LDS mission president killed in traffic accident

A Heber businessman serving as president of the Uganda Kampala Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was killed in a traffic accident Thursday morning.

President Ralph L. Duke and his wife, Kim, were returning from the Entebbe Airport, presumably to the mission office, when the accident occurred, according to Elder Chris Fee, executive secretary in the LDS Church's Africa Southeast Area office.

He told the Deseret Morning News that the accident occurred at approximately 6:30 a.m., after the couple had taken four missionaries to the airport — two of whom had finished their missions and the other two leaving to serve missions elsewhere.

Elder Fee said Sister Duke was injured, but has been treated and released from a hospital. There were no other missionaries or passengers in the Dukes' vehicle at the time of the accident, he said.

The Duke family has been notified, he said, as have missionaries in the Uganda Kampala Mission. One of the Dukes' sons is enroute to Uganda to be with his mother, he said, and arrangements are under way to return President Duke's body to Utah.

Elder William Parmley, a member of the Africa Southeast Area Presidency, has been sent to Uganda and will assume leadership of the mission, Elder Fee said.

President Duke began serving as mission president on July 1, 2005. A member of the Valley Hills First Ward, Heber Utah North Stake, he was a former counselor in the stake presidency, and had also served as a bishop. He was born in Heber to William Howard and Ellen Child Duke. The couple has four children, and President Duke owned Duke's IGA Supermarket in Heber.

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E-mail: carrie@desnews.com