Royce S. Bringhurst Papers
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Royce S. Bringhurst was born on December 27, 1918, in Bennion, Utah. There he lived and worked on the family farm while attending high school at Granite High. After graduating from high school in 1937, he enrolled at Utah State Agricultural College for two years before serving a two-and-a-half-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Spanish-American Mission, beginning in 1939.
Royce was released from his mission in 1942 and soon after joined the United States Army Air Corps for combat service in World War II.
Before Royce deployed for active duty, he married his high school sweetheart, Pearl Davidson, on May 14, 1942. Royce served in Corsica, Italy, where he flew sixty-five combat missions in a B-25 bomber. Upon his return from the war, Royce completed his bachelor’s degree in agronomy at Utah State Agricultural College. Then he pursued a master’s degree and PhD in agronomy and genetics from the University of Wisconsin.
Royce’s most significant position after graduate school was on the faculty of the University of California, Davis. There he worked to develop several new species of strawberries and played an active and leading role in the world’s community of strawberry growers and producers. Royce officially retired in 1990, and he and his wife, Pearl, later served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Chile from 1992 to 1994. After developing Parkinson’s disease later in life, Royce passed away in his California home on November 26, 2005.
This digital history collection of selected items reflects a portion of the archival holdings of the Royce S. Bringhurst papers (MSS 515) housed in USU’s Special Collections & Archives. To see a complete inventory of this collection, access the finding aid. Visit USU’s Special Collections & Archives, located in the Merrill-Cazier Library, to view the items in the physical collection.
Topics: Agriculture Military Service and History Religions World War II