By Mary Ellen Robertson I’ve been involved with Sunstone in one capacity or another for 22 years—essentially all of my adult life. During those two-plus decades, I went from being an attendee to being a presenter to being a board member and finally to being on the Sunstone staff as Executive Director and Director of …
Category: 175
My Sunstone Experience
Whenever anyone hears that I was once involved with the Sunstone Foundation, they usually ask one or both of these questions: “What did you do for Sunstone?” and “What did Sunstone do for (or to) you?” One question that I have often asked myself is, “What impact has Sunstone had on the Church, its leaders, …
Sunstone and Me
By J. Frederick (Toby) Pingree Forty years ago in 1974 I was a new transplant to the San Francisco Bay Area, working in Orinda, California and living in nearby Walnut Creek. I was a partner in a small accounting firm whose senior partner was in the presidency of the Oakland Stake. One day, I overheard …
Thinking Is a Social Act
By Elbert Eugene Peck Being immersed with Sunstone as the magazine editor and symposium chief for fifteen years was damn fun. I wasn’t the creator of content, just a networker of people and a facilitator of ideas—but being a lazy intellectual, I enjoyed the job. Sunstone fed my broad intellectual cravings for history, critical thinking, …
The Accidental Reporter
By Hugo Olaiz Becoming the news editor for Sunstone was a felicitous accident. Like many other BYU students, I had first discovered the magazine on the shelves of the Harold B. Lee Library, but it wasn’t until I moved away from Utah that I began to read it seriously. In the 1990s, Mormons in the …
Memories and Reflections
By Scott Kenney I WAS RAISED in a faithful LDS home on Salt Lake City’s east side—a sixth generation Mormon on both sides, including Utah pioneer and polygamist ancestors. My father’s folks were farmers and cattle ranchers living in and around Cedar City, so I had little contact with them. But I did know they …
Gotta Jett!
Sunstone has been an incubator for a number of great artists including Brad Teare, Kent Christensen, Christopher Thornock, Calvin Grondahl, Galen Dara, and Pat Bagley. And it was Pat who sent us the artist that has probably affected the look of the magazine most during the past decade: Eisner award-nominated Jett Atwood. As legend has …
The Eyes of Lorac
By Stephen Carter The first day I walked into the Sunstone office as the incoming editor, Carol Quist met me at the door singing a song akin to “Hail the Conquering Hero.” She marched me through the various rooms: through publisher William Stanford’s office, around the symposium planning room where Mary Ellen Robertson, the newly …
Just the Fiction, Ma’am
At first sight, Lisa Torcasso Downing does not appear to have magical powers. She cooks for her family, drives a minivan, and serves on her community’s theater board. However, put a piece of fiction in front of her and you will understand her true calling. Everyone has an opinion about fiction, a few have an …
We Were All Volunteers
By Dennis Clark I don’t know what Peggy Fletcher (Stack) paid herself as the editor of SunStone,1 but it wasn’t enough. That Peggy was single no doubt helped her be more involved in the magazine than I ever was. I wanted to be more involved, but I was married, with five kids, and had left …