Neal A Maxwell

Life

Maxwell was born in Salt Lake City, Utah to Clarence Maxwell and his wife, Emma Ash. Clarence had moved to Salt Lake City from Montana about four years earlier and joined the LDS Church not long after. Neal attended Granite High School.

During World War II, Maxwell served as an infantryman in the United States Army (77th Division), where he saw action on Okinawa. After the war, Maxwell served for two years as an LDS Church missionary in Canada.

While pursuing an undergraduate education at the University of Utah before leaving on his mission, Maxwell met Colleen Hinckley. After Maxwell returned from his mission he resumed courting Colleen and they were married in the Salt Lake Temple on November 22, 1950. They are the parents of four children and twenty-four grandchildren.

Maxwell earned bachelors and masters degrees in political science from the University of Utah. From 1952 to 1956, he worked in Washington D.C., first for the US government and then as an assistant to Senator Wallace F. Bennett.

Maxwell was a professor of political science at the University of Utah. He also held many administrative roles at the university. He first joined the university staff as assistant director of public relations in 1956. In 1958 he became Assistant to the President. In 1961 he was secretary to the Board of Trustees, followed by dean of students in 1962, and later vice president for planning and public affairs. In 1967 he became Executive Vice-President of the University of Utah.

From 1959 to 1962, Maxwell served as bishop of Salt Lake City’s University Sixth Ward. He was a member of the General Board of the YMMIA and a member of the Adult Correlation Committee for the next five years.

In 1967, Maxwell was called to be one of the first 69 regional representatives, when that position was created. From 1970 to 1974, he served as the tenth Commissioner of Church Education overseeing the Church Educational System. Under his direction the system received its current name.

Maxwell began serving as an LDS general authority in 1974, when he was called as an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In 1976, Maxwell became one of the seven presidents of the seventy, when the calling of Assistant to the Twelve was eliminated.

Maxwell was ordained an apostle by N. Eldon Tanner on July 23, 1981, after Gordon B. Hinckley, became a counselor in the First Presidency. He was sustained a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on October 3, 1981.

Among the many assignments Maxwell had as a general authority was to preside over the organization of new stakes of the church. One of the more notable of these was the Aba Nigeria Stake in 1988, with David W. Eka as president, being the first stake in the church staffed entirely by people of African descent.

Maxwell wrote approximately thirty books concerning religion and authored numerous articles on politics and government for local, professional and national publications. He is well known for his extensive vocabulary and elegant style of speaking and writing. His highly alliterative talks have always presented a great challenge to translators. During one LDS general conference, the translators had categorized each of the talks to be given into five levels of difficulty. All of the talks were assigned to levels one through four, except Maxwell’s. His talk was alone at level five. Commenting on his speaking and writing styles at Maxwell's funeral, church president Gordon B. Hinckley said,

Maxwell received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Utah; an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Westminster College, Salt Lake City; an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Brigham Young University (BYU), Provo, Utah; an Honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from Utah State University, Logan, Utah; an Honorary Degree from Ricks College, Rexburg, Idaho; and an Honorary Degree from Salt Lake Community College.

The University of Utah established the Neal A. Maxwell Presidential Endowed Chair in Political Theory, Public Policy and Public Service in the fall of 1998.

Maxwell's business career included serving as a director of several business firms, including Questar Corporation, Questar Pipeline, and Deseret News Publishing Company. He also was active in public service, including service as chairman of the Utah Constitutional Revision Commission.

Maxwell received the Liberty Bell award from the Utah State Bar in 1967 for public service. In 1973, the Institute of Government Service at Brigham Young University named him Public Administrator of the Year.

Death

Maxwell died in Salt Lake City, from leukemia. He was originally diagnosed with leukemia in 1996, eight years before his death. He was buried at Salt Lake City Cemetery. According to church president Gordon B. Hinckley, Maxwell "accomplished more in these last eight years than most men do in a lifetime." Maxwell was survived by his wife, Colleen Hinckley, four children, 24 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. With the death ten days later of fellow apostle David B. Haight, the vacancies created in the Quorum of the Twelve were filled by Dieter F. Uchtdorf and David A. Bednar.

The BYU Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts was renamed the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship after Maxwell's death.