Myron was an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving in a number of callings throughout his lifetime. He was a branch president in Ottawa, Canada, served as ward financial clerk under six bishops over eighteen years, then was a bishop of a student ward at BYU and branch president at the MTC. He and Vivian were social service missionaries for eighteen months in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada during 2003-2004, serving the First Nation members in that area. Upon their return, Myron became a worker at the Provo Temple, where he continued serving for over twenty years. Over the past few years he had been working on an extensive study of the names and roles of Christ as found in the scriptures, and published his work shortly before his death. He has also compiled and published family histories of the Best and Croft families, as well as a biography of Vivian and his own autobiography. Throughout these publications he stressed his deep faith and testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and how the hand of a provident God has blessed him and his family, and provided guidance and small miracles during his years of church service and throughout his lifetime.

Myron’s professional career was as a research and academic geologist, teaching first at the University of Ottawa starting in 1961 and then moving to Brigham Young University where he taught from 1965 until his retirement in 1998. He wrote a geology textbook titled Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology published in 1982 with a second edition in 2003; this project included the drawing by hand of hundreds of maps, diagrams, and illustrations of microscopic sections of minerals. In the classroom he taught classes from introductory geology to advanced studies, and for decades conducted summer fieldwork, assisted by graduate students, in mapping the geology of the Nevada/Utah desert, developing maps for the US Geological Survey; dozens of USGS maps are published with his name listed as author, with dozens of papers published in academic journals reporting on researches around the source and extent of volcanic tufts found in the area. A major finding from these years of fieldwork was the discovery of the Indian Peak caldera, a 30 million year old super volcano thirty miles in diameter. In 1997, a year before retirement and recognizing his years of teaching and research, the BYU Geology Department instituted the “Myron G. Best Teaching Award” in his honor.

Outside of his work and church service, Myron enjoyed building. He always had a construction project going on, whether supervising the construction of the LDS chapel in Ottawa, building the interior of a van for a family vacation in 1974, the extensive addition to the house on Arapahoe Lane in 1983 to 1984, and building a family cabin east of Heber starting in 1988 and continuing in two phases over nearly twenty years.

In retirement Myron and Vivian enjoyed traveling, going on several trips and cruises including Alaska, the Mediterranean, Europe, Mexico, and a last cruise to see the Panama Canal. After Vivian’s death and the sale of the Arapahoe Lane house Myron has lived at Jamestown Senior Living Center in Provo.

Myron was predeceased by a daughter, Karen, who died in 1971, and by his wife, Vivian, who died in 2020, both from cancer, and two grandchildren who died at birth. He is survived by his children Jenny Jensen, of Saratoga Springs; Karl Best, of Bath, Maine; Teresa Fugate, of Sandy; Katrina Hughes, of Alpine; Richard Best, of Mapleton; Laura Miller, of Salt Lake City; and Tyler Best, of Annandale, Virginia. He is also survived by 27 grandchildren, 54 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.

Funeral services will be held on March 21 at 2:00 p.m. with viewings March 20 from 6:30-8:00 p.m. and March 21 from 1:00-1:45 p.m. at Nelson Family Mortuary in Provo.