Russell T. Osguthorpe on occasion has told his children that he never stopped going to school.
In both a literal and a figurative sense, that's true of the man who was sustained last April at general conference as the general president of the Sunday School.
After earning bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from BYU, all in education-related fields, he became a professor and, in that sense, kept going to school.
But the remark reflects a broader attitude about the importance of constant learning throughout one's life.
"We have a house of learning in our home; it has always been that way," said his wife, Lola, who is an educator in her own right, teaching sixth grade in public school in Provo, Utah.
"He's always learning, always telling me something," she said. "From the time he wakes up in the morning until we go to bed at night, he is always talking about the ideas that have come to him. Especially in the morning is when he gets his inspiration."
With his field being education and technology, the Osguthorpe household, as they were rearing their five children, was always the first in the neighborhood with the latest computer innovations.
"We were the learning center of the neighborhood," Brother Osguthorpe said with a chuckle, the home with a complete encyclopedia set where neighborhood children often came to use or borrow volumes from it.
It was, in fact, an academic environment — and a mutual love of music — that brought the couple together. They were assigned to sit next to each other as students in the BYU A Cappella Choir, though they had been introduced earlier at the home of her sister, the sister-in-law to his former mission president in Tahiti, Thomas R. Stone, who was visiting.
Thereafter, through an audition, she garnered a spot in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He had sung with the choir before his mission at the remarkably young age of 19, earning a spot after an audition during which he assured director Richard P. Condie that he would be present for every rehearsal and performance, just like his mother, who was a choir member highly esteemed by the eminent conductor.
With his future wife now in the choir, Brother Osguthorpe had an incentive to return to the choir himself. They served in the choir together during their courtship and for a time after their marriage. Life has its seasons of opportunity, though, and after a few years, the competing demands of choir membership and parenthood made their continuation in the choir impractical.
They still found application for their shared interest and talent, though. While Brother Osguthorpe was president of the South Dakota Rapid City Mission, they composed a hymn for their missionaries, titled "I Will Give Myself to Him."
The words reflect their outlook as it pertains to the gospel and consecration:
He gave Himself for me, He died that I might live.
What can I do for Him? What can I really give?
I will say what He wants said. I will do what He wants done.
I will be a witness to the world of God's beloved Son.
Such dedication to the Lord was fostered through role models that influenced Brother Osguthorpe during his boyhood in the East Millcreek area of Salt Lake City. These included his parents and grandparents, of course, but also close friends and neighbors, none other than the family of Gordon and Marjorie Hinckley. In some ways, they were like a second set of parents. President Hinckley was the Osguthorpes' stake president, and later, young Russell's grandmother, Bessie Osguthorpe, looked after the Hinckley children while the parents were away on Church assignments.
One incident, related in a biographical compilation about Sister Hinckley prepared by her daughter, Virginia H. Pierce, called Glimpses, pertains to Brother Osgtuthorpe. As he tells it, when he was 12, they were at a Primary outing. Sister Hinckley asked her son, Clark, to fetch some food from the car. Walking with Clark to the car, Russell said he was able to drive it, as his car-dealer father had sold the car, a Volkswagen Beetle, to President Hinckley. While demonstrating his prowess to Clark and returning to the parking spot, he "almost missed" the car next to it.
Returning to Sister Hinckley, the two boys reported the sad news that the car was dented.
"Whatever gave you the idea you could drive that car?" she asked Clark sternly.
"Clark didn't say anything; he was going to take it on the chin," Brother Osguthorpe said. But he confessed to her, and she turned to him with the same stern question, chiding him about how dangerous his behavior had been.
"She treated me like one of her own," he said.
Russell's father paid for the damage but required his son to work to earn the money for reimbursement.
"From that day forward, there was not a word spoken about it by the Hinckleys or my family," he said. "There's no question in my mind that President and Sister Hinckley during the dinner said, 'Don't ever trouble him about that incident.' It was never mentioned again."
Musing on the experience, he said, "Parents are more important than anyone knows in the teaching of their children. When someone makes a mistake, we help them correct it and go forward. We don't go back and give them a bad time and make it worse than it was."
As an educator by profession and a Church leader by background, Brother Osguthorpe approaches his new calling with vigor. Prior to being called as a stake president, and, again, prior to being an Area Seventy, he was a Sunday School teacher of 15-year-olds. He has observed firsthand the lasting impact that teachers, particularly in a Church setting, can have on learners when they teach with love.
He sees as an integral part of his calling finding ways to improve the teaching in all aspects of the Church, not just Sunday School.
