BYU mentors strengthen the student experience in countless ways.
Last summer I walked the canal path along the wooded south edge of the BYU campus toward the botany pond. It’s a path I’ve taken many times during my lunch hour. But this time my meandering had a specific destination: a retirement celebration for Richard I. Fifita (’84), the BYU grounds foreman who had worked with students to construct the very path I was walking.
At the celebration I found more than 100 current and former students and their families, some of whom had traveled from out of state. As they expressed gratitude to Fifita and shared stories about his influence on their lives, it felt like a family reunion.
Fifita, they said, had taught them to take pride in hard work and to have fun while doing it. For Fifita, working for BYU grounds meant being called to make the world more beautiful for Heavenly Father’s children—a sense of purpose he instilled in his student employees.
Fifita took an interest in the lives of his crew members, asking about their schooling, dating, family, and spirituality. When a student needed to talk, he was a reliable sounding board, and he’d encourage his students to take their problems to the temple. Former student employees said they learned to love temple worship because Fifita loved temple worship.
Along with what he taught them about working grounds, Fifita also modeled being a supportive spouse and a diligent father to his 13 children. He’d invite his students to holiday meals at his home, and Aloha Friday barbecues were a crew tradition. From invitations like these to splitting his sandwich with a hungry student employee, former employees shared story after story of Fifita filling their bellies and hearts, of him teaching practical skills and eternal principles.
For them, Richard Fifita was much more than a grounds foreman.
Listening to these tributes caused me to reflect on my own BYU story. It was student employment supervisors at Heritage Halls who took an interest in me. They first offered me a custodial job and then promoted me to be a supervisor, which led to other opportunities. One job required me to develop presentation skills; in another, I learned to use software I would need in my first job after graduation. They saw potential in me that I did not notice myself.
Beyond the work, they cheered on my academic successes and encouraged me in my preparation to serve a mission. After I graduated and worked out of state for a time, one of those mentors, Tracy L. Kelly (BS ’77), encouraged me to apply for a full-time position. Her nudge for me to return to BYU changed the course of my life.
Like Fifita and his students, my supervisors saw me as more than a person who could do a job. We were brothers and sisters—children of God who had potential and value.
It takes a campus community—from faculty to administrators to, yes, work supervisors—to mentor students and foster the “bright stars” President Spencer W. Kimball envisioned more than 50 years ago.1 The Richard Fifitas and Tracy Kellys of campus today humbly recognize, influence, and mentor the divine potential of each bright star in our BYU community and strengthen the BYU experience to help us work toward becoming BYU—a Christ-centered, prophetically directed university of prophecy.2
Julie Franklin is the BYU vice president of student life.
Notes
1. See Spencer W. Kimball, “Education for Eternity,” pre-school address to BYU faculty and staff, Sept. 12, 1967.
2. See C. Shane Reese, “Becoming BYU: An Inaugural Response,” address at his inauguration as BYU president, Sept. 19, 2023.
