WEST JORDAN, Utah, April 24, 2019 (Gephardt Daily) — Utah Gov. Gary Herbert announced he is being treated for skin cancer during a groundbreaking ceremony for a new elementary school in West Jordan on Wednesday morning.
At the event, at 8860 S. 6400 West in West Jordan, Hebert also ceremonially signed education bills passed during the 2019 General Legislative session.
He was wearing a round bandage on his right cheek just under his eye at the ceremony.
“Let me just say I’m going to give you a lesson on being reactive and being proactive,” he told the assembled crowd. “See this little thing right here, this little bandage? That’s being reactive. I had some cancer taken out of here, proactive would have been when I was your age, wearing sunscreen.
“And so I would advise you all to wear sunscreen, be smarter than some of us older people and you won’t have bandages on your face when they cut out the cancer.”
He went on to say: “It really is a metaphor for what we’ve been doing in the state of Utah, being proactive about education. We set a goal to become the best performing education system in America and we started that goal 10 years ago with the help of the legislature. We set a goal four years ago to have a billion dollars of ongoing money into public education. And we reached that goal in four years rather than five.”
The bills Herbert signed create a new scholarship program, provide funding for computer science courses and “implement policies designed to make schools safe, healthy and encouraging learning environments for all Utah students,” according to a news release from the Governor’s office.
Herbert ceremonially signed the following bills:
- H.B. 120 School Safety Amendments
- H.B. 227 Computer Science Grant Act
- H.B. 260 Access Utah Promise Scholarship Program
- H.B. 373 Student Support Amendments
- H.C.R. 14 Concurrent Resolution Encouraging High Expectations for Students with Disabilities
