About

Michelle Galaria, founder KURW

So, some have asked “Why are you still writing about Kanab if you left?” Well, people write about their experiences inspired by timing and other events. The discovery of Steve and Dave at the Capitol made me feel obligated to act, to contribute the information I have within the means that I have available to me. If I had been living in Bozeman at the time, I’d write about Bozeman, that’s how this works. The better question is “Why didn’t we see this coming?”

mgalaria@protonmail.com  I update pages and information based on community input, research and review. Please contact me with contributions and requests to review individuals on “hatewatch” or content.

I resided in the Kanab, Utah area from 2009-2020, beginning as temporary summer employment from teaching, then visiting family employed at Best Friends Animal Society, then moving to the Kanab area full-time upon retirement in 2013 from James Logan High School in Union, City, California.

My exposure to the far-right in Kanab intensified with the pandemic and social justice activism. After assisting in outreach and promotion for Kanab’s first 2020 social justice event (https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/06/06/black-lives-matter/), I created a FB page “Kanab Activism” to promote, support and community-fund community activism. I documented the weekly Say Their Names sign waiving events on Center Street, the weekly counter-protests to the MAGA events, one of the two MAGA vehicle cruises and the Chalk the Lot for Black Lives Matter event. I spent every week for six months, June through November, engaging with the far-right, law enforcement, public officials, concerned citizens, business owners, national organizations and journalists.

I happily moved from the area to Portland, Oregon in November 2020. That move was made possible through an incredible action of voluntary paid separation and moving expenses from my sister’s employer, Best Friends Animal Society. If I hadn’t seen the underbelly of Kanab and Best Friends had not offered us a way out, we would never have left Kanab. I was relieved to leave it behind until the Capitol Insurrection. Kanab area residents starting contacting me regarding the continued demonstrations of Stop-the-Steal and Save America demonstrations. I discovered that Kanab produced two men who who travelled to Washington DC to Stop-the-Steal (see KURW post Insurrectionists from Kanab Area), Steve Corson who I got to know at his weekly counter-protests of Black Lives Matter at 89/89A and David Crosby who I knew as a long-time customer of his business Crosby Home & Farm. Sindi Vetere was exposed when she ran for Kanab Mayor upon return from the J6 Insurrection at DC with her kids. Corson reports that 11 from Kanab went to stop the certification of the 2020 election.