Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The mayor of Salt Lake County has apologized to a private school after she allegedly interrupted its field trip at a planetarium to announce a bid for re-election -- and used the children as props for campaign photographs.
About 12 students from McGillis Elementary School were visiting the Clark Planetarium on Thursday when Republican Nancy Workman declared at a news conference she would seek a second term. Dozens of kids from several schools inadvertently found themselves sitting in front of Workman while waiting for their tour of the planetarium. TV cameras and Workman's campaign photographer filmed the children as though they were part of the event.
Workman's campaign says it will not use any of the images of the children and that the mayor will apologize personally to the teacher, whose students left partway through the event.
"There was no intent to use the kids like that," Campaign Manager Ted Helsten said Friday. "If there was, we would have put them right in front of the podium."
Officials from McGillis Elementary School could not be reached for comment by The Salt Lake Tribune Friday.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
