Biography
Marlene Grace Harper is known as the Creator of the “Turn It Around” program which she developed; and “UBU Bound Youth Empowerment” Society. ‘UBU’ stands for ‘You Be Yourself’. She is an actress, writer, director and a puppeteer. She has spent a lifetime working in different levels of theater, including writing and directing productions. Locally, she’s acted in over 20 shows at the Heritage Theatre. She performed puppetry with Susan Neidert at Fine Arts Center. She’s a core actress in the Martin Harris Pageant, and internationally she has performed and toured in British Columbia, Canada.
Marlene has a B.F.A. Degree, major in Theatre and a minor in Communication, from Utah State University (USU), a Master of Arts in Education degree, from George Wythe University, (GWU) and is currently working on Doctorate in Education and Constitutional Law at GWU.
Her work as a parent of four, with youth, local community and in the arts has been met with much recognition and appreciation. Marlene has received many awards including “Woman of the Year” (American Biographical Institute), an International Peace Prize (United Cultural Convention), and an Aerospace Excellence Award (Civil Air Patrol), just to name a few.
Marlene’s youth program with the show, “Turn It Around Compliment Bound” (www.UBUbound.com) is an established business. It helps mentor young people to take whatever has happened to them and learn from these experiences and move forward. She said, “We offer tools to be successful in areas from financial to thinking outside the box. Our main platform is ‘UP’.” When visiting Hawaii, a government official called her an ‘Island Lifter’.
She is a director with “Wind In My Feathers” an educational project out of New Orleans that works with live raptors.
Her newest project (www.marlenegrace.com) is about empowering people who have lost loved one’s, especially a spouse. Marlene says, “Taxes and death are unavoidable, therefore we must be fully prepared when the time comes.”