Latter Day Saints from Arizona

Lorin Nelson Pace (born August 15, 1925) was an American politician who was a Republican member of the Utah House of Representatives and Utah State Senate. An attorney, Pace attended Emporia State University (Bachelor of Arts), Brigham Young University (Bachelor of Laws), and the University of Utah (Juris Doctor) He worked with the United States Department of State as a foreign service officer from 1954 to 1956 at San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where he also served as president of the San Pedro Sula Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the first half of 1956. From 1956-1960 Pace served as a mission president for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
During his time in the House of Representatives, Pace served as Speaker of the House in 1969 and as Minority Leader from 1971 to 1975. He was defeated in the Republican primary for the 1990 election by Delpha Baird. After his legislative career, he served on the board of directors of Canton Industrial. In the early 1990s Pace worked as a government consultant in El Salvador.

Robert E. Riggs (1927–2014) held the Guy Anderson chair of law in the J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University (BYU).
Riggs was born in Mesa, Arizona and raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was a participating member of that Church throughout his life.
Riggs graduated from Mesa Union High School in 1945. Later that year he was drafted into the United States military as World War II was about to conclude. He was stationed for a time in Korea, after the end of World War II and before the Korean War began. He then served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the British Isles. For the second year of his two year mission he was the editor of the Millennial Star. In September 1949 Riggs married Hazel Dawn MacDonald in the Mesa Arizona Temple. They had seven children.
Riggs received a bachelors and master's degree in political science from the University of Arizona. He then earned a PhD in political science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign while also spending a year at the University of Oxford on a Rotary Foundation Fellowship.
From 1955 to 1960 Riggs was a professor of political science at BYU. During this time he took a year leave and served as a Rockefeller Research Fellow in International Organization at Columbia University. From 1960 to 1963 Riggs was a reaerch associate at the University of Arizona while also earning a law degree there. He was then a lawyer in private practice in Arizona very briefly. He then went to Minnesota where he was a professor in the political science department at the University of Minnesota from 1964 to 1975. He served as mayor of Golden Valley, Minnesota for two terms. He also ran as a Democrat in the Minnesota 3rd Congressional District in 1974, which election he lost.
In 1975 Riggs joined the faculty of the BYU Law School, where he remained until 1992. From 1993 to 1994 he and his wife served as missionaries for the Church at the Mesa Arizona Temple Visitors Center.

Janice Merrill Allred (born in 1947) is an excommunicated Latter Day Saint, theologian, writer, and Mormon feminist. She was born in Mesa, Arizona.Allred holds a B.A. in English from Brigham Young University (BYU), and some of her writings have been collected in God the Mother, and Other Theological Essays (Signature Books: 1997). She began her studies of the Mother in Heaven concept in 1991. Her writings have been viewed as controversial by leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church); meetings with local leadership regarding her work began in November 1992. In 1993, the LDS Church disciplined six prominent writers; Allred had collaborated with several of these including Lavina Fielding Anderson, Lynne Whitesides (who was president of the Mormon Women's Forum while Allred was vice-president), and brother-in-law Paul Toscano. Allred was in Mexico City at the time, but faced a series of disciplinary councils on her return to Utah. Though her work had been criticized by church president Gordon B. Hinckley, Allred was initially placed on probation (a temporary and relatively minor punishment) in October 1994. However, after lengthy proceedings, a second disciplinary council found her guilty of apostasy and excommunicated her on May 9, 1995.In addition to her theological work, Allred has criticized the LDS Church for alleged instances of child abuse.Allred is married to BYU physicist David Allred, and is the mother of nine children. She is the sister of fellow LDS theologian and excommunicant Margaret Toscano.

Keith W. Perkins was a professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University (BYU). He has written widely on the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in the period when it was headquartered at Kirtland, Ohio. Perkins has written articles on figures in the recording of the history of the LDS Church, such as Andrew Jenson, whose work as a historian was the subject of Perkins' masters' thesis. His thesis was cited in Charles T. Morrissey's article "We Call it Oral History", which moved the accepted time of the origin of the term back from the late-1940s to the mid-1860s.Perkins was born in Phoenix, Arizona. He has a BA in History Education from Arizona State University and an MA and PhD from BYU in Church History and Doctrine. He was seminary principal at the LDS seminary adjacent to Granite High School in Salt Lake County, Utah, and then instructor at the Tempe Institute of Religion (adjacent to the campus of Arizona State University) before joining the BYU faculty in 1975. During the mid-1980s, as chair of the department of Church History and Doctrine, Perkins developed the idea for special symposium to be held in various locations related to church history. This was the beginning of the various publications in the LDS Church History in place x series, with New England, New York and Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, the Pacific, and the United Kingdom having been some of the places featured over the years in the series. He has also written articles on subjects such as the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.Among other works, Perkins compiled with Milton V. Backman Jr. Journals, Diaries, Biographies, Autobiographies and Letters of Some Early Mormons and Others Who Knew Joseph Smith, Jr. and/or His Contemporaries. With LaMar C. Barrett and Donald Q. Cannon, he edited the book Sacred Places: Ohio and Illinois, published by Deseret Book in 2001. Perkins was also a co-author with Bruce A. Van Orden, David J. Whittaker, Truman G. Madsen, John W. Welch and James P. Bell of the book Book of Mormon Scholars. Perkins compiled a book entitled Marriage is Ordained of God, which was a collection of talks on the subject by general authorities of the LDS Church.
Perkins and his wife, Vella Crowther, are the parents of four children. Perkins is a member of the LDS Church and has worked with Ezra Taft Benson, Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson in developing the church's visitors center and other properties and programs in Kirtland, Ohio. Among other callings in the LDS Church, Perkins has served as a bishop and a stake president.

Francis Marion ("Frank") Gibbons (April 10, 1921 – July 16, 2016) was the secretary to the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1970 to 1986 and a church general authority from 1986 until 1991.A native of St. Johns, Arizona, Gibbons received degrees from Stanford University and the University of Utah and practiced law in Utah for eighteen years. In 1970, Gibbons was hired as the secretary to the First Presidency to replace Joseph Anderson, who had been the secretary since 1922 but who had become an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.Gibbons served as secretary to the First Presidency until March 1986, when he retired and was succeeded by F. Michael Watson. One week later, at the church's April general conference, Gibbons was called as a general authority and member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. In April 1989, he was transferred to the newly created Second Quorum of the Seventy.In October 1991, Gibbons was honorably released from service in the Second Quorum of the Seventy and as a general authority of the church.Gibbons also served in the church as a bishop, stake president and patriarch. He is the author of 20 books, including a biography of Jack Anderson and the hagiographical Prophets of God series about the presidents of the LDS Church.Gibbons was married to Helen Bay and they are the parents of four children.

Ira Amond Fulton (born November 12, 1931) is an Arizona philanthropist, land developer, businessman, and founder of Fulton Homes. In 2006, BusinessWeek listed Fulton 36th on its list of "The 50 Most Generous Philanthropists.". The Arizona Legislature has also recognized his generosity.According to BusinessWeek, Fulton and his wife, Mary Lou, had given away about $265 million, approximately 60% of their net worth as of 2005. Major recipients include Arizona State University (ASU), Brigham Young University (BYU), the University of Utah, Utah Valley University (UVU), the Huntsman Cancer Institute, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A major donation project by Fulton for UVU happened in 2007, and in 2014 he pledged to donate $1 million towards BYU's new engineering building. In 2004 and 2005, the Fultons had donated $20 million to BYU to create 4 chairs named for Mary Lou Fulton. By October 2015, they had given $50 million to BYU, including $20 million donated in October 1999 to help the Lighting the Way Campaign reach a $400 million goal.Several buildings or facilities at higher education institutions are named in honor of the Fultons. These include ASU's Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, BYU's Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology, ASU's Mary Lou Fulton College of Education, BYU's (Mary Lou) Fulton Supercomputing Lab, and UVU's Ira A. Fulton and Mary Lou Fulton Library.Fulton was born in Tempe, Arizona. As a student at ASU, Fulton played football. Before becoming a real estate developer, Fulton owned a wide variety of businesses, including factories, insurance companies, auto parts stores, and tire stores. One of the most successful businesses was a men's clothing chain he owned from 1976 to 1995.Fulton was one of Arizona's presidential electors in the 2004 election.At BYU, Fulton has been a primary force behind formation of the BYU Center for Animation.Fulton's wife, Mary Lou, died in October 2015.

David William Hibbert (October 9, 1938 – July 19, 2009) was an American football player. While playing for the University of Arizona in 1958, he was the NCAA receiving leader in 1958 with 61 receptions. He also set the NCAA record for receptions in a season, a record that stood until 1960.

Spencer John Palmer (October 4, 1927 – November 27, 2000) was a chronicler of the development of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in Asia as well as a major player in these developments. He was a historian of Korea, a scholar of comparative world religions, and wrote many books on these and related topics. He was a key figure in the second generation of Korean studies scholars in the United States.

Norman David Shumway (July 28, 1934 – November 1, 2022) was an American lawyer and politician who served six terms as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1979 to 1991.

Larry Turley Wimmer (born December 8, 1935) is the Warren and Wilson Dusenberry University Professor at Brigham Young University (BYU). He is a professor of economics who specializes in American economic history and the economics of aging.