Rebecca “Becky” Lockhart is remembered as many things: a staunch champion of women, the first female Utah Speaker of the House and someone with a vision for Utah’s future.

Among her accomplishments during her 16 years as a Utah legislator, Lockhart helped fight for Utah Valley University to receive university status, was instrumental in appropriating $54 million for a new classroom building on campus and also helped correct a funding imbalance that had UVU getting less funding per student than universities.

Now, almost exactly two years after the 46-year-old Provo lawmaker’s death from the rare Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, UVU officials expressed their thanks for those efforts by naming a symbol of UVU’s growth — a new athletic arena — after her.

The Rebecca D Lockhart Arena is a nearly 2,000-seat venue located in the Physical Education building at UVU. The Wolverine women’s volleyball and men’s wrestling teams will compete there, and ceremonies such as graduations will also be held there, according to a UVU press release. 

UVU President Matthew Holland said the new name is appropriate because, without Lockhart, UVU would not be what it is today.

“We wouldn’t have enough faculty,” Holland said. “We wouldn’t have the space. We’d be turning students away. It would be compromising our mission of outreach to all populations.”

The funding that Lockhart helped appropriate for the classroom building, in particular, showed considerable foresight on her part, Holland said.

“This was at a time when our enrollment was down because of the missionary age change,” Holland said. “And people were going, ‘Why do you need a building?’ But she could see that those students were going to come back, and we needed the time to get the building built.”

Lockhart was first elected to the Utah House of Representatives in 1998, and was chosen as assistant majority whip in 2008. She became the first woman in Utah history to be selected as the Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2010.

But she was civically active long before becoming a legislator, said Utah Gov. Gary Herbert.

Herbert said he first met Lockhart while he was serving as a Utah County Commissioner, and she came to him with concerns about the location of the county jail.

“She wanted to make sure we were looking long term,” Herbert said. “So if you notice, the new jail — it’s not as new now — is in Spanish Fork in a much better location because of her efforts.”

From the moment she was sworn in as speaker, people began bringing their daughters to her to take pictures with her, said her husband, Stan Lockhart. 

Stan Lockhart said he hoped the newly-named arena, like his wife, would stand as a symbol of what women can accomplish.

“I hope that for women in particular, (the arena) becomes a place where they can dream big, and women say, ‘I can do anything that I want to do. Look what Becky Lockhart did. I can do anything,” Stan Lockhart said.