You can measure the loss of Sundance in dollars, traffic or empty storefront windows. But a recent conversation with a longtime Park City parent reminded me of a quieter cost — one we’re not talking about because it doesn’t show up on spreadsheets. We’d been chatting casually about what the leaving of Sundance Film Festival behind meant to her, now that all three of her children had gone through the K–12 system here. Not the logistics or the economy — she brushed those off — but the spotlight. The way one week each winter made this little mountain town momentarily visible to the wider world. Her son, years ago an outspoken leader of the Gay–Straight Alliance at Park City High School, ended up helping the GSA win a national award. She said something that stopped me: “It never would’ve happened without Sundance.” Not because the festival handed them anything. But because it gave them an audience — the sense that speaking up here could ripple outward. That stayed with me, especially the next night while I was tucking in my 14 year old. He told me he and some classmates planned to walk out of Ecker Hill Middle School the next morning to protest recent ICE operations and the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renée Good in Minneapolis. A walkout. At 8:45 a.m. After 21 years teaching U.S. History, I’ve learned teenagers can turn any sanctioned exit into a moral crusade. So before I gave permission, I interrogated him. The mental image was too easy: “civic action” as a beeline for Chipotle or possibly the new Shake Shack — righteous indignation paired with fries. But he surprised me. He shouldn’t have — that part is on me — yet he did. A few weeks earlier, he’d won the VFW Patriot’s Pen essay contest for his school and then advanced to the state level, writing about what patriotism means to him. I’d given up a Saturday ski day to sit through a potluck in Spanish Fork and listen to middle schoolers recite essays about flags and pledges. Most sounded exactly like you’d expect. My own students rarely stand for the pledge anymore. Indifference has replaced disagreement. I defend their choice, but the shift is real. My son’s essay, though, argued that patriotism sometimes means criticizing your country because you want it to live up to its promises. That the founding documents only expanded because ordinary people insisted they apply to more of us. That protest isn’t disloyalty. It’s responsibility. So yes, I let him walk out. How could I not? He connected the deaths of two strangers to the same civic ideals he’d just been honored for articulating. His reasoning was clearer than plenty of what passes for debate on cable news. Which is why, when he texted me a photo at 9:12 a.m. of himself and his friends smiling outside Shake Shack, I wasn’t upset. The Venn diagram of teenagers and political action will always include a stop for snacks. But beneath that photo was something real. Something he wasn’t performing — not for me, not for teachers, not for a grade. He was practicing the muscle of civic responsibility. Testing the idea that loving your country sometimes means pushing it to do better. And that’s where my conversation with that parent keeps echoing. For decades, Sundance unintentionally gave young people here a civic stage. A fleeting, borrowed spotlight that told them their voices might matter beyond school hallways. GSAs, climate clubs, equity groups. They all understood that for one week a year, the world’s gaze drifted, however briefly, toward this valley. Now that the cameras and crowds are gone, I wonder about the subtler cost. When students walked out the other day, plenty of adults rushed to accuse teachers of indoctrination. Few paused to consider something simpler: Who’s watching these kids now? Because civic engagement doesn’t grow in a vacuum. Young people speak up when they believe someone is listening. Without that external audience, without that annual sense that their town connects to something larger, how long before they decide there’s no point stepping forward at all? My son ended his protest with a milkshake. Fine. The patriotism was still intact. The spark was still there. The real question is whether the next generation will keep feeling that spark once the lights that used to illuminate their efforts have gone out. And if we’re not careful, we may wake up one day to discover that the biggest thing we lost when Sundance left town wasn’t a film festival — it was our kids’ belief that anyone beyond this valley might hear them when they speak. That’s the kind of loss communities don’t notice until it’s too late. And if you know teenagers, they’ll be the first to tell us. Heather Bryant Park City The post Sundance’s spotlight appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less