FARMINGTON — Elder Robert B. Harbertson, a former LDS leader known for his story about a snake tricking a young boy and for making a tournament-winning buzzer beater for Utah State at Madison Square Garden in 1952, died Tuesday after a battle with cancer.
He was at 82.
Elder Harbertson was part of a historic group called to a five-year term in the First Quorum of the Seventy in April 1984. Previously, all members of the Seventy served lifetime terms. During his tenure, the church created a Second Quorum of the Seventy, to which he was transferred and from which he was released in October 1989.
His memorable story of a boy and a rattlesnake, told during a satellite broadcast of a priesthood commemoration at Temple Square in Salt Lake City in May 1989, was retold by church President Gordon B. Hinckley during a general conference address in 2000.
The Indian legend was of a boy who met a rattlesnake atop a freezing mountain. The snake begged the boy to take it to the warm valley, promising not to bite him. The boy eventually relented.
Once down off the mountain, the poisonous snake struck the boy, who cried out in protest.
"You knew what I was when you picked me up,” the snake said.
Elder Harbertson's son Scott Harbertson said people still tell him that warning not to be lured into danger resonates with them 25 years later.
The shot made by "little Bob Harbertson" — he was 5-foot-10 — to defeat unbeaten Manhattan in the final of the December 1952 Holiday Festival is also still remembered by some people 62 years later.
The New York Times published a story under the headline "Harbertson's shot nips Jaspers, 59-57" about his running 30-foot shot "three seconds before the final buzzer." The AP called Utah State the "dark horse" of the eight-team tournament and described the shot as a "drama-packed one-hander" by "the iron-nerved Harbertson."
Harbertson told the story of the shot in an article titled "The Eye of Faith" in the church magazine Ensign in September 1988.
Elder Harbertson served as president of the California Fresno Mission from 1975-78. He made it a habit to hug each missionary and tell them he loved them after personal interviews.
During his service as a Seventy, he spent time as a managing director of the Missionary Department, a managing director of the Correlation Department and as second counselor in the Young Men general presidency.
In 1991, he was called as the director of the Temple Square Visitors Center.
Elder Harbertson and his wife Norma Creer had five children, 21 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren. She died in 1999 after 45 years of marriage.
He later married Rene Rhead and she served alongside him when he was president of the Winter Quarters Nebraska Temple from 2004-07.
Elder Harbertson spent two years in the U.S. Army, worked as a sales engineer and ultimately served as president of a family owned business, THB, Inc.
His son, Robert C. Harbertson, is serving as the president of the Peru Cusco Mission.
His son Scott Harbertson and grandson Casey Harbertson were the subjects of a major feature in the Mormon Times earlier this month. Casey struggled with his Mormon faith, but returned to it in large part because his father Scott never gave up on him.
Scott Harbertson said Friday that he learned that lesson from his own father, Elder Harbertson.
"My dad thought I was the most non-committal, nonchalant kid he could ever raise," Scott Harbertson said. "But my dad never gave up on me."
One day when Scott told Elder Harbertson he didn't want to work in the yard, the father told the son to spend the afternoon daydreaming in his room of all the situations that could cause him trouble and how he would get out of them.
"Literally hundreds of times those circumstances came up in my life and I had already made the decision of what I would do," Scott Harbertson said. "I had every one of those temptations in front of me at some point and I never succumbed because of the teachings of my dad. I'm eternally thankful to him for that opportunity."
Email: twalch@deseretnews.com