On Monday, July 19, Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson joined Salt Lake Community College President Deneece Huftalin on SLCC Talk to discuss her hobbies, the responsibilities of her office, and plans for her future.
The podcast started with a lightning round of softball questions for Henderson, including her hobbies, her favorite books and which historical figure she would invite to a dinner party.
To quickly summarize: Henderson’s hobbies include canyoneering, reading and musicals; her favorite Utah State Park is Bear Lake; and one item on her bucket list is to visit all 50 state capitals.
On road trips, Henderson recounted, her family would go out of their way by several hours at times just so she could see a state capital and teach her children the significance of our nation.
“I have a very long-suffering family,” Henderson recalled.
Later in the podcast, Henderson was asked about her favorite book.
“It’s hard to pick a favorite; I would say biographies and history are what I lean towards. I love David McCullough. His book about Truman was incredible,” Henderson said, referencing the 1992 biography of President Harry S. Truman that McCullough won a Pulitzer Prize for the following year.
As someone who is finishing their degree later in life, Henderson also related to much of the SLCC demographic. With working two jobs to help her husband get through physical therapy school and being a mother of seven children, Henderson said going back to school was put on the back burner.
“There were just a lot of barriers for me,” Henderson said. “I picked away at the degree, taking independent study courses here and there throughout the years.” She went on to say that being back at school as an older person has helped her relate the schoolwork to her life in a way that she would not have otherwise seen because she now had some experience to hang it on.
Being at the head of the COVID-19 vaccination effort, Henderson took a question about the plateauing vaccination numbers statewide and talked about how she and Gov. Spencer Cox plan to change public opinion to reach herd immunity.
“Right now, we are relying on their doctors and health care providers to talk with those who are still on the fence, one-on-one. Our big mass vaccination pushes are over. Our strategy is to go slower in a lot more locations like pharmacies and doctors’ offices. And that’s how we’re going to get to the rest who are hesitant and dragging their feet for whatever reason. So, it’s a different strategy than before when there was a high demand and a limited supply, now there’s a lot of supply and a smaller demand,” Henderson said.
