Biography

When Richard Louis Evans was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on March 23, 1906, there was little to indicate the kind of positive impact he would have in the world.  His father was the General Manager of Deseret News, the largest and most influential newspaper in the Intermountain West, but following a streetcar accident, he died when Richard was only ten weeks old.  The loss of income was a severe challenge for Richard’s mother and her nine children, and to keep food on the table, even Richard, the youngest, had multiple jobs beginning with his pre-teen years.

Although always busy with employment, Richard excelled academically. His writing skills became apparent and he served as the Editor of his high school newspaper.  His speaking skills also evolved and he won the School Debate Championship that earned him a full scholarship to attend the University of Utah.  After two years as a university student and a summer of hard work selling woolen goods to lumberjacks in the Northwest, he had earned enough money to serve a full-time proselyting mission in Great Britain for the LDS Church.

As he began his mission in the Fall of 1926, a divine fate was to place him under the direction of two amazing mission presidents who were both former university presidents, prominent and highly skilled authors, and profound spiritual leaders.  Within a few months, Pres. James E. Talmage appointed Richard as the Associate Editor of the Millennial Star, one of the foremost publications of the LDS Church.  After a period of valuable mentoring, Pres. Talmage was succeeded by Pres. John A. Widtsoe who continued the mentoring, and became like a father.  

Following his three-year mission, the 23-year-old Richard returned to Salt Lake City in September, 1929.  With the need for employment so he could resume his university education, he saw a job advertisement by the CBS-affiliated KSL radio station, and within a few weeks he was hired as a full-time radio announcer doing a wide range of events including sporting events.  With well-trained writing skills, good radio “instincts,” and an excellent voice, it was not long before he became Supervisor of Announcers, Director of Publicity, and Production Manager.

An early focus of his was to transform the 15-minute “singing of songs” by the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square (that started on July 15, 1929) into a structured half-hour program that could be broadcast nationwide.  In June 1930, that was accomplished with Richard becoming the program’s writer and announcer for “Music and the Spoken Word” with the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.  The introductions, scripts, and terminology that he crafted for the program were effective and became his trademarks.  Some of them are still in use after more than 90 years in what has become the world’s longest-running continuous network broadcast.

With full-time work and full-time schooling, Richard was always excessively busy, but success resulted.  In 1931 he earned his BA degree in English, and in 1932 a Master’s degree in Economics, both from the University of Utah.  Following his Master’s degree, he began work on a Doctoral degree that was expected to take a few years, so finding enough time for socializing was always a challenge.  However, in 1933 he was greatly blessed with his marriage to the very gracious and capable Alice Thornley whose father was a prominent rancher and businessman.  He was also a Utah State Senator who was instrumental in raising the money to build the State Capital Building that still sits prominently over the Salt Lake Valley.  Richard and Alice’s marriage was blessed with four sons, and their posterity now consists of well over 100 descendants who remain close to each other.

Continuing with his broadcasting career, it was in January 1934, at the age of 27, that Richard received a prestigious award from Radio Engineering, a nationally distributed New York publication, as the Best Radio Announcer in the Country for the Year 1933.  In 1938, at the age of 32, he was called to serve as a General Authority in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a member of the First Council of Seventy.  By 1940 he had added brief non-denominational “sermonettes” to the “Spoken Word” program that became popular nationwide.

Among those who were impressed with his weekly messages was the famous William Randolph Hearst, a prominent national figure, a one-time candidate for President of the United States, and a newspaper magnate with over 20 million newspaper subscribers.  It was in 1946 that Mr. Hearst personally contacted Richard and arranged for him to write articles for his “King Features Syndicate.”  Those messages regularly appeared as the lead article on the front page of newspapers going to over 10 million homes each week, and that arrangement continued until the passing of Mr. Hearst in 1951.  In 1949, Richard was instrumental in arranging for “Music and the Spoken Word from Temple Square” to also be broadcast by television which further broadened its impact.

In 1953, at the age of 47, he was called to serve as a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but even with the heavier load of new responsibilities, he continued to write, produce, and be the voice of the weekly Spoken Word broadcasts from Temple Square.

In the 1950s and 60s, Richard was frequently asked to write articles for various mediums including magazines, flyers and other publications, and also scripts for filmstrips and movies.  Among those contributions was the movie produced for the 1964 New York World’s Fair entitled “Man’s Search for Happiness.”  Not a single word of the script that he wrote was changed by the producers.  He was also the voice narrating the movie that has since been viewed by millions of people. 

Among the more prominent of Richard’s contributions was in 1966-67 when he served as the worldwide President of Rotary International, a service organization that at the time had over 590,000 members in 12,450 local chapters in 133 countries.  During that year, he and his wife Alice visited about half of those countries and enjoyed significant increases in Rotary involvement worldwide.  They concluded the year by presiding over the highly successful Rotary Convention in Nice, France with Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco prominently participating.  It was an event never to be forgotten with nearly 20,000 people attending from 101 countries, by far the most participation the organization had ever had.

Also in the 1960s, Richard was contacted by KMOX Radio Station in St. Louis, one of the largest and most prestigious radio stations in the country.  It was their request that he re-record most of his many years of sermonettes for broadcasting primarily to commuters traveling to and from work each day.  It was a monumental success that continued for about 20 years and also led to other stations in the country doing the same.

The KMOX series also became the catalyst that made the current internet capabilities possible.  Drawing from the weekly sermonettes and several of the King Features articles, approximately 2,000 of his talks have now been digitized and preserved for worldwide access.

After a lifetime of excellent health and non-stop contributions, Richard unexpectedly passed away in Salt Lake City on November 1, 1971 of what was described as a viral infection of the central nervous system.  He was 65 years of age.