Lifetime love of reading

LEHI — Books are stacked around Mike Washburn's house — in the library, on the piano, on the floor. The CEO of Thanksgiving Point — which this month welcomed springtime visitors with its annual Tulip Festival — said he has loved reading since he was a child.

"When I was a kid I read a lot of Hardy boy mysteries," he said. "Later, I read a lot of Thomas Hardy."

Washburn's undergraduate degree was in Spanish, which began a love of Latin American authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez. More recently, he finished "House of Paper" by Carlos Maria Dominguez. It was a Christmas gift to his wife.

"The Latin American writers are very mystical and fantastical," Washburn said.

Washburn read his children works by Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss. His daughter read "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett and Tasha Tudor. His sons enjoyed Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn."

Family members are now reading a biography about Washburn's father, Lark Washburn of Blanding, written by researchers from California State University in Fullerton as part of a project on the first uranium miners in the West.

Washburn, who took over Thanksgiving Point in 2003 after 10 years as CFO at Sundance Resort, has been attracted to businesses that are creative. He is reading a grandchild Stephen Johnson's "Alphabet City," a book that requires readers to identify letters in a cityscape.