D. Arthur Haycock, secretary to five presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, former temple and mission president and former secretary-treasurer of the Deseret News Publishing Co., died early Friday, Feb. 25, 1994, at LDS Hospital after complications from heart surgery.
Mr. Haycock, 77, Bountiful, was born in Farmington and educated in Idaho and Utah public schools. He graduated from South High School in 1933 and attended LDS Business College and the University of Utah.In the late 1930s he began work in the church's financial department during the administration of President Heber J. Grant. Since that time few, if any, have had a closer association with church presidents than has Mr. Haycock.
He was personal secretary to Presidents George Albert Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, Spencer W. Kimball and Ezra Taft Benson and crisscrossed the globe with them many times. Mr. Haycock was interviewed last year by author Heidi S. Swinton for the book "In the Company of Prophets," which relates some of his experiences with church presidents. During David O. McKay's administration as church president, Mr. Haycock served as assistant secretary to the First Presidency and as secretary to the Council of the Twelve.
He also was an administrative assistant from December 1952 to June 1954 to President Benson when he was U.S. secretary of agriculture.
Mr. Haycock was then called as president of the Hawaii Mission, serving until August 1958. On two other occasions he responded to church calls in Hawaii, the first as a missionary from 1935 to 1937 and the second as president of the Hawaii Temple beginning in 1986. His wife, Maurine, was called as temple matron.
He was also secretary to the Church Missionary Committee.
Mr. Haycock was elected secretary of the Deseret News Publishing Co. in November 1958 and was named treasurer in December of that same year. His service to the Deseret News spanned nearly 28 years. He retired May 31, 1986.
He was a member of the bishopric of the 14th Ward, Salt Lake Stake; clerk of the Pioneer Stake; first bishop of Riverview Ward, Pioneer Stake; member of the Riverside and Rose Park stake high councils; a regional representative; and patriarch in the Bountiful Utah Orchard Stake.
At the time of his death he was a sealer in the Salt Lake Temple and high priests group instructor in the Orchard 7th Ward, Bountiful Utah Orchard Stake.
He had been a member of the Salt Lake City Planning Board and chairman, president and director of First Security Bank of Bountiful.
Mr. Haycock's survivors include his widow of Bountiful; daughters: Marilyn Morrison, Bountiful; Judith Ann Buchanan (Mrs. Carl W. Buchanan), Farmington; Lynnette Dowdle (Mrs. Don R. Dowdle), Orem; Cheryl McEuen (Mrs. Bryce McEuen), Orem; 16 grandchildren; one great-granddaugher; a brother, Gordon Haycock, Salt Lake City; and two sisters, Mamie Peterson, Salt Lake City, and Donna Simons, Bountiful.
Funeral will be noon Tuesday, March 1, in the Orchard 7th Ward, 3599 S. Orchard Drive, Bountiful. Friends may call Monday, Feb. 28, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at Russon Brothers Mortuary, 295 N. Main, Bountiful, and from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Tuesday at the chapel. Burial will be in the Bountiful City Cemetery.