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By Kent Larsen
Former GA Merlin R. Lybbert Dead at 75
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- Merlin Rex Lybbert, a former member of the second
Quorum of the Seventy and former President of the Cardston Alberta Temple
from 1994 to 1997, died Friday in Salt Lake City after a brief illness. A
long-time Salt Lake City lawyer, Lybbert was a native of Canada. He was 75.
Elder Lybbert was born January 31, 1926 in Cardston to C. Lester and Delvina
Reed Lybbert. As a young man, Lybbert served in the Royal Canadian Air Force
during World War II, and then served an LDS mission to the Eastern States
Mission following the war, spending 16 months of his service as mission
secretary to the mission president, Roy W. Doxey. Following his mission, he
waited for his sweetheart, Nora Cahoon, to finish nursing school, and they
were married in the Alberta Temple May 26, 1949.
Elder Lybbert and his wife then moved to Utah, where he attended and
graduated from the University of Utah law school, graduating with a Juris
Doctor in 1955 and then practicing as a lawyer in Salt Lake City for 35
years. For many of those years, Elder Lybbert represented the University of
Utah Hospital. He was also very active in the legal profession, serving as
chairman of the Advisory Committeee to the Supreme Court of Utah on the
Rules of Professional Practice. He was also elected to the American College
of Trial Lawyers and was named Utah Trial Lawyer of the Year in 1981-82.
His church service was extensive. Elder Lybbert served as a bishop and later
as a stake president before he was called as a Regional Representative in
1986. In 1989 he was made a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, and
while in that quorum he served as President of the Asia Area and of the
North America Northwest Area. He was released from the Second Quorum in
1994, and called as President of the Cardston Alberta Temple, serving there
until 1997.
Sources:
Merlin Rex Lybbert
Salt Lake Tribune 8Jul01 P2
Former LDS Leader Lybbert Dies Due to Illness at Age 75
Salt Lake Tribune 8Jul01 P2
Elder Merlin R. Lybbert dies at 75
Deseret News 8Jul01 P2
Merlin R. (Rex) Lybbert
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