Former Salt Lake City Mayor Deedee Corradini may be coming back to Utah for good, but don't bother looking for her name on a future election ballot.
Corradini, who gave a brief speech Saturday at the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market, said she has been asked more than once to consider another run for office in Utah.
They can ask all they want, she said — she's not getting back into politics.
"No, I really feel as though I've been there, done that," Corradini, 58, said of her eight years in office, 1992-1999. "It was thoroughly one of the most demanding jobs I've ever had.
"I really believe, and I've said this many times, in the Scott Matheson philosophy of government. It should be service. You give a part of your life to it. Get in, give it your all, and get out."
Corradini and her husband, John Huebner, moved to Greenville, S.C., after she decided not to seek a third term. She has been teaching urban affairs at Furman University and serving as a volunteer member and vice-chairwoman of the U.S. Olympic Committee panel that will choose which American city will bid for the 2012 Summer Games.
But Huebner's lighting company, Mor-Lite Inc., which specializes in energy-efficient products, is planning to open a division in Salt Lake City. If that happens, the couple could buy a house in Utah and live here most of the year.
"We're very, very excited about it," Corradini said of her husband's business expansion plans. "Things are evolving."
Mor-Lite's headquarters would remain in South Carolina, and the couple likely would retain a residence there. But Corradini said Saturday she might consider employment in the Salt Lake area "if the right opportunity came along."
Saturday, the mile-a-minute Corradini was supporting another cause she believes in — youth fitness. She spoke to a group of Outdoor Retailer volunteers who spent the day building 10 playgrounds as a community service project to benefit Salt Lake-area children's organizations.
While in office, Corradini started the Olympic Kids program to encourage fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students to participate in recreational and fitness activities. She hopes to work in a volunteer capacity to help the USOC begin a similar program aimed at promoting youth fitness.
"We have a real crisis in this country in terms of youth fitness — obesity among our kids," she told the volunteers. "And playgrounds are so symbolic in getting our kids outdoors and getting them active."
While largely behind the scenes, Corradini was in Salt Lake for the entire 2002 Winter Games. She has spent about half her time since then in Utah, staying in a friend's vacant home in Park City.
The Olympics were a thrill, she said — "I was so proud of the city and the state" — and development of the Gateway area, another of her pet projects while mayor, also pleases her. She enjoys watching the city's new library take shape as well. The plans were molded and approved during her administration.
"I think and hope our team made a difference in Salt Lake," she said.
And Corradini doesn't mind one bit reading those newspaper articles about how other Salt Lake Valley cities now want light-rail mass transit.
"Every time a light rail car goes by, I get the same feelings of joy and exhilaration" that she had during the Olympics, Corradini said. "After the struggle we went through, to have people enjoying it, saying 'this is great.'
"I knew it was going to happen, that's what was so hard, because that's the history of every other city" with light rail.
E-MAIL: zman@desnews.com