Ensign

Helping to establish a new magazine for the Church is an exciting, awesome, and humbling challenge. (Please see “The Church and Its Magazines,” p. 12.)

As we searched the Church for a man to fit into the all-important role of associate editor for this publication, our attention kept returning to and focusing on Elder M. Dallas Burnett, associate professor of communications at Brigham Young University. We found him to be eminently well trained and qualified in the communications field. We found him to be a man with deep faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, of complete loyalty and devotion to the Church and the gospel. We found him to be a person of insight, sensitivity, and good judgment.

Elder Burnett joined the BYU faculty in 1958, where he has taught reporting and editing, communications law, international communications, public opinion and propaganda, magazine journalism, research, and mass communications. He received his master of science in journalism and his Ph.D. from Northwestern University.

He has worked on several newspaper staffs and for the United Press as a reporter, has served as a magazine, advertising, and public relations consultant, has been managing editor of the BYU Alumnus magazine, and was a valued contributor to the Improvement Era and other publications.

Throughout his life he has been active in the Church, including service as a missionary to Great Britain, auxiliary teaching positions, ward and stake clerk, and elders quorum president. Presently he is Sunday School superintendent in the Orem 29th Ward, Sharon West Stake.

He is married to Patricia MacArthur, and they are the parents of four children.

Doyle L. Green, Editor