Month: October 2013

Student volunteers are needed at a local non-profit animal supporting organization.

PAWS (providing animals with support) was established in 2002, and has grown exponentially, and has helped save nearly 1,000 animals in the St. George area. All work is voluntary and the profits go straight to the animals they sponsor. PAWS is employed with canine and feline experts who work with the animals.

Feline Director Andi Sykes said it’s hard not to get attached to the animals—she has seven cats of her own that she’s kept during her time volunteering at PAWS. 

“I’ve kept them because I couldn’t give them away,” Sykes said. “We screen everybody who wants to adopt. When you know they’re going to good homes, it’s easier letting them go.” 

The application process is simple yet thorough. If considering adopting an animal, one must answer questions like how many animals and children he or she currently has, and where the animals will be kept. 

Sykes said it’s hard to find people willing to adopt.

“It seems like in St. George there aren’t a lot of cooperative landlords,” Sykes said. “Some have to pay a huge pet deposit, and their rent might even go up. It’s really sad.” 

PAWS runs across that situation often, and Sykes said college students are often the ones caught in this predicament. She recommends volunteering for those who can’t adopt. They’ve never turned down a volunteer. 

“We just want to make sure you’re the right person,” Sykes said.

Volunteers and golfers gathered on Monday at Entrada at Snow Canyon Country Club for a golf tournament and silent auction sponsored by Stephen Wade. There was an impressive turn out, but Dar Fryatt, member at large, said he wished for a bigger turn out. 

“There are quite a few people who support PAWS, but the community at large could be better in my opinion,” Fryatt said. 

Fryatt said it’s easy to find people who want to adopt, but the hard part is getting a commitment out of them. 

“When we do adoption events, people will come by and say, ‘What a cute dog; I’ve always wanted a dog,’ and then walk away,” Fryatt said.

Fryatt said he would love to see more involvement from students.

“We have training, and busy students can do just one shift a week,” Fryatt said.

Volunteer shifts are three hours long, and you can sign up for any of the seven days a week. Fryatt said he’s usually done in less than two hours. Volunteers are responsible for simply taking them outside and letting them play.

“The love of an animal is so special,” Fryatt said. “Some of the things they do, you just look at them and laugh.”

If you are interested in learning more about PAWS, fill out an application or stop by their office, located on 1125 W. 1130 North, for more information.

Students and community members participate in Homecoming Week activities. Additional reporting was done by Jiselle Tejera.

From a smooth show of Miss Dixie to a winning football game, Dixie State University’s Homecoming entertained students.

Homecoming took place last week and started Oct. 21 and ended on Oct. 26.

Annmarie Arrdizone, a sophomore nursing major from Las Vegas, said the drive-in movie was the highlight for her.

Jordon Sharp, director of student involvement and leadership, said Homecoming this year went marvelously.

“Homecoming was outstanding this year and we are very pleased,” Sharp said. “The DSUSA student government and Student Alumni Association have been planning these events for months, and they were all well executed and well attended. Not including the game, we had approximately 14,000 people attend the Homecoming events.”

Sharp said entries for the parade were a big part of Homecoming because of the number of people who attended.

“The parade was my favorite because we reached almost 100 entries, had roughly 3,500-4,000 spectators, and the weather was perfect,” Sharp said.

Sharp said a problem the DSUSA encountered was limited space at the drive-in. More students showed up than expected.

“We did not anticipate the amount of people who attended the drive-in, which was a great surprise,” Sharp said. “We had a perfect set up for around 200 cars, but 400 cars showed up; however, we will be better prepared for that event next year because students and community loved it and the feedback was really good.”

Price said putting Miss Dixie a week ahead was nice because it opened a day for another event.

He also said it was a little bit of a change having the football game in the evening. Everything is usually crammed in the morning. Pushing the football game back gave everyone time to transition smoothly. Saturday events included the parade, Founder’s Day assembly, tailgate party, Homecoming game, Homecoming dance and True Rebel.

Jared Fleurant, a junior integrated studies major from Ogden, said Homecoming would have been more enjoyable with more events to attend.

Church said DSUSA kept it pretty close to old traditions. Student body participation was great, and that’s what makes the events.

“I think everything went great,” Church said. “Student body this year was so involved.”

From ranch dressing soda to gag gifts and foreign candies, St. George’s newest candy store, Rocket Fizz, has something for everyone.

Rocket Fizz opened Oct. 26 at 245 Red Cliffs Drive, Suite 6, next to Jonny Roxx Jewelry store and Coldstone Creamery. It is the first of its kind in Utah.

Rocket Fizz owner Tazia Murie said she and her husband heard about the franchise in Las Vegas.

“We knew we wanted to open some kind of candy store,” she said. “We had looked at the website and this one seemed to have the whole package.”

Rocket Fizz boasts more than 8,000 different brands of soda and candy, ranging from the everyday, like Jones soda, to the weird and exotic, like scorpion suckers. Shelves and coolers are filled with unorthodox soda flavors including bacon, dragon’s drool, coffee, cucumber and cookie dough.

Emily Gardiner, a Rocket Fizz employee and junior dance major from Hurricane, said the store’s variety is mind-boggling.

“You can look around this store for hours and still not see everything,” Gardiner said.

Rocket Fizz’s candy comes from all over the globe, with the Japanese candy being the most recent addition. Murie said they are also expecting British and Canadian candy soon.

Rocket Fizz also has an entire section dedicated to salt water taffy. It offers two sizes of bags, which can be filled to the brim with taffy of your choice. Do you think your bag is full? If the employees don’t, they’ll encourage you to fill it up even further.

Murie said she recommends the butterscotch soda and old-fashioned chocolate bars.

“[The soda] is made by flying cauldron and looks like a Harry Potter label and almost tastes like the butter beer from Harry Potter,” she said. “The candy is a hard one, but the old fashioned ones you don’t see as often, and they’re really hard to get now.” 

Murie lived in Washington County for six years before moving to Las Vegas, and she said she still has family in the area, which is why they chose St. George.

“We have a lot of connections here, so when we saw one of these in Las Vegas, we knew St. George had to have one.”

Murie said her favorite part about running the store is getting to sample everything as it comes in. 

“I’m going to confess: just getting to try everything is so fun,” she said. “I love getting to suggest different flavors to people; it’s fun, too.”

Gardiner said Rocket Fizz’s novelty items are the bizarre sodas.

“I’ve tried both the buffalo hot wings (soda) and the ranch (soda), and they were both pretty gross, but people like to try interesting things, so they actually sell really well,” she said. 

Murie said Rocket Fizz is unique because it’s more than just a candy or soda store.

“We sell gag gifts, and we do birthday parties and gift baskets,” she said, “We also sell big cut-out posters and the metal signs all over the walls.”

The signs have everything from old-school superhero logos like Batman, Spiderman and Captain America to the Wizard of Oz and quirky phrases.

She said people have come into the store for up to a half hour to just look around.

Murie said the No. 1 reason to come to Rocket Fizz is that the store always has new items coming in. 

“If you came in last week, we’re going to have different stuff coming in the next week and the week after that, and it’s always going to be different and changing.”

Rocket Fizz is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

“The Counselor” is full of death, drugs, betrayal and gore.

However, while “The Counselor” has many great actors, it lacks an engaging plot.

A lawyer (Michael Fassbender) called Counselor is looking for a little extra money. He gets engaged to Laura (Penelope Cruz), and buys a 3.9 karat diamond. For more money, he  gets involved with drug traffickers, and together they look to make $20 million on one truck-full of cocaine.

Counselor goes to Reiner (Javier Bardem), a club owner, for help joining the trafficking market. He then meets up with Westray (Brad Pitt), who is also part of the trafficking.

Things soon start to go south as the truck disappears, and Counselor is left to figure out how to get out of trafficking or get the truck back.

I wish I had known even just a little bit of the story going into the movie. Throughout the entire film I was trying to figure out what the point was. I realized after seeing the movie that the point was to kill off a few people in various ways, show a lot of blood, and make a few dirty jokes.

The movie had so much potential from top to bottom. It has Ridley Scott, an Academy Awards three-time best director nominee, Pitt, Cameron Diaz and Cruz.

The acting was phenomenal and I expected that out of the cast, but the characters weren’t explained well enough. Fassbender was perfectly cast as the emotional yet tough lawyer. Pitt wasn’t in the film much, but he owned the stage every time he was on-screen.

The biggest surprise for me was the acting of Diaz. I’m a fan of hers anyway, but in the film she played a tough, manipulative woman who always gets what she wants. She was perfect for the role.

The movie left me confused as to what was going on. The producers attempted to leave the film on a cliffhanger but didn’t do so well. The story didn’t have a good resolution, and Counselor’s ending point was left unexplained.

The movie was fast-paced with little explanation as to why random characters were important. The ending was abrupt and the producers killed a lot of characters just to show off a couple of new and intense ways to kill someone.

“The Counselor” deserves a C based on its lack of depth and story. it only eluded a D because of awesome acting.

Matthew has a different take

It’s true. I hadn’t read up on “The Counselor” much before seeing the movie. It looked intriguing enough, but I went into the theater completely oblivious to plot and cast. 

Like Jordan, I was wholly confused for a good portion of the film. What the heck was going on? But like a fine wine, I had to savor this movie for a few hours before I realized how good it actually was. 

Fassbender can do nothing wrong. Ever since he rocked my world as Magneto in “X-Men: First Class,” I’ve become increasingly fond of his work. He even made the so-so “Prometheus” watchable. I thought he executed (pun intended) his role beautifully in this film. 

The acting was great all around, in fact. The weakest link in the cast was probably Brad Pitt; all I saw was his character from “Ocean’s 11.” But he’s not featured too much in the film, so it’s OK. 

It takes a daring director to do what Ridley Scott did. I’ve only seen this type of filmmaking from the Coen brothers. The plot is highly dense, there is a confusing number of characters, and the storyline doesn’t wrap up nicely in a neat little package. 

It’s a movie that dares the audience to figure it out. It doesn’t rely on cheap dialogue and visual gimmicks to lead an idiotic viewer along. It didn’t treat me like a third grader. It figured the audience would be smart enough to figure it out eventually. 

And if not, then too bad for the audience.

It’s a smart film. It was directed smartly. It’s full of smart acting. Will it win any awards? If the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is smart, then it will. 

“The Counselor” gets an A from my end. I’d go for broke and make it an A+, but I’m going to remain grounded; I’m not going to lose my head. 

Zombies may not be as useless or over-romanticized as we think anymore, especially when they are coming together for a good cause.

A slow-moving herd of the undead made its way down St. George Boulevard Saturday at the fourth annual Zombie Walk hosted by Comics Plus to raise food donations for Dixie Care and Share.

The event contained the whole family package: bounce houses, face painting and music provided by a DJ from The Rush. Free comics and prizes were also up for grabs outside the store, drawing in zombie and comic book lovers from all over the area.

Kat Colson, a former Dixie State University student from Naugatuck, Conn., has aided the growth of the Zombie Walk since its debut. She has recruited many of the rotting corpses who have attended to help the cause over the years.

“Dixie Care and Share is a group of people who don’t have nearly as much as they should,” Colson said. “So this event is kind of a funny contradiction. The zombies are now feeding the humans instead of the other way around.”

People driving down the road were taken aback by the somewhat frightening spectacle. Some honked and some cringed in fear, but the participants of the walk never broke their zombie characters and did not hesitate to growl hungrily at passing cars.

Children ranging from four to 14 years old kept up a limping pace behind their brain-craving parents on the downtown stroll, demonstrating that zombies of all ages have the heart to help the hungry (even if that heart no longer has a pulse).

A vintage polka-dot zombie girl from Richfield named Brittainee Robinson showed up with half of her face bleeding and gory.

She said she has volunteered for the Comics Plus Zombie Walks for two years. As she set up empty cardboard boxes outside the Comics Plus front door, Robinson said she was pleased to see at least 10 boxes of food donations had been already filled throughout the day.

“We’re seeing more and more people participate, and I think it’s because of shows like ‘The Walking Dead,’” Robinson said. “Everyone who comes to these walks has the same sort of interests in comic books and in the zombies. So, the more the better.”

Robinson attended her first walk in 2011 and met David Roland, owner of Comics Plus. Little did she know, her importance to future zombie walks and the man behind the cause would become much more permanent.

“I met my boyfriend, David, after I accidentally added him on Facebook,” Robinson said. “We met up at the walk, and the rest is history. It was fun because the first time he saw me I was all gross and zombied-out. I guess it worked for him!”

Since then, Robinson has been Roland’s right-hand lady. She helped build up the new Comics Plus store location, organized many of the hosted events, and created the artwork on fliers around town.

In his opening speech, Roland shocked the crowd of zombies as he knelt down on one knee and publicly professed his undying zombie love for his girlfriend.

“Brittainee Robinson,” Roland said, “You have been with me for the past two years through thick and thin, hard times and good times. You are now with me through our ‘dead’ times. Would you do me the honor of sharing the rest of your life with me?”

Robinson said “Yes” to Roland’s proposal, which left the zombies swooning and melting in the hot afternoon sun.

As unusual as the event may have seemed to outsiders, the zombies concluded the walk beaming with their best dead smiles and left about 500 pounds of food for Dixie Care and Share.