Weber State College Comment, April 1989, Page 5 “Weber College was a wonderful experience for us” he all-wood home that nestles at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains, scrub oak and pine as a back- drop, has angled roof and walls that gives the 35 year-old edifice character. “A character did it,” quipped Keith Wilcox, who designed his home. The silver-haired, quick smiling Wilcox, along-time architect, and his redheaded bride of 44 years, Viva May, visited Weber State recently and stood between three buildings he helped create. “Weber College was a wonderful experience for us,” Mr. Wilcox said. “We have many happy memories here.” Wilcox helped as an engineer in the construction of Buildings 1-4, but he was the directing architect for the Shepherd Union Building, the Collett Art Building and the Browning Center for the Performing Arts. Both Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox are graduates of Weber State, he in 1941 and she in 1942. They were extremely active in the college, which was then located in downtown Ogden in the Moench Building. And their activity did not stop with graduation. She was instrumental in forming the early alumni board at the college, and the two recently created a Wilcox designed Mountain View Elementary in Ogden, Mt. Ogden Junior High, Bonneville High, T. H. Bell Junior High, North Park Elementary, Roy High, McKay-Dee Hospital, Weber Normal Hospital, the Ogden Federal Building, three buildings at Weber State and others. Keith Wilcox designed his own home to attract attention to his new private architectural business. After three decades of designing a host of buildings, including three at WSC, his wife noted that the tactic worked. $50,000 scholarship endowment. “We are pleased to make this gift to the college during its centennial year,” they said in a letter to the college. Viva May, who was born in Colonial Juarez, in Chihuahaa, Mexico on May 5 — that country’s Independence Day — was president of LaDianaeda, the sophomore Orchid Queen, a member of the Associated Women’s Affairs Council, on the International Club Council, in Whip Club—a precursor to modern drill teams—and active in a number of other functions. Her father had taught school in Mexico until he contracted tuberculosis and had to return to the United States. He landed a teaching job at Ogden High, but his continued ill health forced him to enter the hospital. Her mother, Maggie F. Gammell began teaching piano to support the family. “She was a private piano teacher and judged piano competitions,” Mrs. Wilcox said. Mrs. Gammell also taught music at the college until a year ago when, at 89 years of age, she died. “She taught on Saturday and died on Sunday,” Mrs. Wilcox said. Wilcox was president of the Phoenix Club, and developed an active interest in debate, band, theater — and in Viva May Gammell. “She was the most popular girl on campus. Every time I called her for a date she was busy. But I persevered,” he said. Wilcox moved to Ogden from Provo when his father got a job as wire chief for Western Union. He attended Ogden High as the first student of that newly completed school and developed a great interest in art and engineering. He was the first student to register for art courses taught by Farrell Collett, and the instructor took a liking to his new pupil. “He used to pick me up to go sketching. I had a great admiration for him,” Wilcox said. After high school he enrolled in Weber State. He found, however, that the college had no art department. The LDS Temple in Washington, D.C. is probably one of the most famous of Wilcox's architectural designs. Keith and Viva May Wilcox in front of the Browning Center, which he designed. “We put together a petition of kids who wanted to take art. I carried the message and met with Pres. (H. Aldous) Dixon. Dixon took our petition to the legislature, got the extra funds for the department and hired Farrell Collett as the first instructor. We rejoiced,” he said. Wilcox had a love of engineering, as well as of art, but he forsook his engineering studies to take commercial art. “But somehow it got boring, and I went back to engineering.” Pres. Dixon met Wilcox soon after he had transferred back to engineering and suggested he study architecture. “(Pres. Dixon) could call every student on campus by their full name. He took such a personal interest in and concern for people,” Mrs. Wilcox said. “Milt Meacham, Lorenzo Peterson, Dr. O. M. Clark, Thatcher Allred, Clarisse Hall, Merlon Stevenson — all of these had a great influence,” he said. “They changed our lives,” she added. Mr. Wilcox graduated from Weber College and was enrolled at the University of Utah in engineering when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. “I wanted to be a naval officer, but I had hay fever so they threw me out. I returned to the University of Utah and graduated in mechanical engineering. Then when I went back to try to get into the Navy, hay fever was no problem. I got right in. The navy needed engineers,” he said. But the delay in his enlistment made a significant difference, he said. “So many friends of mine who enlisted when I first tried were killed or missing in action. All kinds of sad things happened,” he said. “At least one or two pictures of those young men were in the paper each night,” Mrs. Wilcox noted. “People have long since forgotten them. But I’ve not forgotten. They were my friends,” he added. The two were married near the end of the war, and after his release from the military Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox came to Ogden. He went to work as an engineer for Pres. Dixon’s brother-in-law, who was a Provo architect, and was involved in early plans for the new Weber State campus on Harrison Blvd. “At first people wanted to put a single high-rise on the property, but Pres. Dixon said, Let’s make the buildings smaller and stretch them out to give a campus feel,’” he said. Wilcox enjoyed his engineering work, but his love of art persisted. He tried his hand at a cartoon strip, “Slim Pickins,” which was published in the Deseret News and Provo Herald, but it was still not enough. He eventually decided architecture was the perfect blend of his love of art and engineering, so he quit his job, moved to Oregon, and in one year earned a masters degree in that field from the University of Oregon. “We were just back from Oregon. One night while writing letters the thought of this house just came to me and I drew it. In two weeks I had the working papers completed,” he said. “He wanted people to notice him because he was just starting business,” Mrs. Wilcox. The tactic worked. “People came from all over to see our home,” she said. He was invited to design an elementary school, and the school board liked what they saw. Wilcox became architect of -Mountain View Elementary in Ogden, then did Mt. Ogden Junior High, Bonneville High, T. H. Bell Junior High, North Park Elementary, Roy High, McKay-Dee Hospital, Weber Normal Hospital, the Ogden Federal Building, and others. His work on the three WSC buildings allowed him the opportunity to renew friendships with former faculty and administrators, he said. The Austad Auditorium was designed through a painstaking process to produce the best acoustics possible, he said, and musical artists from around the world have praised its sound. “He enjoyed working at the college. They were grateful people,” Mrs. Wilcox said. The Wilcox’s are active in the LDS Church and Mr. Wilcox is currently a member of the First Quorum of Seventy, one of the church’s governing bodies. The two served as mission presidents, and as president and matron of the Ogden LDS Temple, and both have had many other ecclesiastical responsibilities. Wilcox has acted as an architectural advisor for both the Ogden and Provo LDS Temples, but is probably best known as the principal design architect for the Washington, D.C. temple. He also designed the Mission Training Center in Provo for the LDS Church. But despite the large number of buildings raised by the architect, the couple said their most significant “raising” was their six daughters. And most of that raising happened within the walls of their allwood home with angled roof and walls. “All my wife wanted was a nice brick home, but she married an engineer who fell in love with materials,” Wilcox said. \_4 Bc vnmaieeeie Architect, wife have foundation at WSC