Cedar City celebrates student essays; Shakespeare Festival outlines 2025 season

Cedar City’s council meeting on Feb. 14 included two community-focused items: the Love Where You Live student essay awards and a season preview from the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

Brandon Burke, Cedar City events director, briefed the council on the Love Where You Live campaign — a partnership with Iron County School District third-grade classes that drew more than 270 essays from about 20 classrooms. He outlined prize amounts funded by the Cedar City Rotary Club ($300 to the winning classroom and $150 to the student, down to smaller classroom/student awards), and introduced the top three student winners.

Third-place winner Creighton Lowe (Fiddlers Elementary), second-place winner Melly Francom (Iron Springs Elementary), and first-place winner Maya Salgado (Iron Springs Elementary) each read their essays to applause from council and the audience. Burke noted additional essays and honorable mentions would be posted on cedarcityut.gov/love and arranged prize pickup logistics.

Later in the meeting, Michael Barr, executive managing director of the Utah Shakespeare Festival, and John D’Antonio, artistic director, presented the festival’s 2025 season: productions include As You Like It; Anthony and Cleopatra; Macbeth; A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder; Steel Magnolias; The Importance of Being Earnest; and the recently added Dear Jack, Dear Louise in the Ains Theatre. Barr said the festival is offering a Cedar City resident ticket package and highlighted that ticket sales to date exceeded prior years at the same point in the season.

The council applauded both the student winners and the festival staff for their community engagement.

Provenance: student readings and awards (SEG 642–1107) and Utah Shakespeare Festival presentation (SEG 1157–1314).