1980
LDS Scene
October 1980


“LDS Scene,” Ensign, Oct. 1980, 80

LDS Scene

“The Gift,” a BYU motion picture of a son’s Christmas gift to his father, has won two awards in international competition. The awards were the Grand Prize at the Childfilm Festival of the Canadian Association for Young Children and the Golden Eagle Award of the Council on International Nontheatrical Events. The Golden Eagle award means that “The Gift,” will officially represent the United States in international film festivals.

Two other BYU motion pictures have also won top awards at national film festivals. “The Trophy Case,” a movie dealing with father-son relationships, won the coveted Gold Camera Award at the U.S. International Industrial Film Festival. “The Emmett Smith Story,” portraying an Arizona teacher-coach who inspired high performance by his students, received the Family Life Film Award in its category at the 10th annual festival sponsored by the National Council on Family Relations. The Smith film also won first place in the business, career, and guidance category at the National Educational Film Festival in Oakland, California.

Three BYU students are recuperating from injuries suffered August 2 when a bomb exploded in a Bologna, Italy, train station. The explosion killed some eighty people and injured 200 others. Two were brothers on a Semester Abroad program—Jeff, 19, and Bill, 22, sons of Drs. Garold and Norma Davis, both BYU professors. The third student, Peter Bergstrom, 22, had been traveling with his mother, Gerd Bergstrom; both are from Sweden.

The twelve full-time elders and sister missionaries in Bologna were assigned to help clean up and assist the injured until after the mass funeral on August 5.

A new intercultural communications major at Brigham Young University will combine courses in anthropology, communications, and linguistics. The interdisciplinary major is aimed at preparing students to function effectively within a variety of cultures. The program is designed to help multi-national corporations, government agencies, service agencies, military services, and the Church deal with multiple cultures.

Five General Authorities and 2,600 LDS scouts participated in the Florida Deseret Encampment, August 5–11. Drawing Scouts from 29 stakes in 9 southern states, the event was held on the Church’s Deseret Ranches of Florida property near Melbourne. Featured Church leaders were President Ezra Taft Benson of the Quorum of the Twelve; Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin of the First Quorum of the Seventy; and the presidency of the Young Men—Elders Robert L. Backman, Vaughn J. Featherstone, and Rex D. Pinegar, each of whom is also a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy.

Vernice Pere has won first place for her poetry entry in the South Pacific Festival of Arts in Papua, New Guinea. The festival, held every four years, is open to artists of Polynesian, Micronesian, or Melanesian heritage; competition is conducted in the areas of cultural dance, music, drama, art, and writing. Sister Pere, a researcher and writer for the Polynesian Cultural Center, won the prize for her poem, “Walking on Water.” Born in New Zealand of Maori, English, and French descent, she is a member of the Ngati-Toa Tribe of the Tainui Canoe. She and her husband, Baden Pere, are the parents of seven children.