Teri Orr

Social entrepreneur

I have lived in Park City, Utah for the past 42 years and watched it change from a failing mining town to a thriving four-season resort community. I wrote a weekly, award-winning column until Nov of 2022. As a former editor of the local paper, The Park Record, I became involved in politics and understanding land use, and helping in the development of the non-profit community. In the mid '90 I made a radical career change, left the paper, and started fundraising to build and run a performing arts center. I was able to be involved, in a small part, with entertainment locally for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. Our programming has been recognized nationally for our eclectic, international mix of dance, theater, music, and speakers-all in a town of less than 10,000 people. I have raised about $50 million for the arts here. After attending my first TED conference in Aspen in 2008, I came back a zealot and presented Pangea Day and began the process of starting our own version of Dave Egger's 826 tutoring center. For 10 years we ran a free, after-school, one-on-one literacy tutoring center, The Mega-Genius Supply Store and IQHQ. Separately, we created a series of evening talks with wine and food pairings called "Curiosities." The Eccles Theater has the anchor facility for the Sundance FiIm Festival since 1998. I have been involved with them, working with the press or being the press, since 1982. I owned a children's clothing store in the '70s at Lake Tahoe called "Ruffles and Ruffenecks." I have been a mostly single mom, who left an abusive marriage in California and reinvented myself in Utah. I now have two adult children, who produced three grandchildren. We like each other enough to spend most holidays together and a bunch of time in between. They left the state to attend college but returned to work and raise families in Utah. I helped start the local women's shelter, the Peace House. I have worked on and spoken about domestic violence for years and served on the Governor's Council for Domestic Violence issues. For that, I was given the "Many Women, Many Voices" award in 2002. I also have received a number of awards from The Society of Professional Journalists, The Utah Press Association and the National Press Association. I received the Chamber/Bureau's Spirit of Hospitality award in 2007. In 2012, I received the Governor's Award for Leadership in the Arts. I have served as a judge for the national PEN literary competition and been a parade judge even more times!

Books/ Chocolate/ Music/ My Garden/ Embers from a fire/ Spending time teaching children-anything/ Navajo rugs and jewelry and ceramony/ Social justice issues/ Politics -local to international

The invention of the GPS may be the least creative travel tool ever. The whole point of travel is to discover..to lose oneself. Go down the alleyway and find that tiny tea shop/bar/rug dealer. Make a wrong turn and end up on someone's farm, ranch, or garden. The restaurant you were headed to, gets usurped by the diner/dive bar you never knew was there. Our world can be so prescribed at times we miss the serendipity of the moment. The discovery. The wonder.

domestic violence recovery, Grant Writer, Journalism editor, Performance and Dance

Someone sent me a video of Sir Ken Robinson's first TED talk in 2007. And that was it. I just wanted to inhale all things TED. I was invited to attend the first Summit? Active ? event in Aspen in 2008 and it shifted my perspective on ...everything. I have been attending TED since. And in 2009 we were granted one of the first TEDx licenses - TEDXChange with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We have been presenting multiple events every year since...

Cooking (though I rarely do it) Ironing (a lost art) Really I 'm fairly good at the domestic life I just don't live it anymore.....