I’m halfway through the run of Pioneer Theatre Company’s production of “The Will Rogers Follies.” I play Wiley Post, the aviator who was piloting the plane that went down  in Alaska in 1935, claiming the lives of both Rogers and Post as a result. I spend the entire show sitting in the audience, yelling “Let’s go flying, Will” every once in awhile. It’s kind of a running joke until the end of the show, when it finally dawns on everyone as to what happens when Will finally takes me up on my offer.

I’m writing this on May 4, 2017, one year to the day after my father, Senator Bob Bennett, passed away after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Dad had left office a little more than six years earlier, and he gave a farewell speech on the floor of the Senate that summed up his perspective on political parties. Its insights dovetail quite nicely with the goals and platform of the United Utah Party.