SALT LAKE CITY — If you’ve driven around Salt Lake City in the last two months, you might have seen billboards and signs that read, "In loving memory of Julia Reagan, Our loving wife, mother and grandmother.”
So who exactly is Julia Reagan?
“We had four children and were married 58-and-a-half years,” said William “Bill” Reagan, who founded Reagan Outdoor Advertising here in Utah in 1965 and is now the largest billboard company in the state.
After Julia’s passing in January, Bill wanted to make sure her legacy lived on.
“She was my love,” Reagan said as he choked up. “Our life together was this business. We had six or seven signs when we got married. We have 9000 now.”
The sweet tribute graces over 60 billboards of various sizes across the city and several more across the country.
“It's our stage, and so it's where I wanted to put my love, on our stage,” he added. “So, it picks me up when I see her on it and reminds me of happier times.
Julia and Bill met in December of 1965 and eloped three weeks later.
Reagan says they were immediately infatuated, even only having met four times prior to getting married.
“We got in the car and drove to Reno and got married,” he explained.
Bill and Julia’s romance was complemented by a shared love for travel and dancing. But for Bill, it was Julia’s regard for others that he remembers fondly.
According to her husband, Julia was a devoted humanitarian.
“She would randomly, I had just been looking at the checking accounts, send a check to the Utah Food Bank for $5,000,” Reagan shared.
Julia was also on the board of Valley Mental Health and the board of the Rape Recovery Center for many years.
“My mother was a fantastic motivator of others," said the couple's son, Dewey, who serves as president of the family business. "She did it in a very subtle way, but did so nonetheless, and worked behind the scenes her entire life in an effort to make sure that Reagan Outdoor Advertising was and remained successful, as well as her children and her grandchildren.”
Bill thinks he will probably run some of the billboards for a whole year, a tribute, he says, for the love of his life.
“So often when people die, they very quickly are forgotten. We go through all the ceremonies of the funeral and the wake and everything, but then it all dies down, and I didn't want to have it be like that with her.”
