Elder Von G. Keetch

First Quorum of the Seventy

A defining moment of Elder Von G. Keetch’s life came as he was completing a judicial clerkship with Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court and preparing to enter full-time law practice.

He could have worked in any city in the United States for a multitude of big law firms. Instead, he and his wife, Bernice Pymm Keetch, prayed for inspiration to know what they should do. After a period of searching, the couple returned to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he went to work for the law firm of Kirton McConkie.

At the time, Elder Keetch thought he might be sacrificing his ability to work on cutting-edge legal cases in order to be near family. Instead, as the chief outside legal counsel for the Church, Elder Keetch argued constitutional issues and precedent-setting cases on religious liberty. He has represented almost every major religious denomination in the country. “I have loved being able to work for such a great client and being able to work on such great issues,” he said.

Born on March 17, 1960, in Provo, Utah, to Gary and Deanne Keetch, Elder Keetch is the oldest of four children. His family lived in Orem, Utah, before moving to Pleasant Grove, Utah—where he and his future wife would serve on their high school seminary council together.

Elder Keetch served in the Germany Dusseldorf Mission and came to love the German people. After returning from the mission field, he married Bernice Pymm in the Salt Lake Temple on November 21, 1981; they have six children. Elder Keetch graduated from Brigham Young University in 1984 with a degree in political science and received a law degree from the university in 1987.

Through the years, Elder Keetch, who was sustained on April 4, 2015, to the First Quorum of the Seventy, has served in bishoprics, on high councils, as a stake president, and as an Area Seventy.