Richard O. Cowan

Richard O. Cowan (born 1934) is one of the longest serving members of the Brigham Young University faculty and the longest serving member of the Church History Department ever. He has been on the faculty of BYU since 1961. He is also legally blind. He has had retinitis pigmentosa since birth and about 2000 his vision crashed to the point where he could see next to nothing.

Cowan was raised in Los Angeles. He did his undergraduate education at Occidental College. He served a mission for the LDS Church in the Spanish-American mission, among the Mexican immigrants in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona. He received a Ph.D. in American History from Stanford University in 1961.

Cowan has since that time been a professor of Church History and Doctrine at BYU. Cowan received BYU's professor of the year award in 1965. He has taught at the BYU Jerusalem Center and in the spring of 2007 was a visiting professor at BYU-Hawaii.

From 1981-1993 Cowan served as the chair of the committee in charge of preparing gospel doctrine lessons for the LDS Church. Among his books are "Temples to Dot the Earth" (1997), "California Saints, A 150-year Legacy in the Golden State"; "The Church in the Twentieth Century" (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1985); "The Latter-day Saint Century" which covered about the same topic but was written 15 years latter. He also co-wrote a book about the international church with Donald Q. Cannon. Cowan, along with Cannon and Arnold K. Garr was one of the editors of the "Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History". He wrote the article on the history of the Church from 1945 until 1990 (or basically as recent as he could at the time) for "The Encyclopedia of Mormonism". He also wrote the articles for History of Temples, Missionary Training Centers, Branch, and Brach President.

Cowan is married to the former Dawn Houghton who he first met when they were both serving in the Spanish-American mission. They have six children.

Sources

* [http://religion.byu.edu/sing_fac.php?f=Richard%20O.&l=Cowan BYU College of Religion Bio]
* http://magazine.byu.edu/?act=view&a=1507
* http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/137744.Richard_O_Cowan
* http://deseretbook.com/authors/author-info?author_id=8159
* http://deseretbook.com/authors/author-interview?author_id=8159&interview_id=48