Melanie Busath on Lehi City Events & Community Traditions | Roots & Branches

Lehi City Events Manager Melanie Busath shares the story behind the Roundup, Summer Splash, Santa Parade, and how volunteerism and youth leadership keep Lehi's community spirit alive.

Melanie Busath on Lehi City Events & Community Traditions | Roots & Branches

Lehi City Events Manager Melanie Busath shares the story behind the Roundup, Summer Splash, Santa Parade, and how volunteerism and youth leadership keep Lehi's community spirit alive.

Melanie Busath on Lehi City Events, Community Traditions, and Building Community Through Celebration

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Who Is Melanie Busath, and Why Does Her Story Matter?

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Episode Overview

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Role in Lehi

Time Periods Discussed

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Primary Topics Discussed

Resource for Listeners

Episode Highlights

Key Stories from the Interview

Bridge with Honor: The First Event That Changed Everything

Transforming the Roundup Concert

Moving to Family Park: Overcoming Resistance

Summer Splash: A New Independence Day Tradition

The Youth Council's Surprising Priority

From Maverick Center to Main Street

The Dream Event: A Hope Concert for Teens

Historical Insights About Lehi

Community and Legacy Themes

Memorable Quotes

Related Lehi Topics

Photo Opportunities for Historical Archive

Full Transcript

Melanie Busath Lehi Utah Interview - Roots & Branches of Lehi Podcast

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Lehi City Events Manager Melanie Busath shares how a Midvale transplant found her home organizing the Roundup, Summer Splash, Santa Parade, and a growing calendar of community gatherings that keep Lehi connected.

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In this episode of Roots & Branches of Lehi , host Ryan Harding sits down with Melanie Busath , Lehi City's Events Manager, whose work has helped shape some of the most beloved community traditions in Lehi, Utah. Originally from Midvale, Melanie found her way to Lehi through a passion for event planning and a desire to create meaningful, community-centered experiences. Over the past decade, she has played a key role in organizing and expanding events that bring residents together—from summer concerts and holiday parades to the iconic Lehi Roundup.

Melanie's story offers a behind-the-scenes look at how community events are built, funded, and sustained, highlighting the collaboration between city leaders, local businesses, and volunteers. Her work reflects the heart of Lehi's culture—where traditions like rodeo, family activities, and civic celebrations aren't just entertainment, but a vital part of preserving local identity and strengthening community bonds. As Lehi continues to grow, Melanie's efforts show how intentional planning and community involvement help maintain the small-town feel residents cherish.

For anyone interested in Lehi, Utah history , community events , local government , volunteerism , Lehi Roundup traditions , youth leadership , or the cultural life of Utah Valley's fastest-growing city, this interview is essential listening. Melanie's story preserves a living history of civic engagement, tradition-building, and the power of public celebration to unite neighbors.

Prefer to listen? This episode is also available on <a href="https: <a href="https:

Melanie Busath

Lehi City Events Manager

2010s–2020s (past 10 years)

Ryan Harding

Every homeowner starts somewhere. Whether you are just beginning to dream, getting financially ready, or already touring homes — this simple tool helps you understand your next best step.

Melanie's first city event, "Bridge with Honor," introduced her to the emotional impact of community gatherings. A local man would go to salute on a bridge honoring veterans, connecting generations. Though the event is no longer held after the founder moved away, it left a lasting impression on Melanie about how events can honor the past and bring people together across age groups.

Melanie transformed the traditional Roundup concert from a "picnic in the park" into a modern concert experience, drawing larger crowds and outside performers like Ned LeDoux and Drew Baldridge. A performer who visited Lehi loved the community so much he later sent a free video message during COVID, showing the town's lasting impression on visitors.

The move of the Roundup concert to the new Family Park amphitheater initially faced resistance from longtime attendees. People came with blankets, upset about leaving Wines Park. But when they left, many said "I take it back. This was wonderful." The new venue expanded capacity, improved parking, and gave the event "a whole new vibe" while preserving the community spirit.

The creation of the Summer Splash Concert added a new tradition combining music, food trucks, and fireworks for the 24th of July celebration. Started at Ivory Ridge Splash Park and later moved to the Family Park amphitheater, it replaced the water-dependent Foam Day with a reliable, scalable community celebration that families could count on every year.

Youth Council members surprised city leaders when asked about Lehi's biggest challenges. Adults expected answers about growth, traffic, or development. Instead, the youth identified bullying as their top concern. This unexpected insight shaped how leaders thought about community needs and demonstrated the value of listening to younger voices in city planning.

Melanie originally worked at the Maverick Center doing concerts, but she realized she loved the community aspects of events more than the commercial side. That realization led her to a communications major and eventually to Lehi, where she has spent 10 years building events that reflect small-town values rather than big-arena spectacle.

If she had unlimited resources, Melanie would bring a major performer like Post Malone to Lehi for a "hope concert" aimed at teenagers, with priority ticket access for youth. Inspired by the Youth Council's focus on bullying, she envisions a large-scale event that would resonate with teens and help them feel seen, connected, and part of the community.

This interview reveals how community events function as both mirror and memory for a growing city. Here are key historical insights from Melanie Busath's decade of service:

Throughout the interview, several broader themes emerge that reflect the values and challenges facing Lehi as it grows while trying to maintain its character:

This episode connects to the broader Roots & Branches of Lehi archive. Explore these related topics to deepen your understanding of Lehi's history and community:

To enhance this community profile, consider adding these visual elements to the historical record:

Ryan Harding: Welcome to Roots and Branches of Lehi, the podcast where we get to know the faces, stories, and lives that make up our community. I'm Ryan Harding, and I started this podcast as a way for us all to connect with the people we live alongside. Growing up in a small town, I learned that connections go beyond blood. They're built through shared experiences, friendships, and the moments we celebrate together. Each week, we'll sit down with someone new from Lehi to share their unique story, their passions, and what they love most about living here. So whether you've been here for years or just arrived, join us as we deepen our roots and reach out to our branches one story at a time.

Ryan Harding: Welcome Melanie Busath to Roots and Branches of Lehi.

Melanie Busath: Happy to have you here. And I'm excited to be here. This is awesome.

Ryan Harding: Yeah, like I said, you get to be Lehi famous here now, right? I'm so excited.

Ryan Harding: So good. Good. Well, let's get to know you a little bit first, right? So tell me a little background. Tell me where you're from originally and what brought you to Lehi.

Melanie Busath: Um so I actually am from Midvale. I always tease I'm from the streets of Midvale. I went to school, I was working at Deseret Book and realized I really like doing events. So I did a communications major. I worked a couple other event jobs and realized I really wanted to get back to that community feel of events that I was doing. I was working at Maverick Center doing concerts. Yeah. It was awesome. But I really loved the community parts of events and then this just kind of opened up and it was so perfect. And I've been doing this for about 10 years now.

Ryan Harding: And you said Midvale and stuff like that. So how long have you been in Lehi then?

Melanie Busath: Yeah. So basically since, I guess, 10 years. I kind of, one of my jobs was all over kind of traveling. So I mostly just kind of stayed close to my parents and then when this opened up and now I live here. I love Lehi. I never thought I would live here. Now I can't see myself anywhere else.

Ryan Harding: Yeah. Can't leave. Yeah. You're stuck here.

Ryan Harding: Well, so yeah, talk to us about events and stuff like that then. What do you do for the city?

Melanie Busath: So, I'm the city events manager. Basically, what that means is that I do kind of all of our bigger events. We have all sorts of events like with Legacy Center Library. But the ones I focus on more like our Easter egg hunt. We do a big summer splash concert, our Santa parade, and then of course Lehi Roundup's kind of my big one. So those are kind of some.

Ryan Harding: And you've been doing that for about 10 years now. So were those already in place when you started?

Melanie Busath: So some of them, I didn't officially—I started some or we've kind of changed. Like our Easter egg hunt had just started the year before. So that's really grown and progressed since I started. We've changed the way we do it. We also added the summer splash party concert. That one I started. So and that one's one of my favorites. We get a big one. I love that one. So yeah. So I've definitely added events. Some were kind of just starting when I started.

Ryan Harding: Sure. Well, so let's go into some of those events because I'm not sure like the splash one for example. Tell me about that. What do we do for that?

Melanie Busath: So this one is so fun. I loved it. We started it up at Ivory Ridge Splash Park splash pad area. We've kind of changed it and we've moved it over to Family Park amphitheater this year since we have that new nice amphitheater. And so we've made it more of a concert type venue. We had Matt Hansen who I actually didn't know but our youth council was very excited. So he's awesome. He's kind of a Benson Boone type. And we had him come and do this awesome concert. We had food trucks. We do fireworks afterwards. So it's kind of for the 24th of July celebration. Just a little extra fun activity to do during the summer. We have always done foam day. But foam day was so dependent on water that we didn't always get to do it. So I was like, I want to do something all the time and then when we can do foam day, we'll figure that out.

Ryan Harding: And are these events typically free? Like they're provided by the city?

Melanie Busath: Yeah. And that's what I love. Most of our events are free. We very rarely charge. I don't think we've ever, at least for my events, charge more than like $5 for events. We want to keep it kind of low for those families that want to come.

Ryan Harding: Okay. And so tell me about some of the other ones. Obviously everybody probably knows about Roundup, so I'll let you skip that one. But tell me about some of the other events that we have in the city.

Melanie Busath: Okay. Um, some we do. We do some outdoor movie nights. Everyone does outdoor movie nights, so we try to do them a little bit differently. We have one, it's a drive-in movie night where the kids can make their own cars and kind of watch a drive-in. So we've done it with the theme with cars. We've done the last three movies the last three years. So we'll probably change it up this year a little or next year. We do a Harry Potter movie night. We do all sorts of booths and we do butterbeer and like just a big party and then we'll watch Harry Potter. We've done that in different movie. We've kind of done it every year as part of the movie. We do our Santa parade, which we're starting to get gearing up for Santa Parade, which I love. It's probably one of my favorites.

Ryan Harding: And where's that at? What do they do?

Melanie Busath: So that will be along Main Street. This year is going to be a little bit different because we have our new city hall. And so I'm hoping and it sounds like everything hopefully will go well that we can do that at least outside of there. We have reindeer coming, vendors. So we'll do it all on Main Street and it will end at the new city hall. It starts at Lehi High School. And it goes through there and then we'll have pictures of Santa and it's just a good time. We usually do cookies and hot chocolate for everyone and try to have a few activities.

Ryan Harding: It uh, so this year you're thinking using the city hall in some degree.

Melanie Busath: Yeah. And I'm hoping to make it kind of a little bit bigger because now we have a little bit bigger space. Before we did it at the literacy center and it was a little bit smaller so we couldn't do too much. So I'm excited to kind of expand it and get more people involved.

Ryan Harding: Okay. And how do people find out about this? If I'm a resident of Lehi, how do I even find out about these events?

Melanie Busath: So the first option is always our website. They're always on our city calendar on our website. I always put them on Facebook immediately. So that's kind of how our communications team works is when I have a new event, I'll make a Facebook event group and then they take it and disperse it to any other places. So I can tell you 100% it will always be on that Facebook event page. It's Lehi City. So it's just Lehi City Facebook. And then our lehi-ut.gov is our website. And those two places, it's almost always going to be there.

Ryan Harding: So as far as like the city provides all the stuff, it's very little price sometimes. Do you have vendors? What if I'm a business and I want to sponsor that?

Melanie Busath: We do sponsorships. Our biggest one is obviously Roundup. So that one's kind of always a little bit different. And then with the smaller events we kind of tailor it more to the smaller event and what they would like to be a part of whether they want to be there or just donate. So it's more just coming and talking to me and we'll come up with that.

Ryan Harding: I just know we're a mortgage company and we have we rented out the park last year at Wines Park and had a band there and stuff like that. So it's nice that you also have some of these other ones and so maybe something we piggyback sometimes.

Melanie Busath: Yeah, for sure. We love it. I'm all for I feel like some of them because they're bigger, we have to have certain structures and requirements, but I'm all for having Lehi businesses be a part of it. It's their community too and they want to be a part of it. So if I can ever work it out and have them be there, I'm all for it.

Ryan Harding: So talking about your first event, I guess. What was that? Was it a little overwhelming at first?

Melanie Busath: So I've been doing events before I started working here. So the actual planning of events wasn't too nervous. But there was this whole other layer of the city council being there, residents, and then my first event was actually we actually don't do it anymore because the man who started it moved and he was kind of over it, but it was the Bridge with Honor. It was over the bridge and he would go and salute on the bridge and people really loved it and wanted to be a part of it. So on Veterans Day we kind of did this with him and he would take the kids around and kind of explain that to them and then he would introduce them to another veteran and it was really awesome. But I had been doing like 5K fun runs or concerts. So in that sense, it was really a nerve-wracking thing, but I loved it because I just really love that sense of community and it was so cool to see these kids from the elementary school come and then have city council there and just like it was such a cool feeling of just like, yeah, this is a cool sense of community.

Ryan Harding: Any other events stand out? You've been doing it for 10 years. Anyone where this was especially meaningful?

Melanie Busath: Yeah the one I really love and I'm kind of the one who changed it is on Roundup we have our Monday night concert and it's always been like a picnic in the park concert. But I kind of, coming from Maverick Center concerts, I wanted it to be like a concert, like an actual concert. So I kind of changed that a little bit and now it's probably one of my favorite things. We had like Ned LeDoux came and what was so cool with Ned is that he loved it so much that when COVID happened, I said, "Hey, could you do a message for the residents and how much would that cost?" And he said, "Hey, we love Lehi. We'll do it for free. We'll send you a video." Because he just loved being here so much and that vibe. And so that concert always is such a joy to me because most concerts come thinking it's going to be like a serious concert and they realize how quickly Lehi just gloms on to them and makes them an honorary resident. They almost every time it's like, I can't believe it. Like they love it. Drew Baldridge loved Lehi. It's just such a special thing for them and I love being a part of that.

Ryan Harding: And was this the first year then we did it at the family park?

Melanie Busath: Yes. And that I was so actually nervous for that because Drew was awesome and he did a lot of marketing on his end too. So I was like I think we're good but this is our first time doing it. I don't 100% know what it will be like. A lot of people were a little worried about not doing it at Wines Park. People would come and put their blankets and come over to us and be like, "We're very upset. This is at Wines Park." And I was like, "Oh, no. I'm sorry." But when they left, so many people said, "I take it back. This was wonderful. This was great." So I think it did give a whole new vibe. And I loved it. And I think Drew was the perfect person to have because he also worked so hard to make it such a fun concert.

Ryan Harding: I mean that's the scary thing about some of those things, right? You think it could be better and so you're trying to do it but tradition's hard. Human beings tend to do that, right? We get stuck in our ways. But good for you for trying something new.