Where Are They Now? — Jeff Price

Oh, the high school days... it's good to see how so many of you are doing so well since then and how many are aging along with the rest of us, although some still look the same?! (How do they do it?) Anyways, 20 years... seems like only yesterday (not really). Sorry to say that I won't be able to make it to the reunion as I have other commitments at that particular date.

Some may remember me as the shy one with friends in every wing of the school, some may may be thinking "who the hell is this guy?". I have had quite a good time since the high school days, I have been very fortunate and everyday seems better than the last. I was always more of an observer than a participant, I think I learned more of what not to do from others. I always had my own hobbies and sports that kept me busy and out of trouble (and out of the hallways at school). I wasn't around much during the senior year as I only needed 1 credit to graduate for the whole year, so I mostly hung out at the tech building, Lake Powell, sand dunes or anywhere else. I was a teacher's assistant in a variety of classes during the senior year and certain teachers pretty much let me do whatever I felt like doing.

I always had a thing for cars, drafting and math back then and right out of school I thought I wanted to be some type of auto technician but not in general automotive. Some friends even called me Motorhead (not sure if it was because of the band or because I liked motors). I worked a few places and one day decided that I liked it as a hobby, but not as an occupation. Luckily I had a very strong mathematical background and I decided to go into accounting in college and ended up being self employed as an accountant by 1991-92, later taking over a practice in 1995 which I have and still run in Orem.

I also took some real estate courses and purchased my first home in Orem to renovate and flip in 1994. It went very well. I owned it a total of 3 months and immediately purchased another to do the same and well, I'm still there. I made the mistake of moving into the second house and soon after met my (1st) wife Jackie, we married in 1996. We had a daughter, Sadie age 11 and son, Jace age 9. We divorced in 2003 and somehow I was lucky enough to get the house and the kids, it happens, even in Utah. I met my current (and last) wife, Heather Haslam (Orem High '94), in 2005, we got married in 2007 and are working on (trying for anyway) more kids (if I'm not too old!). I have renovated and remodeled this home a couple times since I've been here (14 years) and we are in the middle of a remodel again right now, I don't know why but I guess because I like where I live. Our kids are very active in anything from scouts, atv's, motorcycles, swimming, dancing, camping, soccer and whatever else comes up.

Heather is the manager of a convenience store but she has enjoyed taking occasional classes at UVSC since high school and she is a history and a cultural buff. She has had all her nursing classes also and just hasn't gone through the nursing program, but we're not sure she will as life is all good right now (job, schedules, hours etc). She has been more of a world traveler since she was 17 as I am more of an inside the US traveler, although I have been to Mexico and Canada (I know, big deal). I take her places throughout mostly the Western States and she keeps threatening that we're traveling to Spain and other such places but I keep coming up with projects that put that kind of planning off, it will happen though. Luckily she loves the mountains as much (or more) as I do. We enjoy boating, camping, river running, skiing, riding atv's, Jeep's, biking, hiking, traveling etc etc.

I got into building cars and off road vehicles in the early 90's just for fun and I'm still building them here in our shop in the backyard. I got into thrashing the off road things there for a while, raced a few in many places and have destroyed many vehicles, my body just doesn't take the thrashing like it used to and I've upgraded the vehicles and tamed down a little on the demolition. I competed in the professional rock crawling/racing series thing from 1999-2003 and did pretty well. I even made it on the cover of a magazine, it was a lot of fun. We did a lot of traveling around the West but now we just do it for fun and do more sight seeing type of trails mostly around Utah. Heather and I are also involved in a summer long volunteer wildlife study with the State of Utah now going on our 4th year with it, we had to do something more with what little spare time we did have.

I can't forget to mention the other members of the family... the dogs. We have 2 miniature pinscher's and a black lab, all are house dogs. They have us trained pretty much how they want us, and they somehow manage to go just about everywhere with us.

Well, that's a condensed version of me since high school... I couldn't find many older pics of back in the late 80's (maybe on purpose), I just don't know what I did with those mullet and big hair pics... or do I?!

Have fun at the reunion!

Jeff & Heather Price