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LOGAN — As he did last year, on KVNU’s For the People program on Wednesday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox talked to host Jason Williams about what he is thankful for.
Cox said he’s grateful for the opportunity to take a detour from what he usually talks to the media about.
”I get to do a lot of media interviews and talk about the big things. But sometimes I think we miss the forest for the trees and being just grateful in of itself is an attribute that is really important, that our founding fathers said was really important. Gratitude needed to be part of the virtues that we have as a society and especially in our elected leaders,” he explained.
This past week it was announced that Utah will be host a 2024 Presidential debate. Cox said he’s thankful for that and he thinks it bespeaks to Utah’s profile becoming stronger.
He said he remembers from his college days in the 1990’s, the state always seemed to be left out or coming in second.
“I think you can see it starting to change with the Olympics in 2002, for sure, but it’s only hastened over the past few years,” Cox continued. “Utah is getting recognized in ways we’ve never been recognized before, (with) talk of potential Major League Baseball coming, the Olympics coming back.
“I met with the IOC (International Olympic Committee) today, I’m grateful for that opportunity. It went very, very well. And then this big announcement kind of culminating this week, something we’ve tried to do before. We didn’t get it last time, we did get, again, coming in 2nd, a Vice-Presidential debate.”
Cox said when he talks to any of the 49 other governors he feels grateful for where he lives, the people, the beautiful surroundings in which we live.
He said he’s also thankful he lives in a state where people want to live.
The governor said he was just talking to a friend who took a motorcycle trip across the country who avoided freeways and went through small, rural towns and he stopped in different states and talked to the locals there and he came back with a very different perspective.
“He said, ‘I’m not going to complain about the growth that we’re seeing in our state, it does come with challenges,’ and we’re working hard to address those challenges with water, obviously housing is a big challenge, you’ll hear more from me on that in the next few weeks.
“But he said, ‘trust me there are only two types of places in this country: those that are growing and those that are shrinking.’ And he said, ‘I would take what we have.’ You always want to live in a place where people want to live.”
Cox said when you live in a place where people don’t want to live, that’s when the challenges far outweigh what we’re seeing now.
He said that’s not to say there are not challenges here, but he’s so grateful that we do live in a place where our kids and grandkids want to stay. Cox also expressed gratitude for the legislature. The governor said he probably has the best relationship that he believes any governor in his lifetime has had with their legislature. He said he’s grateful for the partnership, that they do work to solve problems today or that could occur 20 years from now.
The Governor said he’s also very grateful for his family.
“We had some health challenges in our family, in our extended family, some surgeries. Nothing too serious, but I’m just appreciative, again, of the people that surround us. We live in a world that is struggling with family. One of the things that we embarked on, we created a new Office of Family in our state. Utah has been known as the most family-friendly state in the country, and yet I worry that we haven’t been intentional about that, and that we need to be intentional about it.”
He said that needs to be shouted out, how important family is, because as you look at problems across the country, many of them can be traced to the deterioration of family.
The governor said he considers himself lucky with an incredible wife with whom he’s been best friends since high school, along with amazing kids and parents and extended family.