Union of States; dated this day, and signed by me; and for doing so this shall be his warrant,” the document reads in full.

Christensen said the gallery bought it “because we felt like it was important to bring that document and ensure that it is here in the state and it’s our goal to make sure that it goes to a state institution.”

It symbolizes the end of Utah’s petitioning to become part of the United States. It was signed on Jan. 4 of that year. It was signed concurrently with a proclamation (Proclamation 382) that created the state. The territory applied six times before finally entering the Union in 1896.

The gallery displayed it on the wall surrounded by other historical objects related to Utah’s journey to statehood, including a 45-star flag.

Ronald Fox, the co-chair of the Utah Commission on the 250th anniversary of the United States and president of The Fox Group, partnered with the gallery in its pursuit of the document.

Cleveland signed the document in private. “He had a delegation from Utah there,” Fox said, but they did not witness the signing of the document.

Its journey from that signing to where it currently is in downtown Salt Lake City is unclear.

Somewhere around the turn of the 20th century, a clerk or a secretary of state released a batch of documents into the public and they were no longer property of the federal government, Fox said. Private collectors owned this document prior to it coming to auction, but whose hands and how many hands it passed through is unknown.

“It is our hope that it goes into the new state museum,” Fox said, referencing the history museum slated to open in 2026 at the Utah Capitol. It’s Christensen’s hope that the gallery will find a client who would buy the document and donate it to the state so it can end up in the museum.

Fox also said that it’s likely the first time this document has ever actually been in the state of Utah. “There’s just nothing like it.”

When the document was signed and Utah became a state, Fox said there was a jubilant celebration.

“The telegraph office was buzzing with information, and the telegraph operator came out into the middle of the street with a double barrel shotgun and fired it off to get everybody’s attention,” Fox said.

The 5 p.m. edition of the Deseret Evening News reported the news of Utah becoming a state on Jan. 4, 1896, also noting the shotgun announcement, bells ringing and blowing of whistles.

Utah’s struggle to become a state was unlike any other state in the country.

Though Cleveland signed the letter on Jan. 4 1896, it wouldn’t be until July 4 of that year that the official statehood celebrations commenced and the U.S. added the 45th star to the American flag.