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SALT LAKE CITY — Rarely has a government official lain in state or had a public memorial at the Utah Capitol in the course of its history.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, who died April 23, will be only the fifth person to have that honor when his body will lie in the Capitol rotunda Wednesday from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. He is the first federally elected official in Utah to have that distinction.
His funeral service is scheduled for 1 p.m. Friday at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Institute of Religion at 1780 S. Campus Drive in Salt Lake City. He will be buried with military rites at the Newton Cemetery in Cache County.
Both events are open to the public.
No records are kept about dignitaries who have lain in state at the Utah Capitol. The Capitol Preservation Board and local historian Ron Fox compiled the list mostly from press reports.
Of the four others who had that honor, three were governors and one was a speaker of the Utah House of Representatives.
- Gov. Olene Walker, the first woman to serve as Utah governor, lay in state in the Gold Room of the Capitol in November 2015.
- A public memorial for House Speaker Becky Lockhart, the first woman to serve as Utah House speaker, was held in the Capitol rotunda in January 2015.
- Gov. Scott Matheson lay in state in the rotunda after his death from cancer in October 1990.
- Gov. George Dern lay in state in the rotunda in September 1936 after his death. He was serving as secretary of war under Franklin D. Roosevelt when he died.
Gov. Calvin Rampton, Utah's longest-serving chief executive, had a public viewing at the Governor's Mansion after he died in September 2007. The Capitol was under renovation at the time.
