Amazing tidbits on Mormons

About 15 years ago, when he was working as an editor for a publication called the Latter Day Sentinel, Paul Skousen started filing away what he called "soft" news items in a desk drawer in his office and the left side of his brain.

Over time, he realized why.

He had a book on his hands.

Skousen has now published that book. It's called "The Skousen Book of Mormon World Records" with the subtitle, "and other amazing firsts, facts and feats."

Everything he stashed away is in there, and a lot more.

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Book projects are notorious for taking on lives of their own. "The Skousen Book of Mormon World Records" is no exception. After a while, Paul wasn't sure who was boss — him or "the project." After he left the Latter Day Sentinel, he kept researching news items about the LDS culture — his culture — and his cache of quirky stories multiplied until it became "this behemoth."

"It's stuff that isn't the kind of hard news that goes into a newspaper," says Paul, whose day job these days is managing editor for an education publication based in Utah County called Studies Weekly. "It's all about regular people doing interesting, amazing, inspiring things."

Such as a BYU sociology professor named Phil Kunz teaming up with his son Jay to fly a kite 5 1/2 miles into the sky.

"That kite went so high people thought it was a UFO," says Paul. "They used 32,950 feet of fishing line. The Guinness people declared it a world record. It got me to thinking, 'How many other Mormons hold world records?' "

Out of that question grew his just-published 480-page book, which is available at several local LDS-oriented bookstores as well as his publisher's Web site: www.cedarfort.com.

The irony is very few documented world records have been set by Mormons. Only a dozen or so are listed by Skousen, such as Most Languages Spoken (15, by BYU student John Henry Jorgensen, who is reportedly studying five more), Most Balloons Inflated in an Hour (599, by K.C. Williams of West Valley City), Longest Wheelie (5.1 miles, by Robert Carlisle of American Fork), Largest Milkshake (92 gallons, by the BYU 7th LDS Stake) and Largest Fish Caught on 80-pound Line (71 pounds, 4 ounces, by 12-year-old Nate J. Anderson of Soldotna, Alaska).