Provo native, Dallin H. Oaks now serves as first counselor in the First Presidency
First Counselor Dallin H. Oaks left, speaks during the press conference as President Russell M. Nelson and Second Counselor Henry B. Eyring listen in the lobby of the LDS Church Office Building on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018, in Salt Lake City.
On Jan. 14, 2018 Elder Dallin H. Oaks was called by newly set apart President Russell M. Nelson, to be his first counselor in The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His 84-year legacy starts in Provo. Courtesy photo
Elder Dallin H. Oaks and wife Kristen McMain Oaks have served throughout the world in his calling as an apostle of the Lord. Now, Oaks has been called to The First Presidency as first councelor to President Russell M. Nelson. Courtesy photo
Elder Dallin H. Oaks, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and his wife, sister Kristen Oaks, exit the Provo City Center Temple during its dedication ceremony on Sunday, March 20, 2016 in Provo. SPENSER HEAPS, Daily Herald
Elder Dallin H. Oaks waves to the children during a cultural celebration at LaVell Edwards Stadium to coincide with Temple dedication on Saturday, June 6, 2015. Despite the rain delay, thousands attended the event. SAMMY JO HESTER, The Daily Herald
Elder Dallin H. Oaks speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new LDS temple in Payson on Saturday, Oct. 8, 2011. SPENSER HEAPS/Daily Herald
Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles speaks at a news conference on religious freedom and nondiscrimination, January 27, 2015.© 2015 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.
Talk to old-timers in Provo and if they went to Provo High School, they most likely would know Stella Oaks. She was a favorite amongst the students and staff at the school.
However, it’s Stella’s oldest son, Dallin, who catches people’s attention in the area now. Stella’s boy, President Dallin H. Oaks is an apostle and was set apart Jan. 14 as the first counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Based on seniority, he is next in line to be president of the church.
Early life
Dallin Oaks was born Aug. 12, 1932, to Lloyd and Stella Harris Oaks. He was named after Cyrus E. Dallin, a Utah artist and the one who suggested the Angel Moroni be atop the Salt Lake City Temple. The artist was not LDS, but was well-known in the Springville and Utah County communities.
Lloyd Oaks was a doctor and when Dallin was just 10 years old, Lloyd contracted tuberculosis from a patient and died. Stella Oaks was left a young widow with three small children to raise. Dallin Oaks was the oldest, with younger brother Merrill and sister Evelyn.
Merrill Oaks is a retired ophthalmologist and emeritus General Authority Seventy. He practiced ophthalmology in Provo and was president of the medical staff at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center for a time. Evelyn is married to Dr. Lyman Moody and lives in Provo.
According to his biography from the LDS Church, Dallin Oaks said, “I was blessed with an extraordinary mother. She surely was one of the many noble women who have lived in the latter days.”
Before her death in 1980, Stella Oaks was known as a force for good in Provo, in both church and civic service.
“She gave me a great deal of responsibility and freedom. She encouraged me to have a job,” Dallin Oaks explains. From the time he first worked for pay, “at 11 or 12,” he has been continuously employed.
“His first job was sweeping out a radio repair shop,” according to his biography on LDS.org. “He had to learn to test the tubes he found on the floor, to find out if some were still good, and that led to an interest in radio. He threw himself into study with characteristic intensity.”
Before he was 16, he had obtained a first-class radiotelephone operator’s license, which allowed him to operate a commercial radio station’s transmitter, and he found a job in radio. Station managers liked to hire a “combination man” — a transmitter engineer who could double as an announcer — “but my voice hadn’t changed,” he recalls, laughing. Before long, however, that change took care of itself, and he was working regularly as an announcer and an engineer.
Family life
Dallin Oaks’ biography notes that his motto over the years, which he used with his own family is, “Work first, play later.” His family, though, said they are tempted to change it to: “Work first, play never.”
Dallin Oaks says he is good-natured about it. He said what it means is that he rarely does something only to have fun, but rather that, “I just have fun at [whatever] I do.”
He served in the National Guard Army Artillery during the Korean War, which prevented him from serving a full-time mission for the church.
It was while he was announcing high school basketball games as a college freshman that he met his first wife, June Dixon. They were married on June 24, 1952. They had six children.
June Oaks died of cancer July 21, 1998. In his biography he notes, “I did not know why I received a ‘no’ answer to my prayers for the recovery of my wife of many years, but the Lord gave me a witness that this was His will, and He gave me the strength to accept it.”
On Aug. 25, 2000, Dallin Oaks married Kristen M. McMain in the Salt Lake Temple. Prior to their marriage, Kristen Oaks obtained a doctorate degree from Brigham Young University, in addition to her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She also served a full-time mission in the Japan Sendai Mission, according to church information.
Education and professional life
Dallin Oaks earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Brigham Young University in 1954. He continued on to receive a law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1957.
He practiced and taught law in Chicago. He was president of Brigham Young University from 1971 to 1980, and a justice of the Utah Supreme Court from 1980 until his resignation in 1984.
“I can’t think of anything in public life I’d rather do than be an appellate judge,” he said in his biography.
He resigned to accept his calling to the apostleship in May of 1984, after only four years in the appellate court judgeship. Oaks is one of few who have been called to the apostleship without extensive service as a member of the Quorum of the Seventy or other high church callings.
He speaks out on controversial issues, such as young single adults taking time to date, threats to religious liberty and pornography.