The State Board of Education approved the application for the first-ever charter school in Tooele County last Friday. Excelsior Academy, a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school, is now scheduled to open in the fall of 2009. The school will be built in Erda just southwest of the LDS Chapel there, according to Ann Gubler, the leader of the parents group that proposed the new school.

The race season at Miller Motorsports Park gets underway in full this weekend with the American LeMans Series Larry H. Miller Dealerships Utah Grand Prix, but many local businesses say they've already gotten an economic boost from the track heading into the summer tourism season Ginger Martin, manager of the Oquirrh Motor Inn in Lake Point, said her motel is completely booked up for the Utah Grand Prix this weekend and the "HANNSpree Superbike World Championship," which runs May 29 to June 1.

For children in military families, moving around is a normality and being the new kid in school is just the way it is from kindergarten through high school. "You get used to it," said Zac Slade, son of Chaplain Major Eugene Slade and a junior at Dugway High School. "The hardest thing is keeping in touch with people when you leave. I have friends all over the world."

Tooele head football coach Sam Elliott resigned Monday to accept the head coaching position at Union High School in Roosevelt, according to Elliott. Union High School contacted Elliott back in February and offered him the job, but the Tooele coach declined.