Tuesday, January 29, 2013

OSA helped Mark Hart leave his mark on the world

http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/17577/Academy-era-short-lived-but-impact-long-lasting.html

The above link will take you to an article printed by the Church News in 1988 in which an 84-year-old Mark Hart recalls his time in class at the Oneida Stake Academy. He attended the academy at the same time Harold B. Lee and Ezra Taft Benson did, prior to the outbreak of World War I.

Like many of his fellow alumni, Mark Hart left an impact on the world. He gained notoriety for his work in education and politics.He taught seminary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Preston, Idaho, and English and instrumental music for 21 years in the public school system in Utah, Idaho and Washington. He served two terms as the superintendent of Public Instruction for Franklin County Schools and two terms in the Idaho State Legislature: once representing Franklin County and once representing Bear Lake, Caribou and Franklin Counties.

Hart was a prolific writer, contributing to state an  national magazines as well as local periodicals. His writing covered a wide variety of genres, from "Apples of Gold," which was a book of poetry to "Aerospace Word Power" a book written for NASA.

The second printing of his book, "Apple Blossom Daze" in 1985 states that he was best know for his "New Diacritic Word Power Testers and Builders, which perhaps are America's first and only systematic approach to programmed vocabulary building." At the time, over 1.5 million of those books were sold throughout America and several countries around the world. 

His entitled his autobiography "Marcus 'The Great'". Four of his books can be found at the Preston Citizen  store and in the Larsen-Sant Library, in Preston,

Hart took his marching bands to the Portland Rose Festival parade and the Pasadena Tournament of Roses parade, where they won many awards and honors.

Hart died in 1994. He was again living in Preston at the time.