LDS Scene

Elder Bangerter Appointed to Genealogy

Elder William Grant Bangerter, Assistant to the Council of the Twelve, has been appointed to the newly created position of associate managing director of the Church’s Genealogical Society.

Elder Theodore M. Burton, also an Assistant to the Council of the Twelve, is managing director of the society.

Elder Bangerter was called to be an Assistant to the Council of the Twelve earlier this year and sustained at April General Conference. At the time of his call he was serving as president of the Portugal Lisbon Mission, a position he held until July of this year. Previously he served as president of the Brazilian Mission, 1958–63, and as a Regional Representative of the Twelve.

Assistant Tabernacle Choir Conductor Appointed

Dr. Donald H. Ripplinger, formerly chairman of the graduate faculty at the University of Wisconsin, has been named as the new assistant conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He will fill the position left vacant since last December when Jerold D. Ottley was appointed conductor of the choir.

In addition to his Tabernacle Choir assignment, Brother Ripplinger will begin duties this fall as the chairman of choral music education at Brigham Young University.

He is married to the former Myra Fowler and they are the parents of seven children.

Member to Head National Council

Dr. Carlfred B. Broderick, a high priest in the Cerritos Third Ward, Cerritos California Stake, was installed president of the National Council on Family Relations at the council’s annual meeting held in Salt Lake City in August.

He is the third member of the Church to be named president of the organization.

Brother Broderick is a professor of sociology and executive director of the Marriage and Family Counseling Program at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He is editor of the Journal of Marriage and the Family and has been a member of the executive committee of the National Council on Family Relations since 1965.

Film Features Norwegian Saints

Several representatives of Norwegian National Broadcasting were in Salt Lake City early in September to film one segment of a series commemorating the 150th anniversary of organized emigration to North America from Norway. The 90-minute film, focusing on members of the Church who left Norway to gather in Salt Lake City, will be aired in Norway during prime time in early December.

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is featured in the film, for which technical assistance was provided by Brigham Young University.

A spokesman for the Norwegian company said that research has shown that the migrating Saints represented the second largest category of emigrants from Norway, and that they represented a more educated and skilled level of Norwegian society.