By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News

Emery County Commissioner Jordan Leonard joined the KOAL newsroom to discuss everything happening in the county. Speaking on the importance of youth involvement in politics, giving a shoutout to the County Attorney’s office, Leonard spent a bulk of the conversation highlighting the upcoming Emery County Fair, which is scheduled to run from Tuesday, July 29, until Saturday, Aug. 2.

Opening our discussion, Leonard discussed Izzy Turner’s presentation to the commission on her experience. “We’ve talked about Girls and Boys State the last few times we visited, and it’s been a good, educational learning opportunity for our youth,” said Leonard. “And Izzy, the other cool part is she went to Girl State, and she was offered a scholarship. I believe it was around $14,000. So, it’s not just a learning opportunity; there are also scholarships available, and various skills that they can add to their resume for the rest of their lives. And so it’s great professional development for our youth.”

Continuing, Leonard shared his belief on the importance of transparency within local government: “The more information we can get out to the community, the more transparency, the better. It’s tough when everybody’s going about their day-to-day things and they hear about something. And I appreciate being on the radio, because by sharing information, people feel more comfortable coming into the office to talk about issues.”

Moving to his biweekly spotlight, Commissioner Leonard gave a shoutout to the County Attorney’s Office, which recently passed a major audit. “That was a lot of work for our Attorney’s Office. The attorney, as well as the ladies in the office, did a lot of work to make sure that we’re in compliance with the audits. And it was great to know that we had passed that. And we just wanted to give a shoutout to them for working hard and making sure that the audit was passed for the county.”

Changing gears, Leonard spoke about the upcoming Emery County Fair, which begins on Tuesday, July 29, and continues through Saturday, Aug. 2. “I could talk for a while, but there are a lot of fun activities for adults, and especially for the youth. We have rides and a lot of activities for the youth.” He continued,” And we also have Frontier Days. A lot of you know, we think about our history and heritage with the pioneers and our ancestors and what they did to establish Emery County. And so we wanted to highlight that through Frontier Days. A lot is going on with the County Fair.”

He added,” I think that’s the key to it, making sure that we remember who was before us, how we were established as a county, and it brings back some nostalgia of what we have become and what we were.”

The full slate of fair activities is available online at emerycountychamber.com.

Closing our conversation, Leonard stated,” We have the 24th coming up, you know, celebrating our great state. And so just enjoy family. Hopefully you can get out and have a barbecue, but hope to see all of you around at some point.”