The Most Inspiring Stories in Utah

The heart of our mission is to find the amazing souls that breathe life into our communities. In the recent weeks, we’ve had the privilege to connect with some incredible artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and rabble rousers and we can’t begin to express how impressed we are with the incredible group below. Check out our favorite stories from across the Voyage family.

Mark Dickey

Our story started in the 1970s, when 14-year-old David Dickey attended the Wurlitzer Sales School in Logan, Utah. Soon after, he began selling pianos and organs out of his mother’s shop, House of Originals, in Payson. Read more>>

Shao Long Lei

First off – thank you so much for this opportunity. I’m sincerely humbled and honored that VoyageUtah asked me for this interview. My martial arts journey actually started when I was around 8–10 years old at Johnny Aranda’s Karate. Read more>>

Heather Sprouse Madison

I started On Stage Dance Studio when I was just 19 years old as a way to help pay my way through college. I never imagined that more than three decades later, we would be in our 32nd season and that something I started so young would become such an important part of my life—and, hopefully, the lives of so many dancers and families. Read more>>

Lance Lavizzo

I started out as a hiphop producer and engineer recording off a 4track tape recorder (taskcan)my father gave me when he was released from prison in 2000. I would sale tapes to my high-school then the CD Area came and I released my first studio album called ,Choppas loaded . Read more>>

Ricky Arriola

I kind of fell into barbering. When I was in high school, I got my hair cut by a barber who worked out of the living room of his apartment. Over time, I watched him turn that into a private studio in his home and eventually open his first barbershop. Read more>>

Kayla Foster

Despite that background, I didn’t initially plan on entering the building industry. While exploring my options for continuing education, I discovered a drafting and design program at a local technical college. It immediately felt like a natural fit. Read more>>

Christian Salazar

Since I first saw Casablanca as a pre-teen, I fell in love with the art of filmmaking! From the way each shot is postioned to the creative choices directors make to tell a better narrative, I said to myself I want to one day be among the great filmmakers of the world, up there with the likes of Spielberg and Christopher Nolan. Read more>>

Alexia Jeffers

My journey as a hairstylist began in 2017 when I started my career in the hair industry — I’ve been behind the chair ever since. I got my start with an apprenticeship, where I learned the craft hands-on and fell in love with doing hair. Read more>>

Nam Tran

As a teenager, I found graffiti as my “rebellious” creative outlet. That led me to connect with other people in the streetwear scene, and at one point I even tried starting my own custom clothing business while still in high school. Read more>>

Sheri Wilks

What started out 10 years ago as a way to teach my children about the value of hard work and to maybe make a little extra spending money has somehow turned into a great little pumpkin patch. My parents own 50 acres in the west fields between Smithfield and Benson. One year dad had some unused acreage so we grew pumpkins. Read more>>

Jennifer Meyers

With very little saved for retirement, we decided to roll the dice and open our own business. We looked for a business that matched our environmentalist beliefs as well as being within our funding budget. Kid to Kid was the right fit. After many, many longggggggggggggggg days and nights, and lots of bumps in the road, we were ready for grand opening. April 2020. Read more>>

Chris Avery

In 2022 I decided to run 1 mile every day for 7 days. Until this point in my life, I had never run for a week straight. I’ve also never been a runner and hated running. I kept that streak and continued it for 90 days. Read more>>

Samantha Winslow

I have always been drawn to creative expression. Growing up, I struggled to express myself verbally, so I turned to art at a very young age. I began drawing and painting before I learned ceramics, photography, and modeling. Read more>>

James Riley

We started in 2015 we were a house cleaning company me my wife and my brother almost at the same time as we started we were asked if we did window cleaning we were doing a bunch of Denny’s which is a post construction account we had at the time and we would go in there and clean everything up when all the contractors were done And we were like yeah Windex and paper towel of course we cleaned the windows but they said no they want it professionally done I reached out to some of the big industry suppliers and found some really good mentors across the country and started learning from their advice I watched a lot of videos a lot of Google and hours upon hours practicing where I rented at the time there was a commercial space behind my house they had extremely dirty windows but they had a lot of windows and I would go there every day after work and I would practice window cleaning honing my technique Read more>>

Annie DiMartino

From the Stage to the Statehouse: The Story of Annie DiMartino Annie DiMartino, Executive Director, Utah Cultural Alliance & Utah Cultural Alliance Foundation Annie DiMartino’s career in the arts has never followed a straight line and that may be exactly what has made it so interesting. Read more>>