User:Kevinf

Born in Ogden, Utah, always Utah's different city, in 1952, I was raised in the Church. I attended all my public school there, and then attended Weber State College on a debate scholarship. While there, I married my best friend, Katie Lyons, also an Ogden resident.

I graduated from Weber State in 1974, with a BS in Communications (Journalism and Broadcasting), and a minor in English. I actually worked one weekend in radio, before deciding that I needed to do something different to support a family. Since then, I have worked my way into the high tech industry, and worked in semiconductor sales, network engineering, and design, and high end server sales and marketing.

I've always been interested in history generally, including church history, but really caught the bug in about 2008, after discovering that my grandfather, as a missionary, had ridden out the Galveston hurricane of 1900 that killed over 10,000. Reading his missionary journals convinced me there were stories in my family history, and I started to dig them out.

My first published article appeared in the Journal of Mormon History, Winter 2011, about the failed Little Arizona colonization mission of 1873. My great grandparents, Frederick and Charlotte King, had been on that mission. Researching their story and the story of that mission introduced me to primary source research, the Chicago Manual of Style, and the delights of the Church History Library. It also got me acquainted with J. Stapley and Ardis Parshall, who have mentored me, encouraged me, and served as role models on how to research and write Mormon History.

I've since finalized a chapter about Joseph F. Smith and his adopted son, Edward Arthur Smith, for an upcoming volume on Joseph F. Smith and his times, to be published the summer of 2013 by the Church History Department and the Religious Studies Center at BYU. I frequently blog at Ardis Parshall's Keepapitchinin Mormon History blog, and have also written a recent article for Pioneer magazine, the official publication of the Sons of the Utah Pioneers. I am currently at work on an article about LDS soldiers who served in the Siberian Expeditionary Force in Vladivostok, from 1918 to 1919.

My wife Katie and I currently live in Redmond, Washington, where we have raised six children, and currently have eight grandchildren. She teaches middle school math and edits my writing, and we both have served in various church callings over the years.