“LDS Scene,” Ensign, Aug. 1979, 80
LDS Scene
A poem adapted from the text of Psalm 147 has won the 1979 Relief Society Song Contest. Joyce M. Jensen of Bountiful, Utah, a mother of six, is the author of “Sing unto the Lord,” the winning entry. Other winners are “A Blessed People,” Grietje T. Rowley of Salt Lake City, second; “Keep Me in Thy Way, O Lord,” Ruth B. Gatrell of Farmington, Utah, third; “Psalm 131,” Yang, Kyung Shin of Seoul, Korea, special merit for non-English.
A member of the Church in Mesa, Ariz en named U.S. national young mother of the year. Susan Elizabeth Brown, a mother of five sons, recently received the honor. Other members of the Church who represented states in the competition were Deborah F. Hamilton of Orem, Utah; Jeanne Southam of Athens, Ohio; Janis L. Curran of the District of Columbia; Mary Seabrook Brown of Dover, Delaware; and Rosalie Davis of Salt Lake City, Utah.
The print media is publishing more about the Church. Newspaper space devoted to Church-related stories outside the United States jumped 69 percent from 1977 to 1978. “The sizable increase can be credited largely to the Public Communications field offices in Canada, Great Britain, Germany, and France, and also to a better reporting system made possible by those offices,” says Heber G. Wolsey, managing director of the Public Communications Department. Space in U.S. newspapers devoted to the Church increased 20 percent.
Five Latter-day Saints who have made contributions to the media arts were honored June 7 with awards from the Associated Latter-day Media Artists (ALMA). Awards were presented to Nathan and Ruth Hale, owners and operators of the Glendale Center Theater at Glendale, California; Glen A. Larson, executive producer of “Battlestar Galactica” and producer and creator of other popular television programs; Dr. Harold I. Hansen, BYU professor who directed the Hill Cumorah Pageant at Palmyra, New York, for nearly forty years; and Dr. Harvey Fletcher, the 95-year-old scientist known as the father of stereophonic sound.
David and Patricia Hansen of Ogden, Utah, are thankful. The Hansens are parents of twins born in October 1977 with conjoined heads. The twin girls, Lisa and Elisa, were separated May 29 by surgeons at the University of Utah Medical Center in Salt Lake City. As attention focused on the twins’ successful surgery, their parents issued a statement published nationally, acknowledging “the hand of the Lord” and praising the skill of the surgeons who performed the sixteen-hour operation.
They came from many places—from the United States, from Canada, from Mexico. And starting at Nauvoo, Illinois, these 450 descendants of early Mormon pioneers ran in relay teams along the 1,450 miles of the Mormon Trail.
The runners, working in teams of several persons who ran in ten-mile segments, left Nauvoo, Illinois, May 23 and arrived at Salt Lake City June 1. The trail recently was designated as a national historic trail. Runners carried batons containing messages for President Spencer W. Kimball, Utah Governor Scott M. Matheson, and Salt Lake City Mayor Ted L. Wilson from governors and local officials and Church leaders of states along the trail.
The Women’s Office of the Associated Students of BYU is asking for names of Latter-day Saint men and women in the armed services so that letters and boxes of cookies can be sent to them at Christmastime. Friends and relatives are asked to send names, addresses, and marital status of military personnel to Denise Tucker, ASBYU Women’s Office, 432 ELWC, BYU, Provo, Utah 84602. Names should be sent by October 19.
BYU’s Ballroom Dance Team has been awarded second place in Latin dance competition at the international British Ballroom Dance Festival at Blackpool, England. A BYU Latin formation ballroom team won first place in 1977, and the BYU team won first place as the best overall team in 1971.