Honoring Larry Miller: Employees of many of his firms spend day sprucing up community

SALT LAKE CITY — Larry, we think, would have been pleased.

Larry H. Miller companies on Wednesday honored the late businessman/Jazz owner in a big way.

Carrying on the tradition of their former boss, who spent his life with his shoulder to the wheel, about 180 employees of companies started by Miller spent Wednesday morning cleaning, painting and otherwise sprucing up the area's three main emergency shelters and low-income housing sites.

That afternoon, he was honored at a private luncheon with folks from the community who worked closely with him over the years.

And Wednesday night during halftime of the Jazz-Suns basketball game, his jersey — No. 9, from Miller's softball-playing days — was raised to the rafters of EnergySolutions Arena and retired.

Before his death in February 2009 from complications related to type 2 diabetes, Miller changed the skyline and raised the profile of the community. The former mechanic built a plexus of auto dealerships from here to Spokane and rescued a flagging professional basketball franchise that linked jazz and a desert — which, he remarked years ago, was no weirder than having Lakers in dry old Los Angeles.

Surrounding it all, he built a network of restaurants, movie theaters and entertainment venues that promoted his personal philosophy: "Have a little fun, make a little money, and take care of the customer."

Miller employees who worked Wednesday morning on service projects around the Salt Lake Valley said they were energized thinking about their old boss.

"This is just our chance to help Larry keep giving back to the community," said Cyndi Brown, after putting three hours of elbow grease into cleaning the apartments and doing laundry at Palmer Court in downtown Salt Lake City.

Peggy Deming, a co-worker from KJZZ who helped with the morning's efforts, said she couldn't think of a better way to honor the man who set the standard, both as a boss and champion of the community he loved, and who was the opposite of the old saying that when it's all said and done, there's always more said than done.

"He set a standard of taking care of things," she said, "and taking care of those who couldn't take care of themselves," and without judgment of their circumstances. "We're just trying to pay that forward."