Nineteen years ago, my boss at the time sent me to Colorado City and Hildale, to report on why members of the isolated polygamist towns were pulling their kids out of school.
Some members said it was preparation for the Second Coming, foretold by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ enigmatic new leader, Warren Jeffs, who was stepping in to fill the shoes of his aging father.
It proved to be one of the most fascinating assignments of my life and the story made some waves internationally. I even got a call from a British journalist looking for tales of the horrors of polygamy and asking why the state wasn’t swooping in to arrest them all.