This school year marks the tenth anniversary of Utah Military Academy. As a founding administrative member, Major Kit Workman remembers, “I’d had a vision of something like this for years.”
As a way of celebrating the anniversary of the school and recognizing the hard work and dedication of the people who were here in the first years of the school; the journalism and yearbook classes are devoting time and coverage to rediscover the memories and stories that have happened over the last ten years.
The story of Utah Military Academy begins back in 2008, with AFJROTC instructor Major Workman. He was on his way to Albuquerque for a marksmanship competition when they visited a school named Bataan Military Academy. After a lengthy meeting with their principal, Major Workman came up with an idea for a school like it in Utah.
As Major Workman indicated, the first few years in developing the idea were pretty slow, with roadblock after roadblock. But one day in 2012, Workman was driving to work when he heard on the radio that Utah Senator Howard Stephenson was looking for people who had ideas on charter schools. “He specifically said a military school next to Hill Air Force Base and I almost crashed because here it was!”.
After the announcement by Senator Stephenson, Major Workman met up with Representative Curt Oda, and together they had a meeting with Senator Stephenson. “We came out of there thinking, ‘this is possible. This is really possible!’” After the meeting, Workman proceeded to make connections around the state to figure out how to accomplish his goal.
Eventually he discovered through his networking that there was someone else who also was attempting to start up a military school around Hill Field. His name was Matt Throckmorton. After doing some talking and planning, Throckmorton and Major Workman teamed up to make Utah Military Academy a reality…and UMA Hill Field was born.
TEN YEARS OF
UMA MEMORIES…with Mrs. Shannon Seward
This is a part of an ongoing series in celebration of the tenth anniversary of Utah Military Academy – Hill Field Campus.
“I started in July of 2014, and it was crazy. We had about 250 students and only had part of the building. The cadets could only go from one gym door and walk around to the other. In the beginning, the cadets had to wear colored hats and lanyards that matched their grade (green, orange, beige, yellow). We used to have prom and graduation at the Air Force Museum in the big hangar with the planes, which was really awesome. Also in the beginning, we were featured on Fox 13 as the cool school with Big Buddah. There was another time that Major Curtis had taken his history class and enacted the civil war with guns made out of pvc piping and they also had civil war uniforms which again we were featured on Fox 13. The coolest thing for me was the school hosting the last surviving Tuskegee Airman, and getting to meet them.”
