A More Perfect Union:

Becky Edwards is a former social worker who served as a representative for ten sessions in Utah’s legislature and recently ran for the United States Senate. She has two Masters degrees, one in Marriage and Family Therapy and one in Social Work. 

Becky genuinely cares for others and embraced public service as a path to making a positive difference in people’s lives. She values listening, so while in office, she invited constituents into her home each Saturday for “Bagels and Breakfast” so they could talk about their concerns and questions.

Becky and her husband have four children and eleven grandchildren. They recently served as humanitarian missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Samoa.

Liliana Bolaños was born in Michoacan, Mexico and immigrated to the United States with her family at the age of three. Immigrating to Utah led Liliana to finding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and she was baptized into the church at the age of 14. She is now a student at BYU, an immigration paralegal at ImmiVisa Law Group, and an immigration activist. She is passionate about educating others on immigration laws to increase understanding and sympathy towards the immigrant community and to bring awareness to the need for immigration reform.

Rebekah Clark is the Historical Director for Better Days, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding education about Utah women's history. She co-authored the book Thinking Women: A Timeline of Suffrage in Utah and currently serves on the board of the Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team. Rebekah graduated from Harvard University with a degree in American History and Literature, where her honors thesis focused on Latter-day Saint women's activism in the national suffrage movement. She holds a law degree from BYU Law School and studied as a visiting student at Harvard Law School. 

Elaine Clark joined the KUER newsroom as managing editor in 2019 and became news director the following year. Before that she spent 15 years as a producer for KUER's flagship interview program RadioWest. Elaine studied folklore and Germanic studies at Indiana University. She earned a master's degree in Middle East studies from the University of Utah, which included a year of academic research and work for an education NGO in the West Bank.

Alexa Dadson is a high school student, organizer, and the Co-Founder of We The Future, a youth organization that is working to expand the involvement of teenagers in civics. Her contributions to political campaigns, legislative administrative work, and a project to create new pollinator habitats in her area earned her the President's Volunteer Service Award in 2021. Alexa is currently serving as the Mayor of the Vineyard Youth Council and the Governor of ALA Utah Girls State. She is currently working on a Senior Capstone Project about indigenous textiles and fast fashion.

Laurel Christensen Day has spent most of her career at Deseret Book working in marketing, music & entertainment, running the successful Time Out for Women program and then as the Senior Vice President of Product & Consumer Experience. In that role, Laurel led a major rebranding of the company’s robust retail chain and catalog business. In May 2021, Laurel was named President of Deseret Book Company. She is deeply committed to the work of ensuring the company better represents the worldwide membership of the Church in content and product offerings and has a passion for getting great content into the minds and hearts of people regardless of the media form. She has previously been the author of several projects for teenage girls and has spent nearly two decades traveling around the country speaking to both girls and women.

Shaylyn Romney Garrett is celebrated author, speaker, and social entrepreneur whose work offers a fresh take on political polarization, social isolation, economic inequality, and culture change. Her award-winning book co-authored with Robert Putnam, The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, offers an evidence-based roadmap for how to reweave our tattered social fabric. She holds a degree in Government from Harvard University and served in the Peace Corps.

Aubrey Johnson is a public relations student who focuses on storytelling and inclusivity in non-profit and science communications spaces. She also volunteers as the executive director of Girls Lobby. Aubrey participated in Model United Nations at the high school and university-level and has won five awards for personal research and team performance in New York and Washington D.C. Most recently, she spoke on panels at FanX and CrossingsCon about adapting stories for different mediums and audiences.

Becca Kearl is an active community dialogue organizer through her role as Executive Director with Living Room Conversations. She sits on the Steering Committee for the Bridging Movement Alignment Council and works with communities across the country to build understanding and trust. Becca has designed and led healthy dialogue practices in high schools, universities, civic organizations, faith communities, as well as in her own family and personal life. She has seen first hand how dialogue can be a catalyst for greater change.

Debilyn Molineaux is a longstanding leader of organizations working towards American healthy self-governance. In 2015 she co-founded the Bridge Alliance, where she remains President and CEO.  Bridge Alliance is a coalition of over 100 member organizations across the bridging, electoral reform, policy making and media. Debilyn’s deep knowledge of the healthy self-governance field, extensive ties to movement leaders, and hard-won field experience put her in a unique position to advise, mentor and lead large-scale healthy self-governance initiatives.

Carrie Moore is an award-winning journalist, interfaith chaplain and the founder/director of The Bradley Center for Grieving Children and Families. She holds bachelor’s (BYU) and master’s degrees in communication (University of Utah). She spent 25 years as a reporter and editor at The Deseret News before training as an interfaith chaplain in order to create The Bradley Center. She spent five years in hospital and hospice chaplaincy and recently retired from BYU after teaching journalism and communication there for several years. 

Michelle Quist is an opinion columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune, as well as a frequent panelist for PBS Utah’s The Hinckley Report and ABC4 Utah Inside Utah Politics. Michelle has won, and lost, campaigns for various elected positions in Utah. She is a Board Member for Utah Women Run, recently finished as a board member for the Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board, and is a current board member of the Federal Bar Association’s magazine The Federal Lawyer. For her day job, she is a commercial litigator and appellate lawyer at Holland & Hart in Salt Lake City. 

Lauren W. Reliford is a public and population health professional. She earned her Master’s in social work, focusing primarily on the biological impacts of trauma in Black birthing women and the need for policy solutions. Lauren’s work as a public health lobbyist allowed her to address the racist systemic and institutional structures that prevented whole health (physical, mental, behavioral, emotional) for Black and Brown communities, and it is work she continues as political director at Sojourners.

Robin Ritch served most recently as the president and publisher for Deseret News Publishing Company. She has more than 10 years of experience working with early stage tech startups and has worked with companies such as Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco, where she cultivated the skills of advising and mentoring. A transformative CEO, Robin excels at leading organizations through pivotal growth phases. Robin earned a BS in finance from Brigham Young University and an MBA from the University of Washington.

Flora Sasa is the Director of Foundations of Government Programs for Girls Lobby. Originally from South Sudan, she is currently studying criminal justice and sociology at Weber State University. Flora works for juvenile justice and youth services as a case manager and parole officer. She enjoys empowering the younger generation to get involved with their local government as well as helping youth and families navigate resources and overcome challenges in their lives.

Kylie Nielson Turley has been an adjunct faculty member at BYU since 1997. She teaches courses in first-year writing, persuasive writing, the Literature of the LDS People, and the Book of Mormon. She is the author of Alma 1-29 in the Maxwell Institute’s Brief Theological Introduction series and has published academic articles on topics ranging from settlement era Utah politics to LDS women’s death poetry, and creative nonfiction essays on topics ranging from mothering to chronic illness. 

Olivia Wallgren is the Outreach Director for Girls Lobby. She recently graduated from BYU with a BA in International Relations. She has a passion for the small corners of the world which led her to learn more about and promote social, economic, and political issues both inside and outside the United States. She has been on the BYU Model UN team, interned for the International Rescue Committee, and has worked on various research projects in the BYU Political Science Department. Currently, she works as a law clerk at a firm that deals with criminal record expungements.