Merrilee Boyack on Community Leadership, Family Advocacy, and Making a Difference in Lehi, Utah

Merrilee Boyack on Lehi Community Leadership | Roots & Branches

Merrilee Boyack discusses community leadership, family advocacy, disaster preparedness, and making a difference in Lehi, Utah. Watch the full interview and read the transcript.

Merrilee Boyack on Community Leadership, Family Advocacy, and Making a Difference in Lehi, Utah

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Who Is Merrilee Boyack, and Why Does Her Story Matter?

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Episode Overview

Guest Name

Role in Lehi

Time Periods Discussed

Host

Primary Topics Discussed

Episode Highlights

Key Stories from the Interview

Running for Office After Wildfire Failure

From Crocheted Blankets to Decades of Advocacy

A Life Saved by a Bookstore Encounter

The Cold Call That Launched a Bestseller

Volunteers Going to Extraordinary Lengths

What This Interview Teaches Us About Lehi

Community & Legacy Themes

Memorable Quotes

Related Lehi Topics & Archive Connections

Explore More Stories from Lehi

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Full Transcript

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From California city council service during devastating wildfires to leading statewide family advocacy in Utah, Merrilee Boyack's journey shows how one person's willingness to "just start" can ripple outward and strengthen an entire community.

helps families achieve the dream of homeownership in Lehi and across Utah.

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In this episode of Roots & Branches of Lehi , host Ryan Harding sits down with Merrilee Boyack , a nationally recognized speaker, author, and advocate who has made a meaningful impact both locally and beyond. Though originally from Detroit and later California, Merrilee has called Lehi home for over a decade, bringing with her a lifetime of experience in public service, family advocacy, and community leadership.

Merrilee's story weaves together themes of civic responsibility, faith, and grassroots action. From serving on a California city council during devastating wildfires to leading statewide family-focused initiatives in Utah, her journey reflects the power of individuals to shape their communities. Her work -- ranging from disaster preparedness to supporting mothers and families -- highlights how one person's willingness to "just start" can ripple outward and strengthen an entire community.

This conversation offers a compelling look at Lehi's evolving identity -- a blend of growth, tradition, and engaged citizens -- and invites listeners to consider how they, too, can contribute to the city's future. For anyone interested in Lehi, Utah history , community stories , civic engagement , family advocacy , or the Roots & Branches of Lehi podcast , this interview provides both inspiration and practical insight into the values that make Lehi unique.

Prefer to listen? This episode is also available on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , and other podcast platforms.

Merrilee Boyack

Author, speaker, community advocate, pro-family coalition leader

1980s–present (focus on last 10–15 years in Lehi)

Ryan Harding

Merrilee ran for city council in California after witnessing a poor municipal wildfire response that left families without adequate support. During her eight years in office, she implemented sea containers with emergency supplies, trained every city employee as a disaster service worker, and built inter-agency communications. When a second wildfire struck, the city's response had transformed "night and day" — validating her belief that one person with initiative can create systems that save lives.

Merrilee shares how crocheting baby blankets was her simple entry point into more than three decades of pro-life advocacy work. Mistaking a Pregnancy Resource Center for an abortion clinic, she stormed in ready to confront them — only to discover they were saving babies. With no free time and four young boys, she offered the one thing she could: handmade blankets. That small act grew into a lifetime of service, reminding listeners that community impact often begins with whatever skill you already have.

A woman credits Merrilee's book In Trying Times Just Keep Trying with saving her life during a moment of deep despair. After dropping her children off for a summer visit with their father, the divorced mother had decided to end her life. She wandered into a mall bookstore, saw the book with its image of a woman pushing a boulder, and decided to read it first. The book gave her the hope to endure, illustrating Merrilee's point that "we have no idea how many people we influence."

Merrilee cold-called Deseret Book and boldly left an ultimatum on their general voicemail: "You're going to want me. You have 24 hours." She had never met an author or mentor. Within 24 hours they called back, she pitched four book ideas at once, and they selected The Parenting Breakthrough — which became the #1 bestselling parenting book in Deseret Book history and remains in print more than 20 years later.

Volunteers in her organization have gone to extreme lengths to support vulnerable mothers. Merrilee recounts how one mentor drove five hours through a blizzard to bring a pregnant woman to her parents' home for safety from an abusive boyfriend. These mentors are available 24/7, offering not just emotional support but life grants up to $3,000, a full year of baby supplies, car seats, strollers, and giant community baby showers — all contributing to a 92% "save rate" for babies in their program.

Lehi reflects a blend of "old roots" — family, agriculture, and traditional values — with modern growth and rapid development. As tens of thousands of new residents have arrived in recent decades, the city has had to navigate what it means to preserve a tight-knit culture while expanding infrastructure, services, and opportunity.

One of the clearest insights from Merrilee's experience is that Lehi benefits from highly engaged and responsive local government compared to larger metro areas. She specifically notes the "responsiveness of our elected officials" and the genuine "helpfulness of everybody" as qualities that drew her family to Lehi after 32 years in California. This comparative advantage — neighborliness as infrastructure — is part of what makes Lehi attractive to families relocating from more anonymous urban environments.

Yet rapid population growth also creates tension. Merrilee identifies a need for stronger disaster preparedness infrastructure at both the city and individual levels. Having lived through two major wildfires and earthquakes, she warns that Lehi is "woefully underprepared" for a major seismic event or prolonged power outage. Her California experience trained her to see preparedness as a civic responsibility, not just a personal hobby — a perspective that enriches Lehi's ongoing conversation about resilience.

Community identity in Lehi remains strongly tied to interpersonal connection. Merrilee was moved by how neighbors "wave and say hello" — a simple gesture that signaled a fundamentally different culture than the isolation she experienced in California. As Lehi continues to grow, preserving that ethos of neighborliness becomes itself a form of historical preservation: maintaining the small-town relationships that defined Lehi even as the city becomes one of Utah's largest communities.

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This episode connects to broader themes explored across the Roots & Branches of Lehi archive. Listeners interested in Merrilee's story may also want to explore these related subjects from other interviews:

The Roots & Branches of Lehi archive captures the voices of educators, entrepreneurs, public servants, artists, farmers, and families who have shaped the city. Each episode adds another thread to the story of who Lehi is and who it is becoming.

To enrich this archival page and preserve the visual history of this conversation, the following images would complement the written record:

This transcript has been lightly formatted for readability while preserving the complete conversation. Speaker labels and paragraph breaks have been added; timestamps have been removed.

An oral history archive capturing the stories, people, and traditions that make Lehi, Utah unique. Hosted by Ryan Harding.

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