Bishop Richard Rust: Taming the Hill

When Bishop Scholes was released, Richard D. Rust was called in his place. Both men were entirely different and Bishop Rust had a huge task ahead of him.

In our stake, the Chapel Hill ward had a reputation of being a maverick. Our ward was the anchor of the stake and we staffed many of its positions. But the Stake President, Pete Bennett, was suspicious of our ward. I am not exactly sure why.

Bishop Joseph Scholes: Coming to Zion

In April, 1985 I graduated from BYU. I had a degree in History and was itching to get to graduate school and pursue a PhD. After many twists and turns along the way, I was accepted to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It took a while to get all the move plans set, but in the summer of 1985 we hopped in our nine passenger Chevy Impala station wagon, which we bought for $500, and made our way east.

A nine passenger station wagon with Andrew, Karen, and me. We did have the car packed full with the stuff we felt we needed for that long trip is a young baby. Everything else we owned was in part of a larger truck that was slowly making its way to Chapel Hill. We had to get there before the truck and find a place or we would have to pay extra.

Andrew's Sick Christmas

I think it was the Christmas of 1986 or 1987. We are living in Durham, NC in our house on Revere Rd. This was to be the first Christmas that Andrew would be old enough to be less impressed with the wrapping paper, bows, and boxes and more involved with the concepts of presents.

I can remember how excited he was as the presents under the tree magically increased but this year we didn't have to watch him like a hawk to prevent him from opening gifts too early. So we were excited as well.

On Christmas Eve, we likely had a bunch of ward members over for dinner. That was our tradition. The Chapel Hill Ward was a home away from home. Most people our age were far away from family so the ward became the family. This was especially true around Thanksgiving and Christmas.