RISING STAR: Did you know that rising young movie actress Amy Adams, star of “Julie and Julia” (she played Julie opposite Meryl Streep’s Julia), has relatives living in Cedar City?

Her uncle is Frank Adams, who has created some of Cedar City’s most beautiful stained glass windows, including the “Learning Lives Forever” window in the Gilbert Great Hall on the SUU campus. She is also a cousin to realtor Kelly Newville.

Among Amy’s other standout performances: Steven Spielberg’s “Catch Me If You Can” opposite Leonardo DeCaprio, Walt Disney’s “Enchanted,” “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” with Amy as Amelia Earhart, “Sunshine Cleaning,” and “Doubt,” for which she received nominations for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award (her second nomination for both honors).

Up next: “The Fighter,” playing the love interest of actor Mark Wahlberg.

REMEMBERING FONDLY:  The woman in the 1940s who was always at the tail end of Cedar City parades carrying the American flag while dressed in a long fur coat, even on the Fourth and 24th of July.

The old community swimming pool at the site where the new library has been constructed (it doubled as a teen canteen in the 40s) and the open air dance pavilion on University Boulevard where popular teenage movie actor Lon McCallister in 1948 crowned the newly designated Cedar City Teen Queen, Doris Esplin.

The rusty spiral fire escape then attached to the Old Main building at SUU (the school was known at the time as the Branch Agricultural College) and sheep grazing on the college lawn where the SUU auditorium is now located.

The A sign atop Old Main that they illuminated on game nights and the bell in the building’s tower that they rang vigorously after athletic victories.

The basketball games in the old college gymnasium – now the Gilbert Great Hall – between the BAC and Dixie College, with packed crowds and a small replica of a horse being pulled around the gym in victory. We were Broncos in those days, not Thunderbirds.

The parking meters on Main Street in 1949 that were literally covered by the famous snow storm of that year.

OUR BEST: Jason Clark, technical director at the Heritage Center Theater in downtown Cedar City and the heart of the operation, provides visiting performing groups with a professionalism and cordiality essential to the operation.

Always pleasant to be around, he is hard working and non-judgmental, ready to be of service to any and all who use the theater. His expertise as a lighting and sound designer helps ensure the performers look and sound their best. Hats off to Jason, May’s “Our Best” of Cedar City.

JUST THE FACTS: The unemployment rate in Iron County at the end of February was 8.8 percent, compared to Washington County’s 9.1 percent and the national average of 9.7 percent.

Nonagricultural employment in Iron County increased by 112 jobs in February. Employment totaled 15,325 in January compared to 15,437 in February. Washington County lost another 124 jobs in February.

An indication of how the retail sector in Cedar City is doing can be demonstrated by the amount of sales tax revenue being generated each month. The latest figures (February) from the Utah Tax Commission show $311,457 sales taxes were generated in February 2010, compared to $300,270 in February 2009, or an increase of 4 percent.

During the month of March, Cedar City issued 23 new business licenses, which included, among others, lawn maintainance, a new auto group, a hair salon, and a guide service for tourists.

POLITICS: A major goal of Cedar City has been the completion of the Coal Creek flood control project. The $11 million dollar project is designed to protect Cedar City from the long predicted 100-year flood, which scientists insist is not a matter of if but rather of when.

Without the project’s completion the east side of Cedar City could be devastated by the flood, Main Street would suffer substantial damage, and the cemetery could be pushed out to the airport.

Sen. Robert Bennett successfully earmarked $8 million for the project and it has been spent to bring the flood control to its current stage. Bennett has promised he’ll get the remaining $3 million next year to complete Coal Creek’s flood control.

As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Bennett would no doubt be able to get the funds appropriated. Which is why officials here are so interested in the Republican convention in Salt Lake City on May 8 where Bennett’s renomination is being challenged.

Some Utah politicos predict he won’t make the nomination cut, which would leave Cedar City without the funding to finish the Coal Creek project and the city remaining vulnerable to a future flood’s rampage.

REMEMBERING: A few months after the arrival in Cedar City of its first settlers, the encampment experienced what the pioneers called “the time of the black canker.” The Cedar City encampment had no sugar for a long time and their mouths started swelling and turning dark.

Someone discovered that in the mornings, the dew on the willows and cottonwood leaves tasted sweet. So they shook and washed the drippings off and boiled them down for syrup. Presumably, the mixture cured the canker, because it is not mentioned again in early journals.

Later, after they had fruits and root vegetables and sorghum, the dew no longer tasted sweet. I recall hearing this story some years back, and there were some present at the time who doubted that it had actually happened.

But scientists have provided us with the answer as to why the dew tasted sweet. What the pioneers were tasting was the “honeydew,” as it’s called, secreted by aphids on the leaves of the trees. Honeydew does contain sugar – and is much sought after by ants – as well as by pioneers deprived of sweets.

MAKING US ALL PROUD: Mitch Talbot, former Canyon View baseball star and the son of Art and Mary Talbot, is in his first season pitching for the Cleveland Indians and scored his first win at the major leagues level with a 4 to 2 game against the White Sox on April 16.

DID YOU KNOW? That Castro Jewelers has completed its move from its Main Street location to the Providence Center? The spot it occupied will now become a scrapbook supplies store. Old timers will remember when the location housed Peterson Drug Store, then Cowley Drug.

That the Memorial Grove with some 90 trees (and 14 different varieties) is nearing completion at its location on Coal Creek north of the 300 West bridge. A second Grove is planned somewhere along the Coal Creek Parkway.

That, yes, that’s actor/musician Kirby Heyborne (who is related to all the Cedar City Heybornes) who is the star of that MasterCard Priceless commercial that’s all over television these days.

That General Motors has canceled all plans to redistribute car brands, which means that Cedar City’s GM dealerships will continue to offer the cars they always have (except Pontiac, which is being discontinued).

That next year marks the 80th anniversary of the completion of the Old Rock Church in Cedar City, which opened its doors in 1931.