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Fire Destroys Utah State University Extension in St. George

Yesterday’s fire at Utah State University’s Extension Facility in St. George has resulted in an apparent total loss. Brian Higgenbotham is the Associate Vice President for the extension. He says it’s going to be difficult to put a dollar value on the damage to this center of community education.

“In St. George we actually have, we had I should say, a very nice facility that had conference rooms, and rooms for demonstrations for some of our family consumer science programs, also had large area for our 4H,” he says.

Higgenbotham says county and insurance investigators are assessing the overall damage but water damage seems to be the biggest factor right now.

He says the outpouring of the community, businesses and even fellow schools has been very encouraging.

“You know we continue to have a strong commitment and look forward to rebuilding and continuing to offer great services there,” says Higgenbotham

He says it’s fortunate the fire was discovered before there were many people around and the handful of faculty there evacuated without incident.  

Bob Nelson is a graduate of the University of Utah with a BA in mass communications. He began his radio career at KUER in 1978 when it was still in Kingsbury Hall. That’s also where he met his wife, Maria Shilaos, in 1981. Bob left KUER for commercial radio where he worked for 25 years, and he is thrilled to be back at KUER. Bob and his family are part of an explorer group, fondly known as The Hordes and Masses, which has been seeking out ghost towns and little-known places in Utah for more than twenty years.
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