Oscar W. McConkie
Oscar W. McConkie served as a Utah State Senator from 1923 to 1925 and 1965. He was also a State Representative in 1955.
He served as a judge in San Juan County in Utah from 1919 to 1922. He studied law at the University of Michigan and afterward was Utah’s Third District Court Judge from 1928 to 1940. In 1940, he unsuccessfully ran for governor of Utah. He was also a Salt Lake City commissioner for a time.
McConkie was born on May 9, 1887, in Buena Vista, Utah, situated near Moab. Because of his father’s plural marriages, the family moved to Mexico. After his father’s death in December 1890, the family returned to Utah, settling in Mona. When he was ten years old, the family moved to Moab where he graduated from high school. He then attended the University of Utah.
He and his wife, Margaret Vivian Redd, were the parents of one daughter and five sons, including Bruce R. McConkie and Oscar W. McConkie Jr.
He was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served in various callings including bishop, Sunday School general board member, and California mission president from 1946 to 1950.
He was also the author of The Holy Ghost: A Study of the Holy Ghost, According to the Standard Works of the Church and A Dialogue at Golgotha: An Analysis of Judaism and Christianity, and of the Laws, Government and Institutions of the Jews, and the Jewish and Roman Trials of Jesus of Nazareth.
McConkie died on April 9, 1966.
