When Desiree Cooper-Larsen, the spokeswoman for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, heard that the Ogden Pioneer Days Rodeo was in the top 5 in the country for the first time, “she jumped up and down and screamed and yelled and hugged us” said Alan Hall, chairman of the Ogden Pioneer Days Foundation.
“I just remember how pleased she was that all of her hard work was paying off,” Hall said.
Born in Provo and raised on her family’s farm in Lehi, Cooper-Larsen was the executive member of the Ogden Pioneer Days committee and worked for years to bring national recognition for the event and induct it into the professional Hall of Famers Rodeo Cowboys Association. She was the only woman who ever held that position.
Cooper-Larsen died on Sunday of complications related to COVID-19. She was 61 years old.
After all, her influence was felt far and wide, whether she was in the arena or in the classroom. Cooper-Larsen, Professor of Professional Sales at Weber State University, made a lasting impression on her students’ lives as she helped develop a global education program that helped lift people out of poverty.
For 36 years she taught courses in sales presentations, merchandising, interviews, business etiquette, and corporate relations, according to her biography on the Weber State website. And when it came to teaching sales presentations, she was one of the best in the country, said Blake Nielson, chairman of the professional sales department.
“If you ask any of those (professional) sales students for the past 36 years, they’ll remember taking presentations from Des and knowing exactly how to sell products and services,” said Nielson.
Cooper-Larsen has been named twice teacher of the year by the Utah Association of Marketing Educators. She was also instrumental in building the Alan E. Hall Center for Sales Excellence at Weber State.
Hall, after whom the center is named, is the founder of MarketStar – an outsourced sales and marketing company. His company recruits a significant proportion of the graduates of Weber State’s professional sales program, and he worked with Cooper-Larsen to launch a program designed to prepare students for work in companies like his.
“Des liked the idea that we could have a center that we could equip to convey the good principles of selling,” Hall said. “She really embraced this concept and went to work to get the … (school) to approve it.”
In 2016, the center partnered with Lifting Generations, a nonprofit that helps individuals become self-employed, to set up a 15-week sales and customer service course in multiple locations in Latin America. Students who take the course will receive a Certificate of Sales from Weber State that will expand their career prospects.
“If you think about its impact, it wasn’t just domestic, it’s now national, domestic and foreign,” Hall said.
Aside from her awards, what stood out most about Cooper-Larsen for both Hall and Nielson was the difference she made in the lives of those they knew personally. After Weber State reported the professor’s death on Facebook, Nielson said “many” alumni had reached out to the department to offer their condolences.
Both colleagues described her as “friendly”, but not only towards her students or those she worked with. Even when Nielson took his daughters to work at Weber State, he said Cooper-Larsen made them feel important.
“She would build each person to do their best,” said Nielson. “You could have a bad day and she would stop doing what she was doing to build you up and make you feel like you were on top of the world.”
Nielson said he counted having known Cooper-Larsen as a “blessing” and that anyone else who had the opportunity received the same. To the person closest to her, her 26-year-old husband Kurt Larsen, that feeling sounds right.
“We had a great life – we traveled the world with friends and had many good times,” he said. “I just feel so blessed to have shared the time I had with her and I look forward to being with her again.”
Cooper-Larsen was crowned Miss Rodeo Utah in 1979 and inducted into the Miss Rodeo Utah Hall of Fame in 2011. At the time of her death, Cooper-Larsen was President of the Miss Rodeo Utah Executive Board and a member of the Miss Rodeo America Foundation Board.
According to her Weber State biography, she received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in marketing and education from Utah State University.
Hall is working on several initiatives to ensure the community remembers Cooper-Larsen, he said.
Weber State has set up a scholarship fund on their behalf that is currently open to donations. One of the floors in the school’s Noorda Engineering, Applied Science & Technology Building, which is currently under construction, will belong to the Center for Sales Excellence. Hall said one of the conference rooms on this floor will be named after Cooper-Larsen and will feature a portrait of her.
“I want to make sure your name isn’t forgotten,” Hall said.
He also incorporates this wish into his role at the Ogden Pioneer Days Foundation. The celebrations were canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but if the Ogden Pioneer Days can happen this year, “we’ll come up with something good (for them),” Hall said.
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