“A Temple of Learning via Youth Conferences and Spiritual Angels”

The following essay just won 3rd place in the Alumni Spirit Week writing contest at BYU-Idaho (Ricks College):

For a young man growing up in Menan, Idaho, just a skip over the stoic Menan Buttes and over the mighty, meandering Snake River, Ricks College loomed large on the hill. Yes, we attended almost every youth conference at Ricks, watched basketball games on the “big boys’ court” in Hart Gymnasium, played basketball and volleyball in the auxiliary gym, earned our swimming merit badge in the swimming pool, and even spent time in the Library, working on various merit badges. No matter how many times I walked the halls, ate in the Manwaring Center, or just sat on top of Table Rock on the north butte, I was always in awe of Ricks College as a formidable institution, one that, perhaps, was beyond my reach.

During those early years, I did not initially equate Ricks College with Sarah Ann Barnes’ phrase: “A temple of learning.” I cannot remember my leaders discussing learning in this way. Perhaps, they did, and I just did not get it or I was not paying attention. Dances, swimming, basketball, staying in the dorms, and the all-you-can-eat buffet seemed to encompass my teacher- and priest-age mentality. But I knew I felt something different when I climbed from our leader’s car and stepped foot on the campus.

I still remember the first time I cautiously strode through the doors of the Manwaring Center. Chills and sense of awe mixed with feelings of excitement overcame me. I wondered whether I should even be there. But entered I did, and the more time I spent on campus, the more I captured the feeling that I belonged. Perhaps, that is how the spirit touched a young man whose home was not the most spiritual. It was on this campus where I was tutored in the spirit, feeling something strong pounding in my chest during youth conference testimony meetings. Was that the spirit touching me? Was I beginning to enter the “temple of learning”? But come there to learn, to go to college? Now that was a different story.

In my home, however, going to college was not necessarily discussed as the thing to do. It was something I wanted to do, but money was an issue. Having eight children, my parents struggled with the everyday needs of a large family. So, I worked. Perhaps, this integration of work and earning posited a stronger feeling of doing the Lord’s work so I could come home from a mission, go to college, and make something of myself.

Even after my mission, the “thirst” was there, but the container full of financial liquid was not. I still had to work hard in order to attend. After almost a year working, and I enrolled so that my thirst could be quenched. Although I still had to live at home, I had money enough to pay for tuition and books and a job to pay for gas and essentials.

The fifteen miles to Ricks College did not initially seem like a burden, except in the winter and the tortuous drive from Menan to Rexburg and driving over the very scary Thornton Bridge. But the moment I drove on campus after one of white knuckle drives through snow drifts and near misses of trucks and cars passing simultaneously on a very narrow bridge, sometimes only inches apart, I felt at home, relieved that I had made it without injury.

Yes, I can look back on it now, and as Sarah Ann Barnes said, “the memory [of those days] fills my very soul with joy, for [truly] it seemed that angels of God…” helped me navigate the terrain and the personal challenges that periodically beset me. But even more than that, Sister Barnes’ and Elder Eyring’s messages of having the spirit as a constant companion rang true, each day that I drove to the campus, parked, and sauntered to the Manwaring Center, the Library, Hart Gym, Smith Building, and others.

Ricks College, now Brigham Young University—Idaho, is a temple of learning. While I did not see it in the beginning as a young teacher or priest at youth conferences, I came to know it as a student because—finally—I possessed a “recommend for learning,” one that I acquired over time through patient diligence. I learned that I was worthy of a college education, and Ricks College boosted my confidence and propelled me to go beyond my own self, my own trappings. Surely, Sister Barnes’ “spiritual angels were there” to lead me by the hand.

Menan Buttes: Ricks College Legacy

The following essay recently won the the Ricks College/Brigham Young University Alumni "Legacy" Writing contest. Enjoy!
Darrel L. Hammon

When students return from BYU-Idaho, I ask them a simple question: “During your stay at BYU-Idaho, did you climb the stoic Menan Buttes?” For the most part, they say no and have a puzzled look on their faces as if to say, “Menan Buttes? What are those?” From my perspective, this is where the spirit of Ricks College/BYU-Idaho emerged for me.

Growing up in the shadows of the Menan Buttes in Menan, Idaho, we did a fair amount of hiking the Buttes, first as children with my parents on Easter weekend and later with friends, fellow Boy Scouts, and my 9th grade class led by Charles Henry, the venerable science teacher at Midway Junior High School. When we arrived at the magical dating age and then post-mission, we took our dates to the Buttes, usually on a full-moon night, flash lights in hand, and hiked to Red Rock on the North Butte. There we sat side by side or back to back, stared down into the valley below and listened to cock pheasants crow and the Black Angus cows on Miller’s place beller. From the top, we could see all the way to Rexburg, yes, even to the “college on the hill.”

It was on this butte, an old volcano, now dormant for thousands of years, where I contemplated life, contemplated what I needed to do, what college I should attend, how I was going to serve a mission, how to get along with my family, and what I generally was going to do with my life. When I sat on the red rock that we fondly called Table Rock or Red Rock, staring into the ancient crater or around the Snake River Valley, I saw beyond the mundane, beyond my own self. Perhaps, it was a place where quietness reigned supreme, despite the wind jostling the cedars, the barking coyotes, the quiet rustling of jack rabbits and mice, and sometimes tractors trudging down dirt roads or through potato fields just below us.

When I returned to BYU-Idaho much later when my daughters attended Especially for Youth, I stood on the new plaza, just south of the Manwaring Center, amazed at the number of students sauntering to and from the new buildings to the north, amazed at the changes, amazed at the new gifts the students received by merely walking the hallowed halls of that great campus. I wondered, though, if they had been to the Buttes, contemplated their lives, wondered about what they were about.

The spirit of Ricks is always seeing afar off and understanding—finally—our roles in both the “small picture” and the “big picture.” At Ricks, it was much like sitting on Red Rock and seeing eastern Idaho, our little world, for the first time or climbing down into the volcano, seeing ragged outcroppings of rock or sagebrush. In class or in devotionals, we learned about the whole person, who you were, what you were about, why you were you, and what you needed to do to become better.

During one class period, we learned about biology and life from Brother Speth; the next period, Brother Stubbs helped us find our way through the Book of Mormon and its many machinations; then the next class, we played playing basketball on “big boys’ court” in the Hart Gymnasium; and to top it off, on Tuesdays, we listened to the servants of God, like President Kimball, who shared with us their lives, their spiritual experiences, their renditions of their own Menan Buttes and understanding themselves for the first time.

Where else can you learn about both academics and yourself, except at Ricks College, now BYU-Idaho? Much like the Menan Buttes, poking out of the good farming country, BYU-Idaho sits on the opposite hill across the great valley and the mighty Snake River, reveling in beauty, academic prowess, and spiritual enlightenment. Is it no wonder that President Hinckley chose “the hill” on which to build a temple of God?

I suspect that if I were to sit on the top of Red Rock today, I would be able to see the expanded lights on the campus and the soft glow of the Rexburg Idaho Temple, feel of its spirit, understand who I was then and what I have become, and hear the gentle, wise voice of the old volcano, whispering across the valley to the temple: “It is your turn to help the young to see afar off” and then retreat to take its ancient place where it had been for thousands of years—overlooking “the college on the hill,” watching another legacy to grow.