Mary Ellen Edmunds

T.C. Christensen

Liz Lemon Swindle

2024 Recipients
Mary Ellen Edmunds (Publishing), T.C. Christensen (Media), and Liz Lemon Swindle (Arts)

2023 Recipients
Lyle Mortimer (Publishing), Jared Brown (Media), and Michael McLean (Arts)

2022 Recipients
Jack Welch (Publishing), Carole Mikita (Media), Don L. Brugger (Editing and Design), Gladys Knight (Arts), and Brandon Sanderson (Writing)

2021 Recipients
Chris Schoebinger (Publishing and Media), Susan Easton Black (Writing), and Marvin K. Gardner (Editing and Design)

2020 Recipients
Dean Hughes (Writing), Emily Watts (Editing and Design), and Christopher Robbins (Publishing and Media)

2019 Recipients
Janice Kapp Perry (Publishing and Media), Shirley S. Ricks (Editing and Design), and Orson Scott Card (Writing)

 2018 Recipients
Sheri Dew (Publishing and Media), Don Norton (Editing and Design), and John Sorenson (Writing)

Mary Ellen Edmunds

Lifetime Achievement Award in Publishing

Mary Ellen Edmunds is a well-beloved religious speaker and author. Her love of writing and publishing began at an early age. While a student at Brigham Young High School, she contributed to a variety of publications: the Wildcat yearbook, Y’ld Cat Newspaper, the fine arts magazine, the literary magazine, and the poetry contest. She was a member of Quill and Scroll, an international high school journalism honor society.

After high school, Mary Ellen received a degree in nursing from BYU. She served missions in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, Nigeria, and the Philippines (twice) and was director of training at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah for 17 years. She served on the general board of the Relief Society for 12 years and has been a favorite speaker at Especially for Youth and Time Out for Women.

In the midst of all her other activities, Mary Ellen has published over 10 books, including Love is a Verb, Thoughts for a Bad Hair Day, MEE Thinks: Random Thoughts on Life’s Wrinkles, MEE Speaks: But Does She Have Anything to Say?, You Can Never Get Enough of What You Don’t Need, and Tug of War: Choosing Between Zion and Babylon. She has also written numerous magazine articles and pamphlets.

Mary Ellen enjoys reading, writing, time with family and friends, music (mostly classical), treats, remembering, and occasional day-dreaming.

T. C. Christensen

Lifetime Achievement Award in Media

T.C. has been behind the camera for many films celebrating faith and the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, including 17 Miracles, Ephraim’s Rescue, Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration, The Cokeville Miracle, Testaments, The Fighting Preacher, and his latest project, Escape from Germany.

He has been involved with many feature films, including Forever Strong, and IMAX films such as Lewis & Clark for National Geographic and Roving Mars for Disney.  His short films include Treasure in Heaven: The John Tanner Story and Only a Stonecutter.

T.C.’s love of movies dates back to his childhood in the 1950s when his dad purchased an 8mm film camera and started filming his family. For T.C., that camera was love at first sight. His first job at the age of 17 came when he approached the owner of the Davis Drive-Inn and asked if he would hire him to make the “intermission trailer” (ads of local merchants intercut with pleas to come to the snack bar). T.C. says, “I’ll always be thankful to him for believing in me. He ran it for two years even though it was awful!”

T.C. launched his own company, Remember Films, with his cousin Ron Tanner in 2009 and began making his own feature films. Their first endeavor was 17 Miracles.

T.C. credits many mentors in his career, most notably the Oscar winning filmmaker Keith Merrill. He and his wife Katy live in Farmington, Utah. They are the parents of two children and four grandchildren.

Liz Lemon Swindle

Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts

Liz Lemon Swindle is a world-renowned artist famous for her realistic paintings of faith and religion. Her paintings of Jesus Christ have instilled faith and hope in millions.

Liz studied fine arts at Utah State University, where she tutored under popular wildlife artist Nancy Glazier. After painting wildlife art for several years, in 1992 Liz began painting a subject matter she had long desired to approach: her faith. Depicting figures from the New Testament and Church history, Swindle’s oil paintings are characterized by their realistic style, often using intricate details and lifelike depictions.

Liz’s paintings have been featured in countless publications and used by some of the most recognized institutions in the world, including the Smithsonian Institute, the White House, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She received the Founders Favorite Award in the 1988 National Arts for Parks Competition, the Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Award in 2000, and a blessing of thanks from Pope Benedict XVI for her artistic contributions to Rome. In recent years, Liz was selected to paint official artwork to accompany The Chosen TV series.

Liz and her husband Jon have five children and thirteen grandchildren. You can learn more about her at lizlemonswindle.com.

Lyle Mortimer

Lifetime Achievement Award in Publishing

Lyle Mortimer has left an indelible mark on the publishing world, illustrating his dedication and passion for improving lives. As a proud alumnus of Brigham Young University, Lyle earned a degree in theater and cinematic arts, where he cultivated a deep appreciation for storytelling, creativity, and the transformative power of visual expression.

In 1986, Lyle became the founder of Cedar Fort Publishing & Media. Under his leadership, Cedar Fort emerged as a prominent publishing house, releasing over three thousand captivating titles that resonate with readers worldwide. With a special emphasis on serving members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Cedar Fort has sold millions of copies. Notable among their accomplishments are the widely recognized Made Easier series and the Beyond the Veil series.

Throughout the years, Lyle actively engaged in community theater and embraced various roles as an actor, singer, director, set builder, and producer. His extensive experience in theater provided him with a profound understanding of the intricacies of form, fueling his love for the craft.

Lyle has devoted his life to service in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Alongside his wife, Sheila Hunter, he served as a senior missionary in the Philippines Manila Mission from 2015 to 2016 and later in the New Zealand Auckland Mission from 2019 to 2020, specifically the island of Niue where Lyle served as a youth. They are currently serving a service mission from home. They reside in Springville, Utah and find joy in their loving marriage of forty-eight years. Together they are the parents of four sons and three daughters. They cherish their thirty-five grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Jared Brown

Lifetime Achievement Award in Media

Jared F. Brown is the co-founder of Living Scriptures Inc. and Nest Entertainment. Over his career he has been involved in the production of almost two hundred hours of dramatized audio stories, sixty-nine animated films on scripture stories and heroes, thirty-one live-action docudramas on Church history and the modern prophets, and one national theatrical release with ten full-length sequels.

When he co-founded Living Scriptures in 1974 with his partner Seldon Young, Jared’s mission was to create vivid audio stories that engaged families and adults in the scriptures. But it wasn’t until 1986 that Jared realized his most important mission: to visually translate the scriptures into a language young children could easily understand and enjoy—animation. To accomplish this, he enlisted the talented writer Orson Scott Card, gifted musician Lex de Azevedo, and former Disney director Richard Rich. For ten years, this vibrant team created beautiful films that, more than thirty-five years later, still encapsulate the power of Christ’s gospel through fun and moving stories.

These animated films have reached an audience of hundreds of millions of people throughout the world. They have been translated into eight languages, were among the first outside shows to play in Russia after the fall of the Iron Curtain, and became the main curriculum library for children in thousands of Christian churches. Many viewers have been influenced by the positive messages found in these films, and Living Scriptures has received hundreds of stories of how these films have inspired people to join the Church, serve missions, or dramatically change their lives for the better.

In 1994, Jared was the executive producer for the film The Swan Princess. This film, based on the ballet Swan Lake, was an ambitious project whose major competitor was Disney. The Swan Princess has since become one of the longest running full-length franchises with ten full-length sequels over twenty years.

Jared’s business and mission continues today through his son, Matt, who has expanded Living Scriptures into a popular streaming service, reaching hundreds of thousands globally with over five thousand family friendly films, original series such as Line Upon Line and Latterday News, and of course, the still very popular original films Jared and others produced to make gospel learning fun.

Michael McLean

Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts

Michael McLean is a songwriter, composer, author, performer, playwright, and filmmaker with a career spanning five decades.

Born in Utah in 1952, Michael’s family moved every few years as he was growing up. While attending high school near Chicago, he played the role of Harold Hill in John Hersey High School’s production of The Music Man and took second place in the Illinois High School State Speech Competition for an original monologue. 

From 1971 to 1973, Michael served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Southern Africa. While there, he discovered his passion for songwriting when he performed in a musical group known as The Family Band. After returning from his mission, he formed a band called Light which scored and performed the music for the film The Life And Times of Grizzly Adams and created musical jingles for several regional and national clients. His first break came in 1976 when he was hired to be the radio and television broadcast producer for The Mormon Tabernacle Choir. This led to him producing Mr. Krueger’s Christmas, a film for television starring film legend James Stewart.

Since 1983, Michael has written music and lyrics for more than thirty albums, which have sold over two million copies. Since 1991, he has starred in a theatrical version of The Forgotten Carols to sold-out audiences on his yearly holiday tour. Michael was the original story writer, producer, and director of Nora’s Christmas Gift starring Academy Award winner Celeste Holm. Other films he has written and directed include Together Forever, The Prodigal Son, and What Is Real?

During his seventeen years in the advertising industry, Michael received numerous national and international awards for advertising, including the prestigious Clio Award, National Addy Award, New York Ad Club’s Andy Award, two National Emmy Finalist awards, and the Bronze Lion at the Cannes Film Festival.

Michael and his wife Lynne have three children and two grandchildren.

Chris Schoebinger

Lifetime Achievement Award in Publishing and Media

Chris Schoebinger has worked in the book and publishing industry for more than thirty-three years. As publishing director and an editor for Shadow Mountain Publishing, he has discovered and launched the writing careers of numerous best-selling authors, such as Brandon Mull, Ally Condie, Jason F. Wright, Emily Belle Freeman, and Julianne Donaldson.

After three decades of helping hundreds of authors shape and refine their manuscripts and build their brands, Chris credits his success to the following: (1) regularly seeking advice from seasoned mentors; (2) surrounding himself with astute professionals who excel where he doesn’t; (3) monitoring and taking action on industry trends; (4) working hand in hand with the sales and marketing teams; and (5) most importantly, nurturing and encouraging writers and authors to keep writing.

Chris received his bachelor’s degree in communications with an emphasis in advertising. He believes that understanding good copywriting has helped him appreciate the value of words and has made him a better editor and publisher. Specializing in children’s literature, Chris has not only worked as a children’s writing consultant but is also a #1 New York Times best-selling co-author of two children’s picture books.

Chris was born and raised in Southern California and eventually traveled to Utah and attended Dixie College, where he met the full-time missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. During that time, he was baptized, and a year later he served a two-year mission to Argentina. Chris and Jennifer are the parents of three sons and two daughters and a spoiled Rhodesian ridgeback. They live in Lehi, Utah. The day he retires from being a publisher is the day he gets to live his dream and write full time.

Susan Easton Black

Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing

Susan Easton Black has blessed Latter-day Saints for generations with her writing, scholarship, and teaching.

Susan joined the faculty at Brigham Young University in 1978 as a professor of Church history and doctrine—the first woman to become a full-time religion professor at BYU. She later served as associate dean of General Education and Honors and as director of Church history for the Religious Studies Center. In 2000 she received the Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Award, the highest award given to BYU faculty members.

A leading expert in early Church history, Susan has authored, edited, or compiled more than 100 books and 250 articles, including Joseph Smith: Praise to the Man (with John Telford); Joseph, Exploring the Life and Ministry of the Prophet (with Andrew Skinner); Emma Smith: An Elect Lady; and Who’s Who in the Doctrine and Covenants.

Susan has served various missions for the Church, including missions at the Nauvoo Illinois Temple, the Saint George Temple Visitors’ Center, LDS Social Services as a psychologist, and the Priesthood and Family Department in Salt Lake City as a writer. She was married to Harvey B. Black, a professor of science at BYU, prior to his death in 2011. She is currently married to George Durrant, a well-known Latter-day Saint author, speaker, and teacher.

Marvin K. Gardner

Lifetime Achievement Award in Editing and Design

Marvin K. Gardner, author of the hymn “Press Forward, Saints,” has been pressing forward throughout his 44-year career, often in search of just the right word.

As an editor of the Ensign and managing editor of the Liahona (1978–2005), Marv wrote and edited hundreds of articles in 336 monthly magazine issues and interviewed Church members in more than 30 nations. Many of his articles included photos he took himself, some of which were also featured on magazine covers. As managing editor, he directed efforts that increased the number of language editions from 19 (in 1990) to 50 (in 2005).

As a professor at Brigham Young University (2005–17), Marv helped design the popular editing minor and helped lay the foundation for the new editing and publishing major. He developed and taught courses on usage, grammar, copyediting, substantive editing, and online publishing. Current students who take the two capstone courses that he created years ago (Latter-day Saint Insights and Stowaway magazine) continue to publish real-world, award-winning print and online publications. As director of the Faculty Editing Service, he mentored interns who edited thousands of pages of scholarly work. He codirected study-abroad programs in the British Isles. In 2013, BYU’s Student Leadership Council honored him with the Brigham Award, a student-initiated tribute.

As a freelancer, he published articles in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism and the Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History and edited books for Deseret Book and others. He also presented papers at the Church’s Symposium for Writers and Editors.

A lifelong musician, Marv served on the Church’s General Music Committee (1981–85). As a member of the 1985 Hymnbook Executive Committee, he served as text editor for the current hymnbook.

He has written many hymns and songs with Vanja Y. Watkins. Some, including “Press Forward, Saints” and “This Is My Beloved Son,” have been published by the Church; others have been published by national and local publishers. Marv and Vanja’s music has been performed and recorded by the Tabernacle Choir, BYU Singers, BYU Men’s Chorus, University of Utah Singers, Salt Lake Children’s Choir, Salt Lake Choral Artists, and others.

For two years (2018–20), Marv and his wife, Mary, served a full-time mission as directors of digital communication in the Central America Area. There they planned, wrote, and edited content in Spanish for the area’s website, social media, and Liahona local pages; trained writers and editors; assisted the area presidency; and served in the missionary training center.

After returning from their mission in 2020, Marv received his current assignment: to help prepare a new hymnbook—this time as a member of the text editorial committee.

Marv was raised in Arizona and Utah. After his mission in Colombia (1971–73), he earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree at BYU. He has served in many callings, including twice as bishop. The Gardners live in Springville, Utah. They enjoy traveling, reading, gardening, doing temple and family history work, playing violin and piano together, and spending time with their six children and fifteen grandchildren.

Dean Hughes

Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing

Dean Hughes published his first book with Deseret Book more than forty years ago.  Not long after that first book appeared, he sold a manuscript to a national publisher, and since then he has stayed busy in both markets.  He has now published more than one hundred books, along with stories, articles and even nonsense poems.

Dean has written fiction as well as nonfiction for all ages: children, young adults, and adults. Among Latter-day Saints, he is best known for Children of the Promise, a series of historical novels set in World War II. His young adult novels, Soldier Boys and Four-Four-Two, published by Simon and Schuster,have received national critical acclaim. He has received many awards, including the Association for Mormon Letters and Whitney Lifetime Achievement Awards.  

Two of his recent books, Muddy (Deseret Book, 2019) and River (Deseret Book, 2020), probe the challenges of living in polygamy in the nineteenth century and in establishing the United Order in Orderville, Utah. 

Dean grew up in Ogden, Utah, where he received a BA from Weber State University.  He also received an MA in creative writing and a PhD in English literature from the University of Washington. He attended postdoctoral summer seminars at Stanford and Yale.

Dean has served as a bishop and in many other Church callings. He is married to Kathleen Hurst Hughes, who served as first counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency. Together, they have served senior missions in Nauvoo, Illinois, and Beirut, Lebanon. They have three children and nine grandchildren, and a great grandson who has taken possession of their hearts. They live in Midway, Utah.

Dean tells himself that he will soon slow down, maybe write a little more, but not at such a hard pace. But when he gets up in the morning, he would rather write than almost anything else. He plays a little golf, loves to travel, feeds birds and photographs them, and rides his electric bike. But he most enjoys sitting down to compose a new book, and he tells himself, “This time, I’m finally going to write a good one.”

Emily Watts

Lifetime Achievement Award in Editing and Design

Emily Watts has worked in the publishing department of Deseret Book Company for more than forty years. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Utah in June 1977 with a BA in English and joined the staff at Deseret Book that September. For several years of her employment, she worked part-time at home, juggling the joys and demands of raising five children with the joys and demands of working with words. She returned to full-time work in the office in 1995. 

Emily finds editing to be a fascinating blend of technical knowledge, psychological acumen, and mind reading. Building relationships of trust with authors has been the most rewarding aspect of her career, and she feels lucky to call so many of them her real friends. She also feels privileged to have worked in a variety of genres, from children’s fiction to biography, self-help to doctrine. She loves all kinds of editing, from the fine-sandpaper work on a polished manuscript to the spinning-straw-into-gold developmental project. 

When no one seemed to be writing the parenting book Emily really wanted to read—one that would acknowledge that a person could love being a mom and still find some parts of it really hard—she finally just wrote it herself. Being the Mom: 10 Coping Strategies I Learned by Accident Because I Had Children on Purpose was released in 2002, followed in later years by Take Two Chocolates and Call Me in the Morning; Confessions of an Unbalanced Woman; I Hate It When Exercise Is the Answer: A Fitness Program for the Soul; The Slow-Ripening Fruits of Mothering; and Once There Was a Mom. Emily has taken her practical and humor-filled perspective across the country as a speaker for Deseret Book’s Time Out for Women. She has also spoken at BYU Women’s Conference and in many other venues. 

Emily and her husband of forty-two years, Larry, live in Taylorsville, Utah. They are the parents of five and grandparents of twelve.

Christopher Robbins

Lifetime Achievement Award in Publishing and Media

Christopher Robbins is a husband and a father to nine children (six boys and three daughters). He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is an avid backpacker and fly fisherman, and is a musician who plays multiple instruments. 

Christopher started his publishing career by launching The ARTS Magazine in 1992, a slick, four-color magazine covering the arts of Utah. He has since served as a writer for multiple publications, as editorial director and marketing director for Northwest Publishing, as the founder of NOVELocity, a company that brought serial fiction to people’s emails before mobile technology, as the CEO of Gibbs Smith, where he led the company to thirteen consecutive years of double-digit growth, as the cofounder of Hummingbird Digital Media (a company that democratized audiobook and ebook retailing), as the CEO of American West Books (one of the premier book wholesaling companies in the country), as an adviser to the Indian tech company Papertrell, and as the author of many children’s books. Christopher is currently the founder and CEO of Familius, a trade book publishing company founded in 2012 with a mission to help families be happy, a mission that has helped Familius be one of the top fastest growing independent publishing companies in the US for the past three years as reported by Publishers Weekly. Christopher earned a BA in English and an MBA from BYU. He has served on numerous boards including Writers@Work and the Independent Book Publishers Association. His favorite quote is from Gandhi: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Christopher currently lives in the central valley of California with his wife, four of his nine children, and their cat and dog.

Janice Kapp Perry

Lifetime Achievement Award in Publishing and Media

Janice Kapp Perry was born in Ogden, Utah, and currently lives in Provo, Utah. She and her husband Douglas Perry have 5 children, 13 grandchildren, and 9 great-grandchildren. The Perrys also had numerous foster children in their home through the years. Janice received formal musical training at BYU, where she played percussion instruments in the concert band and orchestra.

In 1979, she released her first album of original songs, Where Is Heaven. Since that first album, she’s produced an impressive number of works: more than 2,000 songs; 105 recorded albums; 2 full-length musicals; 8 sacred cantatas; and albums in Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, and Chinese. She composed the hymn “As Sisters in Zion,” published in the Church hymnbook and has 10 songs in the Primary songbook. She cowrote six albums of songs with Senator Orrin G. Hatch. One of those songs, “Heal Our Land,” was performed in Washington, DC, at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2001, at the presidential inauguration in 2005, and at the Kennedy Center in 2018. She published the book Songs from My Heart: The Stories behind the Songs, 7 volumes of Inspirational New Hymns for Choir and Home (containing 227 hymns), A Songbook for LDS Families, and Book of Mormon Heroes.

Janice’s works have been performed by the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, the Mormon Youth Symphony and Chorus, country duo Brooks and Dunn, Gladys Knight, and the Osmonds–Second Generation; at Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power from the Crystal Cathedral; on the Oprah Winfrey Show; and by countless other choirs and soloists at events around the world. What began as a simple home hobby has spread throughout the world and has involved the entire family. Author Joy Saunders Lundberg says, “Janice has been hailed by some as the most prolific composer in the history of the Church—she is the musical phenomenon of our time.”

In 1994, Janice received the Exemplary Woman award from Ricks College. In 1997, she received the BYU Alumni Distinguished Service Award. In 1998, she and Senator Hatch were awarded the National George Washington Medal of Honor by the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge for the album Freedom’s Light. In 1999, the LDS Booksellers Association honored her with the Exceptional Merit Award. In 1999, the Utah/California Women presented her with the Heritage Award, and in 2001 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Faith Centered Music Association.

Janice sang in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir from 1993 to 1999. She and her husband served a full-time mission in Santiago Chile from 2002 to 2003 and, later, a three-year Church service mission in a Spanish ward in Provo. She continues writing, publishing, and recording new music. In 2009, BYU-TV produced a 60-minute documentary entitled Janice Kapp Perry: A Life of Service and Song. In a poll published in LDS Living in January 2013, Janice’s song “A Child’s Prayer” received the top spot in the list of “100 Greatest LDS Songs of All Time.”. Seven of her other songs were in the top 27.

Shirley S. Ricks

Lifetime Achievement Award in Editing and Design

Shirley S. Ricks is a senior editor at BYU’s Religious Studies Center, having transferred in 2017 from the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Her career in publishing started during her undergraduate years, when she received on-the-job training in proofreading and editing at the BYU Press. Later, she did freelance work and then was hired in 1989 as an editor at the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS).

While at FARMS, she edited and prepared for publication half of the 19 volumes in the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, thirty other volumes, and hundreds of articles. She served as the first production editor for the FARMS Review, the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, and Studies in the Bible and Antiquity. As an editor, she enjoys working with other team members, tidying up footnotes, indexing, organizing myriad details, mentoring interns, and seeing publications come off the press.

She’s also published articles in various festschrift volumes, the Ensign, the Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, the FARMS Review, and the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. She’s presented papers at BYU Women’s Conference and the FAIRMormon conference, among others. A native of Provo, Shirley also lived in Jerusalem for three years and has assisted with BYU Study Abroad programs in Vienna and London.

Shirley served a mission in the Germany South Mission (Munich), after which she completed her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees at Brigham Young University in home economics education and family studies. She’s taught home economics, algebra, and geometry, and she enjoys embroidering, reading, spending time with family, and traveling with her husband, Stephen D. Ricks. She’s reached the highest elevation in thirty-three states, and she and her husband have attended sessions in over one hundred temples, including all the temples in the United States and Canada. Their 6 children and 19 grandchildren bring her great joy—and many travel opportunities.

Orson Scott Card

Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing

Orson Scott Card is the author of the novels Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead, which are widely read by adults and younger readers and are increasingly used in schools. His most recent series—the young adult Pathfinder series (Pathfinder, Ruins, Visitors) and the fantasy Mithermages series (Lost Gate, Gate Thief, Gatefather)—are taking readers in new directions.

Besides these and other science fiction novels, Card has written contemporary fantasy (Magic Street, Enchantment, Lost Boys), biblical novels (Stone Tables, Rachel and Leah); the American frontier fantasy series The Tales of Alvin Maker (beginning with Seventh Son); poetry (An Open Book); and many plays and scripts, including his “freshened” Shakespeare scripts for Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Merchant of Venice.

Seventeen of Card’s novels have won prestigious awards, and many have won multiple awards, including for the best novel of the year. Card’s novels have been published in 34 languages besides English.

Card was born in Washington and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He served a mission in Brazil in the early 1970s. Besides his writing, he teaches occasional classes and workshops and directs plays. He frequently teaches writing and literature courses at Southern Virginia University. 

Card and his wife, Kristine, currently live in Greensboro, North Carolina, where his activities include feeding birds, squirrels, chipmunks, possums, and raccoons on the patio.

Sheri Dew

Lifetime Achievement Award in Publishing and Media

Sheri Dew grew up on a sprawling grain farm in Ulysses, Kansas, where she was taught the value of hard work. “I drove a tractor almost as soon as I could reach the pedals,” she remembers. In addition to learning how to sets irrigation tubes, she learned the law of the harvest. These lessons aided her in other areas of her life. As a young girl, she practiced basketball for long hours and was a star player in high school, averaging 23 points and 17 rebounds a game. She also became an accomplished musician, and while a student at BYU she traveled on three United Service Organizations tours as a piano accompanist.

After graduating from BYU in 1978 with a bachelor’s degree in history, she began her career as an assistant editor at Bookcraft. Four years later, she became associate publisher of This People magazine. In 1989, just a year after joining Deseret Book as an associate editor, she became director of publishing, followed by vice president of publishing in 1993, and executive vice president in 2000. Two years later, she was named the president and CEO of the company. At the time, Deseret Book consisted of a publishing division and a retail chain of around forty stores.

Under Dew’s leadership, Deseret Book greatly expanded its offerings and focus. For example, the company launched its Time Out for Women events. She also oversaw the 2004 acquisition of Excel Entertainment, through which Deseret Book has distributed films such as Forever Strong, Saints and Soldiers, Seventeen Miracles, and The Work and the Glory. In 2006, she led the acquisition of Seagull Book (a retail chain) and Covenant Communications (a book publisher and distributor). In 2011, the company introduced Deseret Bookshelf, which Dew noted changed how she studied the gospel because she could now search all Deseret Book and other gospel references all at once.

In addition to leading Deseret Book, Dew is a director of the Church-owned broadcasting organization Bonneville International Corporation. She has also contributed to the Conversations program on the Mormon Channel, interviewing well-known Latter-day Saints. Additionally, she has served as a member of the President’s Leadership Council for BYU-Hawaii and as a member of the BYU Marriott School of Management’s National Advisory Council.

Though Dew’s business responsibilities have kept her busy, she has also made time for other important initiatives. For example, after a trip to Ghana in 1999, Dew spearheaded Chapters of Hope, which has sent tens of thousands of children’s books to impoverished areas of the world, including Ghana, Zimbabwe, Eastern Europe, and the Pacific Islands. In 2003, she was appointed as a member of the US delegation for the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women and Girls. She has also spoken at other meanings, emphasizing the need to protect the traditional family structure and moral values.

Despite her many other commitments, Dew has kept the gospel her first priority. After serving in a variety of callings at the local level, from 1997–2002 she served as a counselor in the Church’s General Relief Society Presidency. This calling in particular felt daunting for Dew, not only because she considers herself to be a shy person but also because she was the first unmarried woman to be called to the presidency. In this role, she strove to help all women understand that they are valued in the Church and loved by Heavenly Father. She has shared insights about herself and the gospel in the various books and articles she has written. She is also the author of the biographies for President Ezra Taft Benson and President Gordon B. Hinckley.

Dew has been recognized by various organizations for her contributions. As an example, she received a Utah Genius Award, which honors individuals, organizations, and citizens who have received new trademarks or patents. Additionally, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award for her creativity and innovation as the CEO of Deseret Book. We likewise recognize Dew, not only for her leadership at Deseret Book but also for her personal publications. Through both of these means, she has inspired Latter-day Saints in numerous ways, bringing light into their lives and motivating them to come unto Christ.

Don Norton

Lifetime Achievement Award in Editing and Design

Don Norton has directly and indirectly influenced decades of LDS editors and other publishing professionals through his work in publishing and as a professor at Brigham Young University. Despite the impact he has made and the many people who feel privileged to have learned from him, Norton has always remained humble, admitting that as a young boy, he struggled to spell his name (“3 o’s, 3 n’s, 3 more consonants!”). Yet, that didn’t last long, for Norton was a hard worker and motivated to improve. By the time he was in the fifth and sixth grades, he had become fascinated by the construction of dictionaries and won all the “dictionary chases” in his class. In high school, he enjoyed diagramming English sentences, and for his senior English research paper, he took on the lofty subject of “the creation of the world” (and received an A on it).

Though upon enrolling at BYU he declared a math/science major, Norton soon switched to English, inspired by the general education course Masterpieces of American English. As an undergraduate, he proofread the university’s 1954‒1955 catalog, wrote the dedication booklet for the recently completed Jesse Knight Building, helped edit and proofread the first volume of BYU Studies, and edited and proofread the writing of many faculty and staff. Upon completing his bachelor’s degree, he pursued a master’s in English, focusing on English language courses.

While dedicated to his graduate studies, Norton also experimented with writing oral histories, selecting his father as his first subject. Deeply touched by his father’s tearful response upon reading the finished work, Norton began to train himself as an oral historian. His interest turned into a passion, and during the ensuing decades, he interviewed, transcribed, and edited hundreds of long and short oral histories.

After completing his graduate work at the University of Minnesota in 1967, he became a faculty member in BYU’s English Department, teaching courses in grammar, usage, and writing. In the coming years, he also created an evening course titled Personal History, in which he shared his love of oral history with his students.

At the same time that he was becoming a well-known—and well-loved—professor, he was coming to the attention of Church leaders. In the 1970s, he was asked to serve on a committee for the Office of the Presiding Bishopric. In this role, he helped rewrite, in plain English, publications of the office and Church auxiliaries. Additionally, for 20 years he served on a committee appointed by the Utah Supreme Court to help rewrite jury instructions in plain English.

His expertise in writing was also reflected in his role at BYU as the director of the Writing Lab, helping numerous students improve their papers for courses in a variety of disciplines. Inspired by the tremendous benefit this service provided, he created the Faculty-Staff Editing Service, through which he and his student employees edited some 7,000 pages of faculty and staff writing annually. This service provided immense value to faculty and staff as well as allowed Norton to mentor many aspiring editors. His service didn’t stop there. Over the years, he edited hundreds of student application letters and résumés, especially during the four years he was BYU’s prelaw adviser and a member of the premed committee.

Throughout Norton’s busy career at BYU, he remained involved with oral histories. In 1989, he was invited to prepare oral histories of veterans who had served in the US Army Air Corps during World War II. Over time, the project expanded to include veterans in all army branches and in all US military conflict, with the most recent focus on LDS veterans. Through this ongoing project, he, his students, and his editing interns have completed more than one thousand veterans’ oral histories.

In 2004, after nearly 40 years as a BYU professor, Norton retired from full-time employment. Before retiring, he was gratified to see that the editing minor, which he had helped design, was now an official program of study at BYU.

Though Norton is no longer a full-time employee, his life has not slowed down. He teaches gymnastics (after judging gymnastics competitions for 48 years), and he remains involved with the military oral histories project and in other publishing-related activities. His legacy as a writer, editor, oral historian, and mentor to many Latter-day Saints in the publishing industry continues to expand—and surely will in the years to come. We thank Norton for his tremendous influence on Latter-day Saint publishing and media professionals.

John Sorenson

Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing

From a young age, John L. Sorenson understood the importance of excelling in school, and after graduating from North Cache High at age 17, he enrolled at Utah State Agricultural College (present-day Utah State University). Though he had decided to study electrical engineering, as had both of his brothers, the outbreak of World War II changed his plans. Because of the courses he had completed in math and physics, he enlisted in the US Army Air Corps to be trained as a meteorologist. Following arduous schooling at CalTech, during which he earned a master’s in science, he was commissioned and served in the Air Corps for 40 months.

After returning home safely, Sorenson decided to serve a mission for the Church. However, once again, things didn’t go according to his plans. Transportation was highly uncertain at that time, and before he was finally able to leave for New Zealand many months later, he had met and married Kathryn Richards. Nevertheless, he remained committed to fulfilling his mission, and he eventually served in the Cook Islands.

After 30 months of missionary work, Sorenson returned to his wife—and young son. He enrolled at BYU and, no longer interested in the physical sciences, decided to study archaeology, which led to the opportunity to work in southern Mexico with the first season of the New World Archaeological Foundation. Several years later, upon receiving a fellowship from the National Science Foundation, he began a PhD in archeology at UCLA. However, his academic focus shifted again, this time because of the sudden death of his chosen mentor. To his—and other Latter-day Saints’—great benefit in the long-term, he decided to move to the much broader field of social anthropology. For his dissertation, he studied the urbanization/industrialization of American Fork, Utah, that resulted from the construction of the Geneva Steel plant. The scope of the study was rare among anthropologists—and impressive to BYU’s sociology faculty, who welcomed him into the department in 1959.

Of course, Sorenson’s research and career weren’t the only important or interesting aspects of his life during this time. He and his wife were also raising eight sons (and later an adopted daughter). He was also busy serving in various church callings, showing the same commitment he had when deciding to serve a mission despite experiencing travel difficulties and being a newlywed.

As Sorenson juggled family responsibilities with a thriving career, he received the opportunity to lead an interdisciplinary study of counterinsurgency in South Vietnam for the US Navy. It was at this point that he came to consider himself an applied anthropologist. In 1954, he was offered the position of chief social scientist at General Research Corp. After seven years in this role, he resumed his position as a BYU faculty member, and in 1978 he was appointed as the chair of the Anthropology Department.

Though he hadn’t become a professional archaeologist, he kept up-to-date on the literature regarding Mesoamerican archaeology, and he published in professional and LDS circles. Beginning in 1977, at the invitation of the editor of the Ensign, he wrote a series of articles explaining his understanding of the geographical and historical context of the Book of Mormon. These articles were never approved—despite multiple rewrites—for publication in the Ensign, but in 1985 Deseret Book published the content as An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon. This book—the first volume printed under the auspices of FARMS—is considered the seminal publication on the historicity of the Book of Mormon in its ancient American setting. Still widely influential today, the book popularized the limited-geography model regarding the locations of Book of Mormon events. The model has become the most supported geographic framework among LDS scholars.

In 1986, Sorenson retired from BYU, and from that point forward he focused on assisting with FARMS and remaining current on Mesoamerican research in relation to the Book of Mormon. He also emphasized the need to increase the rigor of scholarship defending the Book of Mormon. He served as the editor of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies and authored or coauthored approximately two hundred books and articles. In 2006, he began working on his crowning publication, integrating all he had learned during more than fifty years of professional-level research on the Book of Mormon in relation to Mesoamerican studies. The result was published in 2013 as Mormon’s Codex: An Ancient American Book. This and several others he authored—including Images of Ancient America and the prize-winning Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas across the Oceans—are monumental achievements that are unlikely to ever be surpassed.

We thank Sorenson for the significant contributions to publishing, particularly regarding publications on the context of the Book of Mormon. He has set a high standard for other researchers and scholars to aspire to.