Rexburg history merges with temple preparations

REXBURG, Idaho — When Richard Smith was 8 years old, he climbed in his grandfather's car for a ride about town. His grandfather, Joseph Fred Smith, was mayor of Rexburg and wanted to check on newly oiled streets.

"I didn't fully understand why he was so worried about roads," Smith recalled.

He does now. Nearly 50 years later, Smith is chairman of the dedication and open house committee for the new Rexburg Idaho Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and fully empathizes with his grandfather's concern for the good of the community.

"I grew up in a home where there was an emphasis on public service and church service and the building up of the community," Smith, 57, told the Deseret Morning News during the first week of the open house, which began Dec. 26. "That was the code you lived by — to help your fellow man and to help build a community and to serve in the church. Indeed, my father and my grandfather and my great-grandfather were examples of that."

Calling this a "special, special time" in Rexburg, Smith reminisced about his life in this southeastern Idaho town where he has lived his whole life, except when pursing his education at BYU and the University of Idaho, the latter from which he earned his juris doctorate.

Smiling, he referred to nearby Smith Park, named for his mayor grandfather. As a youth, he rode in the back of pickup trucks with five-gallon buckets to water the newly planted trees because the park did not yet have a sprinkler system.

Today, Smith is legal counsel for BYU-Idaho and runs an area farm. He was also chairman of the 2005 temple groundbreaking committee and is a former bishop and BYU-Idaho married-student-stake president. He and his wife, Jill, a former Ricks College student, have three children. The youngest, Braden, is still at home and attending Madison High School.

Smith's great-grandfather, Fred Smith, was one of the original eight men to come to the upper Snake River Valley with Thomas E. Ricks , for whom Ricks College was named. The pioneers were sent by LDS Church President John Taylor to settle what would become Rexburg. In a four-page history typed by Fred Smith's daughter in about 1900, Fred Smith describes helping settle Rexburg.

"He describes how the first church meetings they ever held were held in his home," Smith said. "They held Sunday School in his home."