Culture

SYRACUSE — Students attending year-round school in Davis School District are being treated to a rare cultural experience this month.

Twenty-eight Korean junior and senior college students majoring in education have been divvied out to Foxboro, Bluff Ridge, Lincoln and Antelope elementary schools to give students cultural lessons and one-on-one instruction.

For district officials who invited the foreign exchange students, it is a unique opportunity for their students to see the world from a different perspective.

I claim a few permanent results of my efforts as a columnist, and the tower clock in the Box Elder County Courthouse is one of the grandest.

My very first column, ever, in 1995, described the rediscovery of that old clock. It was forgotten and covered in bird dung for decades. My column sparked a community effort to refurbish and repair the clock, which now ticks in burnished brass splendor, tucked behind the elevator in the courthouse lobby. One of my stories describing the clock’s discovery permanently hangs beside it.

It was fun to help preserve a bit of Brigham City’s past, although the city does a pretty good job on its own.

OGDEN — Compass USA is looking for families to host teenage students from France and Spain this summer.

Host families are paid a $50 per week stipend. The students vary from 14 to 19 years old and stay two to six weeks at various times throughout the summer. They bring spending money and are here to improve their English, be part of a U.S. family and learn about American culture.

For more information, see Compass USA’s website at www.compass-usa.net and click Host Family or email Shelly Thorne at compass.shelly@gmail.com.

The 3,000 students at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research at Weber State University have studied everything they need to know to run the world when they take over, and that’s good.

Judging by the results, the current operators — that’s us — are working blind.

OGDEN — When Zaynab Alshakhiss won her bid for the Weber State University student Senate, it didn’t draw much attention in Ogden, but when the news hit in Alshakhiss’ native Saudi Arabia, the media mobilized.

Over spring break, more than a dozen print and online newspapers approached Weber State representatives and Alshakhiss for the story of her groundbreaking win as the international student senator for the 2012-13 year.

OGDEN -- When Adrienne Gillespie saw a Utah video in the news and that it was close to becoming viral, she had a gut reaction.

"I am so offended, so disheartened," she posted on her Facebook page. "Few things give me pause such as this."