LDS Scene

The South Carolina Stake Relief Society recently attracted attention with a homemaking fair at their stake center and an exhibit at the Southern Living Exposition held in the Coliseum of the University of South Carolina. More than 500 persons visited the homemaking fair, while thousands of people saw the display and demonstrations at the exposition. Skills presented at the fair included quilting, crocheting, and food storage. The most popular display featured the making of dip-n-drape dolls. At the exposition, the Relief Society sisters presented a bread-making demonstration that utilized 700 pounds of donated flour and two donated ranges. A batch of bread was prepared every 20 minutes, sliced, and sold to visitors. Missionaries also participated with displays and filmstrips on the importance of the home and family and family home evening.

Byron Dean Walther, 18, of Anchorage, Alaska, has graduated from high school with five scholarships and awards to help him in college. Byron, a son of Brother and Sister Harold V. Walther of the Anchorage Fourth Ward, Alaska Stake, received the $600 Most Valuable Student award for the Anchorage area; an additional $600 as the most valuable male student in the state; the $200 Anchorage Soroptimist Club’s Youth Citizenship award; a Standard Oil Company 4-H scholarship worth $400; and a Ricks College seminary scholarship of $100. He has been serving as assistant general secretary of his ward’s Aaronic Priesthood, has earned his Duty to God award, and was president of the seminary students at East Anchorage High School.

Ming-Yee (Richard) Lee has become the first Brigham Young University graduate to go directly from university into professional opera, by winning the San Francisco Merola Opera Program auditions. Brother Lee, 30, is one of 15 winners named from hundreds of applicants in the United States and Canada. He was born in Chung Ching Province, China, and his family moved to Taiwan when he was eight. His interest in music led to his enrollment at the National Taiwan Academy of Art and later to his appointment as a vocal instructor with the College of Chinese Culture. There he met his wife, and through her he learned of the Church and was baptized. He received both a grant from the Republic of China for study in Italy and a scholarship from BYU. He chose BYU, where he is now completing his master’s degree in music.

In the May 1973 Ensign, News of the Church reported that the Valley View Fifth Ward in Salt Lake City has 20 missionaries currently in the field. This figure has been topped by the Edgemont Fifth Ward, Edgemont Stake, Provo, Utah, from which 25 missionaries are serving in various mission fields. Are there any wards that can top that?

Genealogical seminars have been scheduled for a number of eastern cities of the United States for the month of August. Sponsored by the Church Educational System, with instructors from Brigham Young University faculty, the seminars will feature genealogical research in the United States, Britain, and Europe. They will be held in the New York area August 17–18; New Jersey, August 21–22; Washington, D.C., August 23–25; and the Potomac area, August 28–29. Full details of the seminars can be obtained from the Church Educational System, P.O. Box 7191, University Station, Provo, Utah 84602.

James L. McBride, an attorney and Venturer leader in Ventura Stake in Ventura, California, has been appointed to the second-ranking post in the Ventura County Counsel’s office. As chief assistant counsel, Brother McBride will represent Ventura County in civic legal matters. He won the post after a promotional competition among the office’s attorneys. He is a 1966 graduate of the George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C.

Clay A. Stewart, 22, of Ogden, Utah, was top student among the 842 cadets graduating this year from the United States Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Colorado. A son of Lt. Col. (Ret.) and Mrs. Arlo H. Stewart, he received two honors—the Graduation Order of Merit for his military, academic, and extracurricular activities, and the academic award for the number and type of courses taken. In addition to his military and academic training at the Academy, Brother Stewart served as a member of the professional ethics and the public relations committees. He claims his success is the result of values taught him by his parents and Church leaders. “Work and the improvement of oneself are two good values that I appreciate in my life,” he says. “Although I didn’t serve a regular full-time mission, I feel that I can serve a mission in the armed services by setting a good example. When people are curious as to the way I live, and see me working hard and being happy while I’m doing it, then they are receptive to hearing about the Church and the gospel and the part they play in my life.” An Eagle Scout and Duty to God award recipient, he is continuing his schooling at the University of Pittsburgh.

LDS golfer Johnny Miller recently set new records when he won the 73rd annual United States Open Golf Championship at Oakmont, Pennsylvania. Brother Miller, 26, a former member of the Brigham Young University golf team and now a resident of Napa, California, posted a tournament and course record with his final 18-hole score of 63. His total score of 279 for the championship broke another course record for 72 holes. He told reporters that although the U.S. Open has placed him in the forefront of the golfing scene, golf still is not the most important thing in his life. First, he said, come his family and church. He and his wife have two children.

Richard E. Black, who has been serving as the LDS Social Services director of California, has been named to succeed Clarence Bishop as the agency’s director for Utah. Brother Bishop has been called to serve as a mission president. Succeeding Brother Black in the California post is Oliver L. McPherson, formerly director of the Four Corners Agency at Chinle, Arizona. Both men will also serve as directors of the Intermountain and West Coast divisions of Social Services, comprising Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, California, and Nevada.

Robert G. Meldrum, 19, of Salt Lake City, has been named one of the six recipients of the Young American awards presented by the Explorer division of the Boy Scouts of America. The six were chosen from among 400,000 Explorers in the nation. A son of Brother and Sister Grant Meldrum, Robert was named the outstanding teenager of Utah for 1972 and was invited to serve on the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission Youth Council. As a student at Brigham Young University, he was a member of the Cougar marching band. He has now received a call to serve in the Ontario (Canada) Mission.

Film crews for the National Broadcasting Company’s monthly documentary First Tuesday are still photographing material on the Church for a program scheduled for September 4. Many aspects of the Church will be shown, including general conference last April, June Conference, Church activity in Utah, Florida, California, and Washington, the Church College of Hawaii, the Polynesian Cultural Center, and possibly the Hill Cumorah Pageant. The program will also feature an interview with President Harold B. Lee, in the first national television interview he has granted. (See News of the Church, July Ensign.)

Lewison Watchman, a 19-year-old Navajo Indian, has been awarded the Utah Power and Light Company’s four-year college Minority Scholarship. An honor student at Weber High School in Ogden, Utah, he plans to attend medical school before returning to the Navajo reservation to practice and teach in the new medical school under construction there. He is a son of Brother and Sister Lewis R. Watchman of Sheep Springs, New Mexico.

The traditional summer production of Promised Valley is currently delighting audiences at the Promised Valley Theatre in Salt Lake City. This is the second year that the production is being presented in its new home; previously it was an outdoor presentation. During August Promised Valley, will be presented each evening at 7:30 P.M. and 9:00 P.M. There will be no performances on either Sunday or Monday evenings.

Four wards in the Richland (Washington) Stake recently accepted an invitation to present a display of quilts and quilting in the Richland Public Library. In the three-day exhibition, the Relief Society sisters demonstrated how to quilt, including setting up frames and tying. Although many types of quilts were represented, the two that attracted the most attention were an early pioneer quilt that had accompanied the Saints across the plains and a “crazy patch” quilt more than 100 years old, made of velvet worked in decorative patterns with silk thread. The display received a great deal of publicity, with people lined up at the door before the library was opened.