Heavy snows created the deadliest winter ever in Utah's mountains.
Hard rains swept homes into raging rivers.
A hurricane half a continent away sent hundreds of evacuees our way; many liked it here so much they decided to stay.
It was a year of tragic consequences, of young people dying on the highway and drowning in unlikely places.
The year brought in the new: a governor, a major league soccer team, a compromise over the contentious Legacy Highway.
But some things never change: Utah continued to wrestle with its polygamous past and present.
And there was a miracle, when a young boy was found alive and well after four nights in the unforgiving Uinta Mountains.
It wasn't all bad . . . or was it?
Retail
The good news: Cabela's 175,000-square-foot megastore near Point of the Mountain is expected to draw more visitors than Zion National Park, Lake Powell and Lagoon combined.
The bad news: The new Cabela's is expected to draw more visitors than Zion National Park, Lake Powell and Lagoon combined.
The really bad news: That includes relatives of fugitive polygamist Warren Jeffs (and you thought all that camouflage gear wouldn't sell).
Resources
The good news: In May, a tiny oil company from Michigan boasts of a discovery 130 miles south of Salt Lake City, saying the area just outside of Sigurd eventually could yield a billion barrels of crude.
The bad news: It might be 10 years before we find out if the folks at Wolverine Gas & Oil Corp. are right.
The really bad news: It won't be that long before Sigurd gets a Starbucks.
Sports
The good news: Utah lands its second major-league sports franchise (Real Salt Lake) and a soccer superstar (Clint Mathis) to lead the team.
The bad news: Mathis and RSL struggle to score en route to the league's second-worst record.
The really bad news: Mathis is gone and, for stadium-seeking Salt Lake City, so is RSL - to Sandy.
Faith
The good news: For Mormons, LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley's challenge to read the 531-page Book of Mormon by year's end is history.
The bad news: All that Scripture-study cut into members' reading of other books.
The really bad news: What if the popularity of his Book of Mormon challenge sparks Hinckley to issue a similar appeal for this year's course of study: the 1,184-page Old Testament?
Some of 2005's notable deaths
Jack Anderson, legendary newspaper muckraker
Mikhail Boguslavsky, violist
Milly Bernard, former Utah legislator
Dave Blackwell, sports journalist
Eva Westover Conover, former Utah legislator
Lee Deffebach, artist
Zane Armond Doyle, founder of Brighton Resort
Harold Mayo Gottfredson, trombonist
Alberta Henry, former NAACP chapter president
Thomas Herrion, University of Utah football great
Robert H. "Colonel" Hinckley Jr., political scientist
Grant Johannesen, pianist
Swanny Kerby, rodeo stockman
Tom Kingsford, Southern Utah University football coach
Janice Levitt, filmmaker
Sandra Lloyd, former Riverton Mayor
Ed Maryon, artist
LeRay L. McAllister, former Utah legislator
Jim Moore, baseball umpire
Bob Olpin, art historian
Gean Plaga, West High football coach
Katharine Clark Reilly, actress-producer
Scott Sneddon, former Ogden mayor
Willie Sojourner, Weber State basketball great
Richard Steiner, businessman
Ron Tree, Wasatch High football coach
Carla Wood, mezzo-soprano
Ralph Woodward, choral conductor
Killed in Action
Utahns at war
Rebels took a hit, but a long road is ahead
: Eight men with Utah ties died in Iraq this year. Rest in peace: Matthew Smith, Rocky Payne, Tenzin Chuku Dengkhim, Brandon Thomas, Michael Lehmiller, Kenneth Webb, Lex Nelson, Tim Boyce.
Hurricane Katrina
Storm evacuees landed in Utah - and some stayed
Utahns opened their hearts, their homes and their wallets to hundreds of Hurricane Katrina evacuees in early September after the costliest and most destructive natural disaster in U.S. history.
Nearly four months later, an estimated 400 survivors remain, trying to carve out a future in the Beehive State.
Overall, Katrina left about 1,000 dead, 1 million displaced and $200 billion to $300 billion in damage. But the storm's true toll is still being written by the hundreds of thousands who remain exiled in states such as Utah.
Some may put down roots where they landed. Others are waiting to be told it's safe to return home. But it could be months, possibly years, before the worst-hit areas are habitable. Meanwhile, the flow of aid to survivors has slowed to a trickle.
Come March 1, Utah no longer will provide free housing to hurricane survivors, who must apply to the federal government for housing assistance.
Rough start, scandal, yellow jersey and more
The governor
Learning curve: Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. gets off to a rocky start, firing state economic development workers and turning over their jobs to the Economic Development Corp. of Utah. He then is outmaneuvered by lawmakers during the 2005 Legislature and loses two key advisers - his chief of staff and spokeswoman. At the same time, the fledgling governor distinguishes himself by nursing a settlement on Legacy Highway, pledging to veto any expansion of Envirocare's radioactive waste landfill and refocusing legislators on a 5 percent income tax.
Salt Lake County
Scandal a day helps reformers make hay: On the heels of 2004's guzzler-gate scandal, Salt Lake County uncovers abuses in tuition programs, hiring practices, purchase orders and timecard records. The county's fleet manager is ousted and the personnel director announces his retirement.
Historic moment
Utahn in yellow: Cyclist Dave Zabriskie captures the Tour de France's yellow jersey after winning the opening stage in July. He is just the third American to lead the race. Zabriskie surrenders the jersey to Lance Armstrong after a crash in Stage 4.
Oddities
Bettor Business Bureau: Patrick McDermott, Town Council chairman in the tiny southern Utah town of Bluff, temporarily considers changing the community's name to PokerShare.com in exchange for $100,000 before folding on the idea.
Store wars: Wal-Mart's image takes a beating from release of scathing documentary and internal memos describing ways to reduce the already-paltry health benefits for employees. Utahns respond by giving the go-ahead to new Wal-Marts in, among other places, Sandy, Centerville and Riverton.
Finances
Tougher to shake off debt
Going (for) broke: New bankruptcy laws take effect, making it harder and more expensive for Americans to erase debts and start over. Utahns, who already lead the nation in per-household bankruptcies, respond with a mad rush to the courthouse to beat the deadline.
Radio daze: Managers of public radio stations KCPW/KPCW take to the air to justify their finances after The Salt Lake Tribune reveals that the nonprofit stations' longtime managers, Blair and Susan Feulner, reaped more than $700,000 in salary from 2001 through 2003.
Roads less graveled: Reports surface that Uintah County labeled hundreds of miles of "dirt" roads as "gravel" roads, helping the eastern Utah county capture hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding for upkeep.
Transportation
Legacy Parkway could become
a reality in '06
Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. signed a measure Nov. 14 paving the way for construction to resume - possibly by May - on the long-stalled Legacy Parkway.
The Legislature ratified the accord, reached through negotiations between the state and environmentalists. The agreement expands a planned nature preserve and means Davis County will get a jump-start on a new TRAX line and a bus rapid-transit system.
The four-lane roadway could start carrying motorists by 2008.
The elements
Record runoff threatened Utah's Dixie
Floodwaters swamped the Santa Clara and Virgin rivers in and around St. George in January, killing one man, washing away homes, ripping up roads, knocking down bridges and forcing dozens to flee.
In the eyes of some, the flooding was compounded by the federal government's refusal to allow residents to clear the rivers. Others argued it was aggravated by homes built too close to flood zones.
"Everybody loves to live by a babbling brook," said Ron Thompson, manager of the Washington County Water Conservancy District. "But nobody wants to live by a raging torrent."
President Bush declared a federal disaster in the devastated region and other areas downstream as damage topped $200 million to public and private property in Washington County.
Flooding from record runoff returned to the region in the summer, along with wind-whipped wildfires, threatening several towns, including tiny Gunlock - again - and New Harmony.
Airline industry
Delta went bankrupt, announced big job cuts
Delta Air Lines' turbulent year hit a new low Sept. 14, when the nation's third-largest carrier filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
While Delta had been struggling for months, it was Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast in August and drove jet fuel prices to record highs, that forced the Atlanta-based company to seek protection from its creditors.
Within a week, Delta announced a plan to cut annual expenses by $3 billion on top of the $5 billion in annual benefits the company expects to deliver by 2006. The airline intends to eliminate 7,000 to 9,000 jobs, trim domestic capacity by as much as 20 percent and increase more profitable international flying by 25 percent.
The plan included a bombshell: nearly $1 billion in pay cuts. On Nov. 1, non-union workers saw their pay and benefits slashed by $605 million. Pilots, represented by the Air Line Pilots Association, threatened to strike if a bankruptcy court allowed the airline to void its pilot contract and impose $325 million in concessions. This week, pilots agreed to accept a compromise interim agreement that provides for a 14 percent hourly wage reduction and reductions in other pay equal to another 1 percent.
The bottom line: Delta plans to emerge from bankruptcy in two years as a leaner, healthier airline able to compete with low-cost carriers that have sliced into its market share. So far, the carrier's hub in Salt Lake City has been spared any major disruption.
Missing Scout
After four nights alone, Brennan went home safe
Brennan Hawkins, an 11-year-old boy from Bountiful, disappeared from a Boy Scout camp and spent four nights in the Uinta Mountains before rescuers found him alive and well.
On June 17, Brennan was with a friend at East Fork of the Bear River Scout Reservation. Brennan tried to go to supper but took a wrong trail and became lost. Search teams were dispatched within a few hours. By June 21, an estimated 3,000 people - some coming from as far as Hawaii - had helped search on foot, horseback and all-terrain vehicle.
That morning, Forrest Nunley, a Salt Lake City house painter who skipped work to search, was riding his ATV up a trail 2 1/2 miles from the camp when he spotted Brennan standing in the middle of the trail, soaking wet, sunburned and hungry. The boy soon was reunited with his family and elation spread through the searchers and the state.
Brennan's return reversed a series of Uinta Mountain disappearances that ended or were believed to have ended in death. It also spurred discussion about how to help prevent children from getting lost in the wilds.
Polygamy
State cracked down on Jeffs and other FLDS members
Polygamist prophet Warren Jeffs ended the year as a wanted man.
The elusive leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was indicted June 9 for allegedly marrying a 16-year-old girl to a 28-year-old man, a charge that resulted from a two-state crackdown on the polygamist sect. Utah and Arizona are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to Jeffs' arrest.
Eight other men in the FLDS community also were charged with various sex crimes for their alleged marriages to minor girls.
Utah and Arizona authorities also successfully petitioned to have the trustees of an FLDS trust fund replaced by an independent supervisor. In December, a judge appointed an advisory board to help the supervisor protect the trust's assets.
The Utah Police Officer Standards and Training Board decertified Hildale Town Marshal Sam Roundy and Officer Vance Barlow in March, after an investigation by the Attorney General's Office into an allegation that as many as half the force's officers were practicing polygamy, a felony
under state law.
In addition, a longtime Hildale justice court judge faces possible removal after acknowledging being a polygamist.
