โ 50 States, 50 Capitols โข I have finally checked off the top item on my bucket list - to visit every state and state capitol in the United States! My 50th and final visit was Honolulu, Hawaii this week - the 50th state to join the union.
๐บ๐ธ This near-decade long quest has helped me appreciate each state, understand the vastness of this country, and has made me even more aware of the tremendous blessing it is to be an American.
๐งต My thread of photos belowโฌ๏ธ (1 of 14)
ALL ABOARD Americaโs 250th Birthday Train๐
This special @GrandCanyonRail locomotive will take you on a special trip from Williams, Arizona to the Grand Canyon South Rim Depot all summer long!
Our country is BEAUTIFUL so go celebrate her 250th year by exploring sea to shining sea ๐บ๐ธ @freedom250
๐ From Utah to the Moon.
The final solid rocket booster segments for NASA's Artemis III mission have left Promontory, Utah, and are on their way to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Built by Northrop Grumman, the massive boosters will help power the Space Launch System rocket, generating 7.2 million pounds of thrust at liftoff as NASA works toward returning astronauts to the moon.
The newly shipped segments will join others already delivered to Florida and will be among the first pieces assembled for the mission.
Grateful for all those who have given the ultimate sacrifice while serving in our nation's armed forces. Today's Memorial Day Ceremony in West Jordan truly helped me remember the sacrifice of our nation's fallen heroes. ๐บ๐ธ
Never use victimhood as a strategy in life. It solves nothing, fixes nothing, and builds nothing.
We live in the United States, where miracles happen every single day.
This country rewards courage, hard work, sacrifice, and perseverance.
โAmerica is not a dream, America is a miracle.โ
#America250 #Utpol
https://t.co/8CkNO4EPCv
@BirdForUtah gets it! Looking forward to his leadership on these issues in the legislature next year. Our country canโt afford to wait. Permitting reform will unleash energy abundance and allow the US, and Utah, to lead long into the future.
Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. AKA: voting for failure Karen Bass is literally insane. Change the channel. Vote Pratt. I will clean the streets and end this waste of our tax dollars.
Kearns High Patrons! Our amazing HOSA Club is hosting our final blood drive of the year, Tuesday, May 12th, from 8:15am-2:30pm in the Kearns High Cafeteria. Spots are still available. Give someone a gift of life-saving blood! Sign up: https://t.co/4YSAV564Km
K-Town Baseball Fans!!! The 5A Utah State Playoffs are Here! Our KHS Cougars host Roy High in Game 1 at Gates Field on Friday, May 8th, at 4pm. The first 100 fans will score Chick-Fil-A gift cards! Get there early! Go Cougars! #we_are_kearns_baseball!
K-Town Softball Cougar Fans!!! Our young team has qualified for the Utah 5A softball state playoffs! We play at Hunter High School tomorrow, Friday, May 8th, at 4pm. Go Cougars!!! #we_are_kearns_KHSsoftball_2026
He won the Civil War, broke the Klan, went bankrupt at 62, got terminal throat cancer, and wrote one of the greatest books in American literature in the final year of his life. He finished it 5 days before he died.
Ulysses S. Grant was born 204 years ago today.
His name wasn't even Ulysses S. Grant. He was born Hiram Ulysses Grant in Point Pleasant, Ohio on April 27, 1822. The congressman who nominated him to West Point wrote down the wrong name. Grant kept it. The "S." stands for nothing.
He hated his father's tannery and loved horses. Graduated 21st of 39 at West Point. Fought in the Mexican-American War, then came home convinced it was an unjust war designed to expand slavery. He later said he believed the Civil War was divine punishment for it.
He married Julia Dent in 1848, into a slave-owning Missouri family. His abolitionist father refused to attend the wedding. In 1859, broke and desperate, Grant freed the one enslaved man he'd briefly owned instead of selling him. He could have gotten a year's wages.
In the Civil War he became what no other Union general was: relentless. Vicksburg (July 4, 1863) split the Confederacy in half. Lincoln then gave him every Union army. His Appomattox surrender terms: officers kept sidearms, men kept horses for spring planting, no one prosecuted.
As president (1869 to 1877) he did something no president would do again until LBJ: used federal troops to crush the Ku Klux Klan. He suspended habeas corpus in 9 South Carolina counties, prosecuted Klansmen before predominantly Black juries, and broke the first Klan.
His presidency was also rocked by scandal: Black Friday 1869. Crรฉdit Mobilier. The Whiskey Ring. Belknap. Grant himself never took a dime. He was just disastrously loyal to corrupt friends. The pattern damaged his reputation for a century.
After the White House, he toured the world for 2 years. Dined with Queen Victoria. Met the emperor of Japan. Then in 1884, a Wall Street partner named Ferdinand Ward ran what we'd now call a Ponzi scheme. Grant was wiped out. 62 years old. Penniless.
Weeks later he was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. Mark Twain offered to publish his memoirs. Grant wrote in agony, sometimes 50 pages a day, racing the disease to leave Julia an inheritance. He finished the manuscript July 18, 1885. He died July 23.
The book made Julia $450,000, about $14M today. It's now considered one of the finest memoirs in the English language. For decades historians ranked Grant a failure. Since 2000 he's jumped 13 spots in the C-SPAN survey, the biggest rise of any president.
Happy birthday, General ๐บ๐ธ
Awesome to be on-site at the "First Blast" ceremony of the re-opened Lisbon Valley Copper Mine, now called the @MarianaMinerals Copper One mine, in San Juan County yesterday! Utah has an abundance of minerals, and I'm thrilled to see this operation re-start with innovative technology to bring costs down.
Kearns High School: Our SBOs for the 2026-27 school year!
President - Kalli Recksiek
VP - Jackson Larsen
Sec. - Audrey Backman
Unity VP - Andrea Perez
PR/Historian - Claire Hansen
Service - Michelle Jimenez-Campos
Activities - Preston McQueen
Spirit Coordinator - Kelis Mobley
Congrats to @utahriley on becoming our CD1 @UtahGOP Nominee! Looking forward to knocking doors with Riley & other great SLCo Republicans in the fall ๐บ๐ธ