When Deseret News correspondent Arva Smith needs legal advice, she doesn't have to call a lawyer, she just calls a family reunion.
Seems jurisprudence runs in the Smith family. Of her four children, she has a son, a daughter and a daughter-in-law who are all practicing attorneys.Daughter Mariam is an administrator for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Salt Lake City; son Craig is an assistant city attorney in Park City, and his wife, Anneli, is with the Salt Lake law firm of Clyde, Pratt and Snow. Her other two daughters have done well for themselves, too. Shelly, who is married to a neurosurgeon in Kansas City, runs a wholesale craft business; Andrea is teaching high school in the Kenya outback.
Smith is justifiably proud of her children, just as the Deseret News is proud of its longtime "eyes in Carbon County." The paper also busted a few buttons recently when Smith was selected "Outstanding Woman of the Year" during the 11th annual Women's Conference sponsored by the College of Eastern Utah and the Carbon County Chamber of Commerce.
Smith, who has been the Deseret News' correspondent in Carbon County since 1968, said she's enjoyed her life as a reporter - so much so that two years ago she also began working full-time with the Sun Advocate in Price.
"It's interesting. I like meeting people," Smith says of her job. "And most of what I've done has been well-received."
A fixture in Price for more than three decades, Smith said it wasn't planned that way. She said that when her husband was transferred there in 1955, it was supposed to be a two- or three-year thing. But he never wanted to move. And really neither did she.
Over the years, Smith has covered a lot of big stories for the Deseret News - twice winning Correspondent of the Year honors. But no story was any bigger than the 1984 Wilberg Mine disaster in which she did a yeoman job keeping readers apprised of the latest developments. She also garnered an award from the Society of Professional Journalists for her Wilberg reports.
"I don't want to sound nosy," Smith said, "but I like to find out things."
Rest assured that if it happens in Carbon or Emery counties, Deseret News readers will find it out first from Smith.