Funeral still pending for mission president

HEBER CITY — Funeral arrangements are still pending for an LDS mission president who was killed last Thursday in Uganda.

President Ralph Duke, who was serving in the Uganda Kampala Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was killed after he and his wife, Sister Kim Duke, dropped off four missionaries at the airport.

Sister Duke was treated at a hospital and released. No one else was injured.

The Dukes' son, Spencer, left immediately for Uganda but is still working with Ugandan officials to get his father's body out of the country, said daughter-in-law Keri Duke.

In Heber City, the community is mourning with the Duke family the loss of someone they described as a "down-to-earth farm boy" and always willing to serve.

"Where he was and what he was doing say more than I can," son Mike Duke said. "That's what means the most to me. He did whatever he was asked to do as far as serving. He didn't care what the sacrifice was."

Duke was active in the community as a businessman — he owned Duke's IGA, which he later sold to Smith's — and also served as a Wasatch County commissioner.

He served three LDS missions: one in Australia as a young man, a mission in Johannesburg, South Africa, with his wife, and this most recent call as a mission president in Uganda.