This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A U.S. Senate candidate challenging incumbent Orrin Hatch for the Republican nomination may be arrested if he shows up to the GOP state convention on Saturday.
An anti-stalking injunction against candidate Mike Ridgway has been issued by 3rd District Judge Sandra Peuler. It orders Ridgway to stay away from Republican Party activist Mark Towner and members of his family.
Towner lost his bid for the party's nomination to a state Senate seat after Ridgway distributed an anti-Towner letter among delegates of Senate District 2 at the Salt Lake County convention.
Ridgway reportedly then had confrontations with Towner and members of his family, which provoked Towner to seek an injunction requiring Ridgway to stay away. In his petition for the injunction, Towner wrote that since 2002, Ridgway has confronted either him or his wife at least 15 times about past incidents in which the Towners, as officers in the Republican Party, ruled against Ridgway on numerous issues.
The injunction orders Ridgway to stay away from areas where the Towners frequent, including their home, their work, the University of Utah and Republican events.
That means Ridgway, who has been involved in several confrontational incidents this campaign season and has been escorted out of his own precinct caucus by a security guard, might be in violation of the court order if he attends the convention on Saturday.
No room at the inn: Debra Sauer feels a connection to Arizona Sen. John McCain, the keynote speaker at the Republican convention on Saturday.
Sauer wore McCain's POW bracelet for several years during his imprisonment in North Vietnam. She says she remembers seeing him on television walking down airplane steps when he returned to the United States and she still has the letter he sent thanking her for the support.
So she wrote to the Republican Party asking if she could be allowed a brief moment at the convention to meet McCain and give him the bracelet she wore in his honor.
Perhaps she shouldn't have revealed in her letter that she is a lifelong Democrat. The party responded that the best she can hope for is to stand outside the door at 2 p.m. Saturday and hope to attract McCain's attention as he is whisked through the crowd.
Granting an extension: After reading an item in a recent column that a Hogle Zoo discounts on the back of movie tickets already had expired, Stacey Phillips, Hogle's public relations specialist, says the Megaplex theater at the Gateway apparently is using older ticket stock. Because of the confusion, she says Hogle will honor the discount through June 30, even though it expired March 31.
But contrary to my initial information that it was a buy-one-get-one-free offer, the discount on the back of the tickets is $1 off any regularly priced admission ticket.
Priorities, priorities: Octogenarian Donna Leverich had a CAT scan at University Hospital last week. By the end of the week, she had received her $202 bill, but she hadn't heard from her doctor about the results of the test.