A county stimulated, but certainly not sold

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Snow College president Scott Wyatt had to lay off fewer people at the two-year college because the stimulus funds helped prop up his budget this year.

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Spring City » The rural byway linking Highway 89 to this quiet town had seen better days.

Pigeon Hollow Road, battered by trucks and aged by weather, was in desperate need of help.

Much the same could be said for some surrounding communities, a hardscrabble patchwork of towns that, even in good times, lives close to the edge.

As the nation's economy tanked, Sanpete County -- tucked away from Utah's main thoroughfares and built on the sweat of generational farmers and ranchers -- slid further into a ditch. Scores of jobs evaporated, as did tourists and demand for turkey meat, the county's chief product.

In February, nearly 800 people had lost their jobs, the highest unemployment number in 18 years.

Then federal stimulus dollars started trickling in, with some of it targeting a complete makeover for the five-mile-long Pigeon Hollow Road.

It was no panacea, but it helped.

It has been six months since Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed the massive $787 billion bill intended to help rejuvenate the sagging economy and avoid another Great Depression. Washington politicians are now going rounds debating whether the bill has saved or created tens of thousands of jobs or sent the nation foundering under a wave of runaway spending.

With such a massive program, spread across all 50 states, the District of Columbia and territories, it's impossible to gauge

But the picture becomes a little sharper when the lens is pointed squarely at one community with its concrete examples of how the stimulus package is working -- or not.

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A road to somewhere » On a dust-whipped field just off Pigeon Hollow Road, stands Kirby Adams, sporting a deep farmer's tan from supervising road construction this summer. He sleeps in a small sheepwagon with fellow workers and occasionally makes it home to his wife, Ashlee, and his 5-year-old daughter, Staheli, in Cedar City, about a three-hour drive south.

He owes his work and that of 15 others to $2 million of stimulus funds that helped the state pay for the new road, and although he worries about the mounting national debt, he knows he might have been idle otherwise.

"Bottom line is, it's work," says the 33-year-old Adams, who has worked for Mel Clark Construction Co. since graduating from Cedar High School.

The company is used to much larger projects than the $5 million road redo. But in a tough economy, it'll do.

"It's definitely helped us," Adams says. Without this project, the economy "would have us right down to nothing. ... It would have been scary."

Up the road several miles, Brent Christensen's workers are loading trucks with gravel headed for Pigeon Hollow. When the job's done, Christensen estimates his company, Christensen Brothers Rock Products Inc., will have earned between $150,000 and $200,000, about a tenth of the company's annual gross revenue.

"It's helping us a lot," says Christensen. "It's helping everybody."

So far, the road project has allowed Christensen to hire back two people he was forced to lay off when business slowed earlier this year.

"It was a long winter," he adds. "For six months, I had to check to see if the phone was still working."

The stimulus money continues to trickle out from there.

Christensen buys all his fuel from Thompson Oil Co. in nearby Manti, as does the construction crew working on the road.

"It's making for a good summer," says owner Don Thompson. "It's certainly been a shot in the arm."

Thompson hasn't lost any workers or hired more, though his sales have jumped.

But as the stimulus cash seeps through the county, there are many who wonder where their share is.

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Where are the jobs? » At the state Workforce Services satellite office in Manti, a few people congregate around computers looking at the job postings. There's not much to be had.

Of the 30 jobs the center has listed as available in the nearby areas, four offer wages of at least $10 an hour while several are negotiable or unstated. Eight of the jobs are for sheepherders, paying $750 a month.

Just outside, Joseph Vallejos rummages in his rusting car for proof that he's applied for several jobs so he can keep his unemployment benefits.

"I'm just trying to get a job," he says, detailing a long résumé of working in oil fields, long-haul trucking and construction. "I'm not afraid to work."

So far, he's had no luck.

It's been tough times, too, for Steve and Esther Thorsen, who run the Manti Country Village Motel. The motel saw first quarter revenues drop about $14,000, Steve Thorsen says, and the second quarter was down about $10,000. This quarter's not looking great either.

Steve Thorsen says the stimulus hasn't done anything for his business nor others nearby.

"It makes us a little frustrated," he says. "You hear on the news: This much is going out; this much is going out. It's having a tough time filtering down to Sanpete County. It hurts. We live much closer to break-even than most places."

Seven miles north in Ephraim, Linda Burgess, a cook at the Satisfied Ewe Café, groans at talk by some in Congress of a second stimulus package.

The economy "could have worked itself out without us getting into so much debt," Burgess says. "I don't see the point to it. We're going to be in debt to China, to Japan, to everybody."

Burgess isn't alone. There's a growing opinion nationwide that the rapidly passed stimulus hasn't worked.

A poll released last week by USA Today and Gallup showed that 57 percent of those surveyed nationwide said the stimulus package has had no effect on the economy so far, or has made things worse.

Four out of every 10 adults questioned by pollsters said the money had made things better, but the remaining six doubt it will make things better in the future.

Republican House Leader John Boehner, of Ohio, noted last week that despite Obama administration claims that the stimulus would provide an immediate "jolt" to the economy and create jobs, more than 2.8 million jobs have been lost since Feb. 17, when the bill was signed.

Additionally, Boehner's office pointed out that since the stimulus was enacted, national unemployment has shot up to 9.4 percent from 7.6 percent. The president has said the rate could hit double digits.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said recently that job growth is one of the last things to happen in an economic recovery. But he said indications are that the economy hit bottom in the first quarter of 2009 and the stimulus package has had a positive effect.

"We are moving in a positive direction for the first time in a very, very long time," Gibbs said at a briefing. "There's no doubt that the recovery plan, which was designed to cushion the downturn, has done so."

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Hard choices » A century ago, Snow Academy faced seriously tough times when its owner, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, somehow forgot its annual payment to the school.

Without any funds and in an area where farming and ranching was pretty much the only way of life, the school started accepting grain as payment for classes, and, in turn, gave it to teachers as salary. When the coffers really got low, the school sold its only piano.

The institution survived and later was turned over to the state during the Great Depression, becoming Snow College.

"They got through it, and they were stronger for it," says school President Scott Wyatt, a former state Republican lawmaker.

The stimulus money has put Wyatt in a tricky spot.

While he has had to lay off fewer people and has averted other drastic moves, he also fears that when stimulus funds run out, if the economy isn't doing better, he may have to implement the painful cutbacks anyway.

Wyatt harks back to the lessons of his piano-selling predecessors.

"If you do your very best to be smart, every hard, difficult experience makes you stronger," Wyatt says. "That's true for people; it's also true for organizations."

Sanpete County's experience so far with the stimulus package provides fodder for both sides of the debate on how well the plan is working, or whether the money was worth spending in the first place. But in this rural area, a few modest impacts are easily measurable:

Snow College and the county's two school districts likely would have laid off several more employees, possibly cut programs and increased class sizes without the stimulus package. The Central Utah Correctional Facility might have lost guards.

Brent Christensen might be short two people, while Kirby Adams and several construction workers could be out of jobs.

And Pigeon Hollow Road would still be peppered with potholes.

tburr@sltrib.com