Spencer Woolley Kimball (March 28, 1895 – November 5, 1985) was the twelfth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving from 1973 until his death. A grandson of Heber C. Kimball, one of the original apostles called in 1835, Spencer was born in Salt Lake City, the sixth of eleven children. When he was three years old, his family moved to Thatcher, Arizona, where his father served as stake president. His mother died when he was eleven, and his childhood was marked by health challenges including typhoid fever and facial paralysis.
After serving a mission in the central United States, Kimball married Camilla Eyring in 1917 and worked in banking, insurance, and real estate. In 1943, at age 48, he was called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, where he served for thirty years with special assignments to Native American communities. His ministry was marked by remarkable resilience: throat cancer in 1957 required surgery that removed one vocal cord, leaving him with a distinctive soft, gravelly voice, and he underwent open-heart surgery in 1972 performed by future church president Russell M. Nelson.
Despite becoming church president at age 78, Kimball led with extraordinary energy, embodied in his mottos “Do It!” and “Lengthen Your Stride.” Under his leadership, missionary numbers more than doubled. Most significantly, in June 1978, he announced Official Declaration 2, extending priesthood ordination to all worthy male members regardless of race—a revelation he described as coming after prolonged prayer in the Salt Lake Temple. He also added two revelations to the scriptural canon, reorganized the First Quorum of the Seventy, and expanded the number of operating temples from fifteen to thirty-one.
Kimball’s leadership demonstrated that transformation remains possible regardless of age or physical limitation. His life exemplified the Latter-day Saint belief in eternal progression—the conviction that human beings are capable of infinite growth and eventual godhood through divine grace and persistent effort.