Thirty-two years ago, Frank W. Budd went to Provo for the first time. He left Utah "for good" within a year.

He's back now, serving as president of Utah's fastest-growing state college, Salt Lake Community College.But the in-between years tell the story of how a Brigham Young University football scholarship awarded to a young, non-member athlete changed the lives of many.

In his native Redlands, Calif., Budd's high school football career attracted the attention of college athletic recruiters. He got several offers, including one from BYU.

"One of my football coaches was a non-member who played BYU football. He liked it. He basically talked me into it," Budd recalled recently, sitting in his wood-paneled college office in suburban Salt Lake City.

BYU recruiters brought Budd and his parents to the Provo campus for a visit. The elder Budds thought it was a good environment for their son. "But none of us really knew anything about the LDS Church," Budd says.

"Of course, the first question I was asked when I got to BYU was: `Are you a member of the Church?' What church? I'd say. I didn't like that. But the Lord kept after me, even though I didn't accept it at first," Budd recalled.

College didn't go well for the 17-year-old freshman. "I didn't like it. I flunked out of BYU. I didn't go to class."

Budd is quick to point out that he's realized, in the intervening years, that his early collegiate problems were his own, not BYU's.

"People treated me well while I was there. But I'd come from a family which is very close, and I was so homesick. I wasn't ready to leave home, so I mixed Mormons, Utah and BYU all together and didn't care for them very well," he recalled.

"I left Utah thinking I'd never come back again," he added.

He went to a California community college close to home, raised his grades and matured. In the spring of '62, he returned to BYU, hoping to earn another slot on the football team.

"I wanted to go back and prove that I could be successful there," he explained. Again, when the semester ended, he returned home. He decided that he would finish college at home, at the University of Redlands.

But he kept thinking about Mormonism. "It started to haunt me. It was about the only thing that I'd ever heard in religion that just made sense to me," he related.

He spent the summer working at his uncle's fast-food restaurant.

Among the summer employees were a half dozen Redlands students who were attending BYU, including Budd's future wife, Judith (Judy) Ann Huff.

She was reared in the Church, and her mother, Pearl Alexander, a native of Oakley, Idaho, had attended East High School in Salt Lake City. Although Budd and Judy Huff lived only a few blocks from each other in Redlands and had attended the same high school, they didn't know each other.

"The Lord was pretty persistent with me. He kept putting me in circumstances where I was exposed to the Church. No sooner had I left BYU than I met Judy and came in contact with it again," he said.

The BYU group invited Budd to accompany them to Church. He went. He kept going, even after the other students returned to BYU in the fall.

Judy never pressured him to attend Church. "I was just happy that he and his cousin went with us practically every Sunday," she said.

One day, after months of Church attendance, Budd walked up to a couple of missionaries in the ward building and said, "`Would you guys like to baptize me?' They went gulp, gulp, and replied, `Maybe we ought to give you the lessons first.' I said I'd had the lessons a half dozen times, but they said, `We'll give you the lessons anyway.' "

He never finished that set of discussions. Midway through them, the missionaries challenged him to be baptized.

"If you guys remember, I'm the one who introduced myself to you.

I made the suggestion a long time ago," Budd replied.

Three years after he first went to BYU, Budd was baptized. Looking back, he realizes that he never really argued against the gospel during the time preceding his baptism.

"Once I really heard the message of the gospel, I don't think I seriously considered that it wasn't true. But I wasn't ready for a while to accept it, to make the commitment," he said.

When Judy returned from BYU that Christmas, the couple became engaged. They were married two years later on June 13, 1964.

In the meantime, Budd's two sisters, Patricia and Marilyn, both joined the Church and attended BYU. They also married members. Marilyn Huber and her family now live in Provo. Patricia McCloud and her family still reside in California.

Budd's parents, Joe and Virginia Budd, never joined the Church, although they're supportive of their children's and grandchildren's activity. They're also great BYU rooters.

Sister Budd reported that her mother-in-law, although she isn't LDS herself, actually brought one family into the gospel and is now working on a neighbor.

Budd originally planned to be a high school coach and biology teacher, but employment during college at the Redlands Police Department interested him in law enforcement.

He started his career as a patrol officer. His first jobs interfered with his Church commitment, however, when that commitment began to grow. Shift work and a view of life's seamier side aren't particularly conducive to Church activity, he noted.

The Budds weren't always heavily involved in Church activity. They attended Church occasionally in Oceanside, Calif., but didn't have callings.

That changed when their bishop called them to ask if they wanted to be sealed in the temple. They did, but they didn't know how to go about it.

"I still held the Aaronic Priesthood. It seemed like there were so many things that you had to do to be perfect enough to go to the temple. You can be baptized and you still don't know very much about working your way through the Church and priesthood," he said.

The Budds became involved in project temple. "That probably turned everything around. It set us on a track," he said. They were sealed in the Los Angeles Temple on June 4, 1966.

An interest in sociology as a police officer lead Budd back to BYU, where he earned his master's degree.

This time when he graduated in 1969, Budd wanted to stay in Utah, but he couldn't find an appropriate teaching position. Jobs took the Budd family to Michigan, Arizona and back to California before returning to Utah this year.

Those years have been filled with numerous Church callings for Frank and Judy Budd.

He has been a high councilor in the San Bernardino California East State, first and second counselor in the Redlands (Calif.) 1st Ward bishopric, elders quorum president, Sunday School president, Young Men president, and teachers and priests quorums adviser and instructor, and secretary to the Aaronic Priesthood.

Sister Budd has served in the ward presidencies of the Primary, Relief Society and Young Women as well as other Church positions.

Shortly after they moved in January into the Taylorsville (Utah) 30th Ward, located near the college campus, Budd was called as Young Men president and Sister Budd as Laurel adviser.

One of their sons, Matthew, is serving in the Kentucky Louisville Mission. Another son, Mark, who served in the New York Rochester Mission from 1985-87, is married and living in California.

Their third son, John, who is living with Sister Budd's mother in California while finishing high school, will be a four-year seminary graduate this spring.

The fourth Budd child, Michael, 12, a deacon, is working toward his Eagle Scout award, an honor already achieved by his three older brothers.

Budd's nephew, Joey McCloud, was a missionary in the Florida Ft. Lauderdale Mission and there will undoubtedly be more Budd sons and cousins to serve on missions.

Budd views these years of Church activity and service of his family, particularly in missionary work by his sons and nephew, as one "tremendous ripple effect" from BYU giving a football scholarship to an immature, 17-year-old non-member.

"If I look back at how my life would have been if I had not gone to BYU, I don't know where I'd be. But certainly none of the rest of my life would have gone the way it has," Budd said.