Tonight I watched the commemoration of 100 years of Church Education.
The Seminaries and Institutes have been a big part of the foundation of our lives. I'm happy that each of our grandchildren are taking advantage of the opportunity for daily religious education in their high school years. It makes a difference and blesses us.
Dad was fortunate to have seminary influence all of his high school years. One of his teachers, Brother Eberhard influenced Dad to want to be a teacher and to study psychology.
I had a semester taught by Brother Scott Whitaker, an artist at Disney Studios and a member of our stake that was willing to be part of the beginnings in California. We met before school at our ward building and then found our ways to one of the several high schools in our area. Transportation was a problem. Families didn't have second cars and their was no public transportation so when the boy in my high school stopped going that was the end of seminary for me.
Serving a mission in Scotland and Ireland convinced David he wanted to teach the youth the gospel all his life. He wasn't a shoo-in. His student teacher advisor reported that he had a weird voice that probably wouldn't be acceptable to teens. We still held out hope. We knew he would teach seminary but no one seemed to agree. In the meantime he applied to high schools from Utah to Ketchikan, Alaska. After interviewing in Vernal to teach a variety of subjects we returned home to "sleep on it." The next day I got a message at Orem High School where I was teaching to have David call the church education office.
Brother Stanley Best a seasoned teacher and supervisor of seminaries from Price needed a teacher in his area. At dinner one evening he expressed his frustration to his wife and daughter, a BYU student home for the weekend. She said, "You ought to talk to my former home teacher, David Parkinson, he wants to teach seminary." Whatever more she said peaked his interest. He felt impressed to request Dad be hired.
The administrator first told Dad they had a position in a fine little town, Morgan, that we would just love. "Oh, sorry about that, its Moab where we'd like you teach." Well, there was a big difference in landscape and in church attendance. In those days Moab was about 10% LDS and about half of those attended. We were excited. Our five years with the people of Moab became the foundation of our lives and the birthplace of our first three children, Mark, Polly and Chris and some of our fondest memories. The Mike Bailey missionary letters from New Zealand are another small evidence of our seminary experience in Moab.
Early 1969, the CES teachers were offered opportunity to express their interest in taking seminary to England and Scotland. We were ecstatic but again passed over. For a couple of months I was bothered by a convincing dream I'd had walking in Scotland and felt anxious that the decision makers didn't know that we were to go. Then as we were leaving for Easter in Logan David got a call from Brother Best. "How would you like to go to England, David? The brethren were going to offer Australia, but I thought you'd rather go to England. There's already someone assigned to Scotland but they've decided to add two men in England instead of one to join Brother John Madsen."
Those first four men were greatly challenged in numerous ways in those first three years. Importing learning materials was very difficult at customs. Then they decided to print their own and that was an adventure with each home office having a mimeograph machine to crank out the copies for the homestudy students and their teachers. Personnel changes occurred when John Madsen was called to preside over the Bristol Mission. More changes came the next year when his replacement opted to return to Utah with their teenage daughter to finish high school. They persevered and figured it out. Each year the growing number of CES men from the States eventually went to Germany. Rather than meet in Germany for their annual staff conference they figured that the Holy Land was just as far as Frankfurt. The administration in Salt Lake accepted their proposal to convene in Jerusalem, Greece and Rome if they would develop a study program to prepare themselves for the educational and spiritual experience. That was the beginning of many years of CES training in the Holy Land for experienced teachers and their wives. It was also the month Bruce was born so I stayed home. We returned to the States the week after David returned from the conference. 1972 was also the year of the first Area Conference of the Church. Members gathered from all parts of the United Kingdom in Manchester, England to hear President Joseph Fielding Smith. I recall walking Bruce in his stroller outside as the hall emptied and a powerful feeling to linger as long as possible with the wonderful spirit of gathering I had felt.
Our association continued with hundreds of students first in Smithfield, UT at Sky View High School, then taking homestudy to Kansas and at Wichita Institute of Religion. Hutchinson, Kansas was a great experience for us among people that hadn't had the opportunity till then. Teaching the Wichita State Institute students at the stake center each week was a great delight for Dad. He traveled monthly to Western Kansas and into Oklahoma training teachers and holding Super Saturdays with the homestudy seminary students. I got to teach homestudy seminary in our ward one year. Dad was again called as bishop. We had some of our greatest personal challenges with Chris's diagnosis of brain cancer. We were blessed with the one more child we felt to have but hadn't yet come to our family, Jill. And again, we were influenced by wonderful neighbors and friends at church and in David's work.
In 1980, Dad and I were thrilled for his opportunity to teach Institute at a larger program at Montana State in Bozeman, MT. We had felt to decline a previous opportunity to teach Institute in Phoenix, AZ because of Chris' recent hospitalization at Primary Children's and his call as bishop of the new Smithfield 7th Ward. Not getting to teach Institute had been a brief disappointment. His four years at Bozeman were some of the great joys of his teaching career and his life. He loved the country and again he loved his students and being with them every day, teaching the gospel multiple classes in a day, playing ping pong with them, encouraging them and showing them how to enjoy life. Dad really loved living the gospel and teaching the gospel. There was no other job he would have wanted to have.
1984, Dad's last year with church education. The number of students had nearly doubled.
100 years since the first class of seminary at Granite High School and seminary students and their teachers are in much of the world, influencing every day of their lives.
Studying the scriptures every day of our lives makes a difference. Teaching that principle was David's focus and his example. It is a guide to happiness and a protection.
Note:
If you missed the broadcast as I did, you can view it online at http://seminary.lds.org/history/centennial/?cid=lds-home-feature.
