Howard W. Hunter Law Library Ground Breaking at BYU

President Gordon B. Hinckley and his counselors, President Thomas S. Monson and President James E. Faust, remembered President Howard W. Hunter warmly during ground-breaking ceremonies for a new Brigham Young University law library that will be named after President Hunter.

The First Presidency and BYU president Rex E. Lee, who conducted, spoke at the May 1 ceremonies. Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in attendance were Elders David B. Haight, Neal A. Maxwell, M. Russell Ballard, and Henry B. Eyring. Sister Janette Hales Beckham, Young Women general president and member of the BYU Board of Trustees, attended. President Hunter’s wife, Inis Hunter, and his sons, John and Richard, along with other family members, were also in attendance.

The library will be built as an addition to the north end of the already existing J. Reuben Clark Law Building, located on the east side of the BYU campus. “The action we take here today will begin the process of making this into a tremendous library that will enhance the quality of the graduates turned out of this law school,” President Hinckley stated.

President Monson described President Hunter as an organized and remarkable individual. “He loved books. He loved learning. He loved history. He loved the law. Most of all, he loved the gospel of Jesus Christ,” President Monson said. “I am pleased that he is being honored today.”

President Faust told the people gathered that it was “a personal pleasure and a great honor to participate in these exercises.”

President Lee said that funding for the facility will be obtained from outside sources and that approximately half of those costs had already been donated by local businessmen.

The library, upon completion, will be thirty-eight thousand square feet in total floor space, which will include fifty computer stations, three computer classrooms, twenty-six group study rooms, and a number of Internet-wired study carrels for students of the law school.

At a luncheon prior to the ceremonies, President Hinckley expressed a desire to have a tablet or marker placed in the law school with an inscription from Doctrine and Covenants 134:5 [D&C 134:5], which reads, “We believe that all men are bound to sustain and uphold the respective governments in which they reside, while protected in their inherent and inalienable rights by the laws of such governments; and that sedition and rebellion are unbecoming every citizen thus protected, and should be punished accordingly.”

After the benediction, President Hinckley led the way to the site where he, along with his counselors, Sister Hunter, and other dignitaries, turned over the first shovelfuls of earth for the new library.