Two tragedies — one in a Salt Lake shopping mall, the other deep inside a central Utah coal mine — weighed heavily on Utahns during a year filled with unsettling news.
Deseret Morning News editors, reporters and readers had a difficult time choosing between the two as the top story of 2007, and at the end, they did not agree. But for everyone, the votes between the two events were split practically evenly.
In a way, it seems disrespectful to survivors and surviving families of both the Trolley Square shooting and the Crandall Canyon Mine collapse for journalists and readers to choose the bigger story.
Both events were not just news stories but human dramas that left lasting imprints on our collective psyche.
Readers picked the Crandall Canyon Mine collapse as the top story of the year. For its loss of life, length of time to unravel, larger coal mining issues and national impact it's hard to argue otherwise. It certainly dealt Carbon and Emery counties a devastating blow.
The unsuccessful search for six trapped miners stayed in the national and local spotlight for weeks, punctuated by the bluster of mine owner Bob Murray. The effort took a worse turn when three rescuers died in another cave-in.
Morning News editors and reporters narrowly ranked the Trolley Square shooting that left six dead and four wounded as the top story. It definitely struck closer to home. The people 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic gunned down before police shot him were doing what people do around Valentine's Day — or any day for that matter. Shopping and eating out aren't supposed to be life-threatening.
Between the tears of those two events came wildfires in eastern and central Utah that directly or indirectly claimed seven lives. Three men died when fire swept over them in a Uinta Basin hay field. A California couple fleeing a fire along smoky I-15 near Fillmore on a motorcycle were run over and killed. Wind-blown ash caused another fatal highway accident.
All of those events came against the backdrop of the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where 10 Utahns died in 2007, the deadliest year yet for local soldiers.
There also is the looming race for the White House, with heavy campaigning for more than a year and no clear front-runner emerging in either party. Mitt Romney's presidential aspirations brought unprecedented attention to Utah, or more particularly The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Politics at home also made for many headlines. The divisive months-long battle over creating a statewide school voucher program stayed in the news until its defeat in the November election. Rocky Anderson's decision to not seek a third term brought new blood to the Salt Lake mayor's office with Ralph Becker.
Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs made the top 10 for the second consecutive year. Last year for being a fugitive; this year for being arrested and convicted on rape by accomplice charges. He now resides at the Utah State Prison.
Other than University of Utah professor Mario Capecchi winning the Nobel Prize, there were no feel-good stories in the top 10.
Though not in the same order, readers and the Morning News staff agreed on eight of the top 10 stories, including prison inmate Curtis Michael Allgier allegedly killing corrections officer Stephen Anderson during an escape attempt from a University of Utah medical clinic.
The death of President James E. Faust, second counselor in the First Presidency of the LDS Church, and Becker becoming Salt Lake mayor made the readers' list.
Editors and reporters chose escapes from the Daggett and Beaver county jails and kidnapped bride Julianna Redd Myers on their ballots.
E-mail: romboy@desnews.com