Hyrum Manwaring

Hyrum Manwaring (June 23, 1877 – September 8, 1956) was the president of Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho, from 1930 to 1944. Ricks College was the precursor to today's Brigham Young University–Idaho, a private university operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Manwaring overcame delayed schooling – he was almost 29 when he graduated from high school – to become a dedicated champion of education. He led Ricks College through difficult times, when dissolution seemed inevitable, to a point where its future was assured. After retiring from the presidency in 1944, Manwaring continued to teach, and take classes himself, until near his death.

Early life Hyrum Wilkins Manwaring was born June 23, 1877, in Granger, Utah, an early town that is now part of West Valley City, Utah. His father, Herbert, came to the U.S. from Sandbach, England in 1869. His mother, Clarissa Wilkins, was the daughter of Charles Wilkins, also an emigrant from England. He was the oldest in a family of eight boys and had to begin working at an early age. That severely crippled his educational opportunities. Hyrum had to leave school after the sixth grade.

Around 1890, homesteads near Salt Lake City entered what Hyrum called "a land boom." So his father sold their place and they moved to the Springville-Mapleton area, south of Provo. A couple years later, Manwaring left home for good to become a section hand on the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad,

When Bessie went off to BYA, Manwaring discovered that he missed her terribly. He began to take more interest in LDS Church affairs and considered how he might gain more education. Over the next few years, he alternated between work on the railroad and going to school with Bessie. In the summer of 1898, just after turning twenty-one, he had gone back to the railroad to save for his sophomore year of high school. He was granted six months to work and save enough to pay his mission expenses. Manwaring left Utah in February 1899. After three weeks in Sydney, Australia, he spent his mission years in Tasmania, prior to returning to Utah in March 1903.

Teaching in Rexburg Christenson persuaded Manwaring to accept a position to head the English Department at Ricks. Neither Hyrum nor Bessie had ever been to Rexburg and knew little about the academy. Perhaps not coincidentally, Manwaring was asked to deliver the "oration" at Ricks the following July. His initial impression of the town and the campus left him "stunned, bewildered, and seriously disappointed." However, he then said he caught a vision of a bright future for the institution, a dream strengthened when he met the "energetic and eager" student body. Two years later, they both attended summer sessions at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Legacy The Hyrum Manwaring Center on the campus of BYU–Idaho is named for him. It first went into operation as the Hyrum Manwaring Student Center in the fall of 1966.