by Tara Bryant and Julie Simonson

"Magna, now where is that?" Is a commonly asked question when we say that is where we are from. The answer to the question is that it is twelve miles west of Salt Lake. We chose to do our Service Learning project on Magna because we wanted the history of Magna to be remembered by the community and others who are interested in the history of an old mining town. When trying to find information of Magna on the Internet, it was practically impossible. If successful in obtaining the information that we want, others wanting to find the history of Magna will not find it nearly as difficult. The project will be on display for all to read at the Magna Historical Museum, currently under preliminary construction.

People who would most benefit from reading our project are those who are interested in Magna, most likely citizens of the Magna community. Retired community members would enjoy reading the testimonials and seeing pictures of Magna of when they were in their youth. Tourists could pick up the pamphlet and read about the history of Magna to gain a better understanding of Magna. People interested in seeing the change and growth of Magna, reading testimonials of people who lived in different time periods, would enjoy reading this project. The project covers numerous stories of real people, who would not be interested in that? Anyone who has ever wondered about the past, from current issues to fashion, would be interested in reading our project. There is not just one group of people that this project is intended for, but if we had to put a title on it, it would be for anyone who is interested in learning about the past.

Howard Stahle is currently the editor of the Magna Times, the local newspaper. He is also responsible for the development of the Magna Historical Museum. Once completed, the pamphlet of Magna Through the Generations will be donated to the Magna Historical Museum. Because of some of the pitfalls that we have encountered, which are explained later, the pamphlet is still a work in progress. Some information received from Cyprus High School was a great asset to our project. Cyprus High published an alumni book spanning from 1918-2000. This book contains a history of Cyprus High and the community that grew around it. It also contains up-to-date progress of all the alumni of Cyprus High. It aided us because it gave detail about the only high school in Magna.

We interviewed people who were raised in Magna, and some who still reside in Magna. They are all from different generations. We did this to show how values and trends differ in each generation. We interviewed Grandpa Tuttle from the 1930's generation, Tad Poulton Simonson who was raised in Magna during the 1960's, Brooke Olson who graduated in 1997, and finally Timothy Bryant who currently lives in Magna, and is a student at Cyprus High School. Asking them all the same questions, we see how Magna has changed, as well as how society has changed. Hopefully future generations are going to find the differences in the answers as interesting as we did.

The questions that we asked were the following:

1- What sort of things were important to you while attending high school?

2- What were the current events in Magna?

3- What were the current events in Utah?

4- What were the current events in the United States?

5- What role did each of your parents play while you were growing up?

6- How many people did you have in your family?

7- What styles were popular

8- What things were the new fades?

9- What was every day life like?

10- How has the growth of Magna effected you today?

People of different generations have different goals and different issues that affect their lives. We included pictures of the people we interviewed, which are taken from their senior year book. Also included are pictures of Magna, some recent and some old. Along with these testimonials, we included statistics about Magna to see how population, workforce, and other social factors have increased over the years.

Obtaining the information from the people we interviewed is most of the workload . Having us in Cedar City and not in Magna where all the information is made the project more difficult. We spent a lot of time on the telephone doing interviews, as well as the internet receiving e-mails with information that we requested. Actually typing up the information was the simplest part of the project. We found it more difficult to find pictures of Magna as well because none were available on the internet.

In this project technology really let us down, with all the ways of distributing information these days, there was nothing to be found on the history of Magna. We had to go to the old ways of getting information, going right to the people who lived through it. There has been no work done on Magna that has been put on any sort of web site. This made it very difficult in getting the information we needed, being so far away from the town. We were able to use e-mail to our advantage, by sending questions to different people, and having them send the answers back. This made it so we could get into contact with people who are hours away from us. Then we had to do things the old fashion way with people who don’t have access to a computer, a good old in person interview.

One thing that we learned from trying to find information about Magna on the internet, is that there is no information on the internet about Magna. This would be a great service learning project, creating a web site that gave the history of this little town. We went on to a web site that gave the history of all the cities in the state of Utah, we thought we had finally found it. Then to our dismay Magna was no where to be found. Through writing an e-mail to the person that keeps up the web site we learned, Magna is not really a city, it is unincorporated, and therefor no information was given. Even thought this little town has not been incorporated there is still a history there, and it needs to be told. We are sure there are other people that would like to know the history of the town they are from. So the idea of making a web site for the history would be a great project that would benefit many people. Most people do not have the time to go out and interview people, or even go to the local library to find out information on this town. We really need to use the technology we have been given, and in our view a web sight would be the best way of getting out the information on this town, and the history of the people that lived, and still live there today. The hardest part would be getting it started, with no prior information out there, a lot of research would need to be done in the beginning, but in the log run this would be an easy site to keep up. Simply because the history of this town is not going to change over time, so the only thing that would change would be if new information came into the hands of the person that was keeping up the website. Technology is a great tool and should be used to increase our knowledge of every aspect of our life including the history of where we are from.

Another project that could come from the service learning project is taking the pamphlet and making a documentary video. With the aid of Microsoft video productions software, it is possible to make a video at low cost. The documentary would include all the information already obtained, plus footage of businesses, new and old, and interviews of business owners. We would ask them questions pertaining to why they chose Magna to locate their business. We would add pictures of how Magna looks today verses how it looked forty years ago. By adding statistics and facts about growth and change of Cyprus High, Brockbank Jr. High, and information on the new jr. high Scott M. Matheson Jr. High would show how Magna is becoming a town of much popularity.

The project would take considerable amount of time, possibly a year or even longer. Getting the information from the Magna community would be the most time consuming because not much information is available. It would be a hit and miss process. By asking everyone who we come in contact with what they think of Magna, and then hopefully at least one out of the bunch would have some valid information.

After producing the video, we could donate it to the local schools to view as a short history lesson of their town. We could also give a copy to the assisted living centers in Magna as a "I remember when" type video. A video would beneficial because some learn and understand by visual images rather then words on paper. It is an effective method to actually see the person behind the story and not just read their words. To have the actual person telling their story gives much more meaning to the project as a whole.

The last project that we thought would be a great idea in this field of history is the implementing of the information of the different towns into the local schools. Most of the time when you have a history class in Jr. High and High school there is never any information given about the place you live, unless you are from a big town. If the teachers could have at least one part of the lesson be about the place they are living, the next generation is going to have a better understanding of the place they come from. Then in the future we could avoid all of the problems that we went through trying to get information on our town. A community class could even be put together where the adults of the town could attend and lean their history.

We want to show how generations change. Every generation can learn from the previous one, it is just a matter of understanding the issues that were relevant with each generation, wether it be the assassination of President Kennedy, or the Bill Clinton affair. All are relevant to understanding history. Here are some of the things we found interesting while doing our research on Magna.

After interviewing the different people from Magna there were a lot of changes that became apparent to us, the town as well as the people that lived there, and still live there today. One big change that the town went through was the change from a blue collar town to a suit town when the big businesses started to move in. Magna became first settled by the families of the mines, there was company housing, as well as private housing for the workers and there families. This gave the town the title of a blue collar town, because the people that lived there didn’t have much education, and had to rely on hard labor work for income. After the mine moved south so did the people and Magna started to see a new breed of folks moving in. There was still a lot of miners that stayed but the bulk of them moved. Magna really made a drastic change when in 1990 the computer company Packared Bell moved it’s head quarters to Magna, bringing in the intelligent business men, and their families. Magna is now one of the fastest growing communities in Utah. More and more businesses are moving in, while new apartment complexes are going up, and getting filled up with young families looking for a new place to start their life. Where Magna was once known as the place where you went if there was no where else. It is now known as the place where new things are staring up, and is going full speed into the 21^st century.

The next big change that we learned about in our interviews was the styles and things that were popular at the time. This is something that really interested us while doing this project. We took the two girls that we interviewed and looked at the different ways they did their hair, as well as the things they wore. Tad told us that the hair style that was popular at the time she was in high school, was the ratted high hair. "The bigger the better" tended to be the motto that went with the way her generation did their hair. While in Brooke’s generation it was the straight long look, as well the shorter hair started to come back into style. This generation went for a much sleeker look, or a classy look. While listening to Tad we also found out that the girls had to wear dresses to school, it was a rule. This really shocked us because it took us back to a time where women didn’t have all the rights that they have today, and it was very interesting to actually hear it from someone who had to live through it. Brooke on the other hand told us that it was a T-shirt and jeans that she wore to school, and this was also the popular thing to wear. You can really see a change not just in the ways that the people dresses, but in the way that women were viewed, and treated in the different generations. The reason that we thought this part of the interviews was interesting, is because it was not just a Magna thing. We can lean about what is going on in the whole state at this time. By simply looking at the different things that were popular, as well as accepted at the different times in history.

In conclusion we learned a lot about the place that we grew up, as well about the lack of history that has been done on it. We never thought it would be so important to know what the history is where we came from, but in doing this project we can see that there could be a need for the knowledge, and hope that someone will sometime take the time to do it. We also learned that history is not just about the land and the changes it went through, but a story of the people, and the community. Both of us doing this project are going to be teachers, and from doing this project we can see the need for kids in school to learn about the towns they are living in, as well as the story of the whole world, that is normally taught. We hope that is some way we have served our town by sharing just a little of the history that we found out, and hope that in time we can help keep the learning going.