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Mrs. Utah is using her title to popularize 'decency tour'

 

But Larson is not using her Mrs. Utah title to start her decency-promotion efforts. It's more of the reverse, with her decency platform helping her gain the title in her first-ever pageant. Larson's experience on decency issues began in 2006 when she became president of the Utah Valley Chapter of American Mothers Inc. She's also served as the Utah County director for the Parents Television Council, a roundtable member of the Utah Coalition Against Pornography and the Utah County liaison for www.strengthenthefamily.net.

 

"Up until this point, I was just a really passionate mom," she said. "But does the Rotary want a really passionate mom to come speak? No, they want Mrs. Utah or someone with a title. People will listen if I have a title instead of just 'mom,' and already that's the case."

 

Larson hopes that a year from now, schools throughout the state will celebrate White Ribbons Against Pornography week, beyond those at a few Utah County schools. She hopes that city councils throughout the state will have adopted community-standards resolutions. She hopes that people will have signed up for weekly e-mails at KarmelLarson.com and tapped into resources listed at teamdecency.com. She hopes that people will have taken some sort of action to foster decency and not just talked about doing something.

 

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On Saturday while in Salt Lake City, Hatch stood in a house of words to spread the word about bad words.

 

"I thought it would be something just in our city," the 16-year-old from South Pasadena, Calif., said while at the Sweet Library. "Of course, it's gotten a lot bigger and it's been about to spread the word about using good and positive language, which is nice."

 

Hatch was in town to help Mrs. Utah, Karmel Larson, launch her "T.E.A.M. Decency" activities.

 

Hatch was amazed at the amount of cussing that occurred in his middle school when he started sixth grade. Cussing didn't happen in grade school, but "everybody cussed" in middle school, he said. "And it wasn't like they were using it when they stubbed their toe. They were using it every other word," he said.

 

Having "never really cussed," Hatch was bothered so much by the profanities that he challenged his friends to refrain from rough language. They did. And the idea blossomed to a school club in 2007, then to a Web site (www.nocussingclub.com) that now has no-cuss commitments from people in all 50 states and a few dozen countries.

 

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