How old is rod decker

To straighten his son out, Decker says, his father vowed to wake him at 7 a. The elder Decker followed through, only to watch his son stumble down the street to the fraternity house, where he took to sleeping on the couch. One morning, when Decker came home at 4 a. But that rousing didn't arrive until noon. Father and son walked to the U together that day and, Decker says, "He checked me out of the U, packed my bag, put me in the car, drove me down to BYU and enrolled me.

Decker says he tried to fit in at Brigham Young University, and even passed a couple of classes. But he speculates that he may have spent more time at the frat house in Salt Lake City as a Cougar than a Ute.

Decker joined the ROTC and, after nearly six years of college, earned his degree in political science from the U. In , Decker did a two-year stint of graduate school in Chicago before becoming, at age 27, Captain Rodney W. Decker, a U. Army Military Intelligence officer stationed in Saigon in Vietnam. I was not in combat, except in bars.

While working hour days, seven days a week overseas, Decker hired a tutor to help him learn Vietnamese. His instruction stalled once his command of the language grew sufficient for him to carry on with women at the bar. And although he didn't yet have a glimmer of what his future would be, Decker began to learn lessons and show traits that would help him in his journalistic pursuits.

The first lesson dealt with his primary job: gathering information and briefing his superiors. This involved Decker going out to various spots around the country, compiling data and feeding that info into a massive computer that spit out a neat form of rankings and statistics—an outcome that Decker says often amounted to "bullshit.

I had to say, 'Well, sir, we do this and we do that, and we get monthly reports and we put them into the computer, and they come out in this neat format, as you can see, sir! To Decker, Vietnam was a place where he worked hard, had some fun and got to know a lot of great American and Vietnamese people.

When it was time to leave, Decker, flush with poker winnings, took the long way home, traveling through Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Landing on American soil was the hard part. I thought of the Vietnamese I knew over there, and most of them would be killed or thrown in labor camps," Decker says of America's looming decision to withdraw from the war. In any case, it was hard afterward. I felt like lots of people were angry at me.

The blowback and strong anti-war sentiment that greeted Cpt. Decker upon his return gave rise to a healthy skepticism that played no political favorites. But I could see that what they did was bullshit, too, and they couldn't see that. It made me skeptical of academics, of liberals, of perceived opinion.

After his two-year stint in Vietnam, Decker returned to graduate school, where he thought he would take a shot at being a good student it didn't work out. So he returned to Utah, where in , he married Christine Shell Decker, who, before her retirement earlier this year, went on to become a juvenile court judge for the 3rd Judicial District.

Together, they raised three children. So, I looked for a job," Decker says. As a seminary student, Decker remembered that Smart had once suggested he become a reporter. Can I work for the Deseret News? Remember what you said all those years ago?

But fortunately for Decker, Smart lived close to Decker's mother, who "sort of stared at his front door until he hired me. So, I went to work for the Deseret News. Decker didn't know the first thing about being a reporter. As he slowly learned the ropes of newspaper writing, an opportunity sprung up: The Deseret News wanted to start a talk show on KUED Channel 7 called Civic Dialogue , and not a soul in the newsroom offered to moderate—except for Decker. Decker's career at the Deseret News chugged at a steady and upward tilt.

He became a columnist and moderated the talk show. In , Decker spent a year at Harvard University on a fellowship through the Nieman Foundation, a prestigious journalistic training ground. I always felt like I was never doing honest journalism," Decker says. The church didn't want some things said, and that made young reporters all the more eager to say them.

In , the late Utah media mogul George C. Decker's first assignment at the station was to moderate a talk show, Take Two —which occasionally still airs to this day whenever, as Decker says, "they don't have football or something important to put on. Long talk shows of that kind, Decker says, slowly disappeared as news executives realized politics simply didn't generate ratings. He noted that KUTV 2 and other news stations used to set up shop at the Republican and Democratic state conventions and provide expansive coverage.

But with a his degree in political science, and with a divining rod that pulled him in that direction, Decker dove into covering politics first and foremost. Whether Decker knew it or not at the time, he was perched at the apex of American journalism. Robert Redford played a reporter; can you imagine a thing like that? A newspaper reporter , and it wasn't funny.

And, when it came to getting permission from upper management to do a story, Decker says "you only had to think something up for it to happen. Six months on the job at KUTV, Decker was flown to California, where he interviewed physicist Edward Teller, known as the "father of the hydrogen bomb.

Another reporter went to Alamogordo, N. Decker says his counterparts on TV thought of themselves as investigative journalists. Password recovery. Former Utah judge Christine Decker has passed away after a battle with cancer.

File photo. Ron DeSantis appeals. Judge says accounting firm must hand over Trump financial records. Please enter your comment! Please enter your name here. What conflicts and ideologies are at play in the legislature working to overturn citizen referendums?

This is new. They believe majorities may oppose them on specific issues, but they will still carry safe majorities in their districts. Unless a number of Republicans lose the coming election, legislators will continue to disregard voters when they disagree with them.

Does this align with or differ from what history would suggest? From through , Utah was the most Republican state in seven of 10 elections, and close to the most Republican in the others. Utah Latter-day Saints gave 32 percent of their vote to Evan McMcullin, who got almost no votes anywhere else.

Utah Republican politicians also object to his morality, but like having a Republican in the White House. Who makes your list of the Top 5 influential political figures in Utah history? What are three things every MPA student who will read your book should know to truly understand Utah politics? Children born out of marriage are four times more likely to be poor than children born to married parents, and Utah has more of the latter and less of the former.

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