Lauded as "a friend and advocate of Ricks College for 34 years," President Boyd K. Packer received an honorary degree from the two-year college Sept. 19 at a devotional assembly at which he was the featured speaker.

Ricks College Pres. Steven D. Bennion presented a framed diploma to President Packer, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve. President Packer is the third recipient of the honorary degree. Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve received an honorary degree from Ricks last year, and Elder Henry B. Eyring, then a counselor in the Presiding Bishopric and now of the Twelve, received one in 1992.President Packer was honored as "a gifted and inspired teacher who proclaims the word of God with clarity and power, and as an author and much-loved speaker."

More than 5,000 students, staff, faculty and friends attended the assembly in the Hart Auditorium on the Ricks College campus.

In his address, President Packer spoke of the history of Ricks College, noting that more than 100 years ago the Church established academies in communities settled by Latter-day Saints. At that time, an academy was a combination of elementary, secondary and even a bit of college, "all mixed up in one," he said.

He spoke of the organization of a Church Board of Education in 1888 to create an academy in the Bannock Stake in Idaho. Over the years, the name of the academy was changed as the original stake was divided and other stakes were organized. In 1902, the academy was named in honor of Thomas E. Ricks, who was called by the First Presidency to the Church Board of Education in 1888.

President Packer read a letter sent by the First Presidency in 1888 to the presidency of the Bannock Stake in Idaho, in which instructions were given to organize an academy. President Packer said the purpose of Church academies was explained in the letter, part of which read:

"We feel that the time has arrived when the proper education of our children should be taken in hand by us as a people. Religious training is practically excluded from our school. The perusal of books that we value as divine records is forbidden. . . . To permit this condition to exist among us would be criminal. The desire is universally expressed by all thinking people in the Church that we should have schools where the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the book of Doctrine and Covenants may be used for a part of the teaching of the schools."

President Packer said that today, instead of religious training and the use of scriptures being "practically excluded" from schools, they are "totally excluded."

President Packer lauded Ricks College, and told the students, "Do not ever discount the value of education in a small school. When things grow too big, they can lose coordination; they can become impersonal. It can be so with schools."

He said that while the Church's schools duplicate the secular curriculum students receive at other colleges and universities, they are able to give religious teaching and understanding.

He reminded the students that their opportunity to attend Ricks College comes at a great cost to the Church and its members who pay tithing. "We're investing in you, that you will understand what the school is for and that you will know the gospel," President Packer said. "The expectation is that you will learn and understand."

President Packer said that one of the things students should learn and understand is the scriptures. He said that from the scriptures they would also learn that there is "an unwritten order of things in the Church that has to do with how you live and how you feel and how you respond to inspiration."

To illustrate the precept of responding to inspiration, President Packer spoke of the flood caused when the Teton Dam broke on June 5, 1976. In that flood, 40,000 people - more than 90 percent of them LDS - were driven from their homes in Idaho's Upper Snake River Valley. Flood waters narrowly missed Ricks College.

President Packer spoke of having gone to Rexburg on June 13, 1976, with President Spencer W. Kimball, and of meeting with more than 8,000 members at special meetings in the Hart Auditorium at Ricks. He said that during one meeting, President Kimball said to him, "I cannot see one unhappy face in all of this audience."

President Packer said that although most of the people had lost just about all their material belongings, they seemed to have an understanding of what really is of value. "That's a lesson in the unwritten order of things," President Packer said.

He mentioned that when the warning came that the dam had broken, the people reacted quickly because they were spiritually sensitive. "Someone said something like, `I was very unsettled that morning, and was wondering what was wrong.' "

Disaster officials, he said, measured the time of day the dam broke, the population and other factors. "By their index, there could have been as many as 5,000 lives lost," President Packer said. "There were 11."

President Packer said that he was impressed that people, in the face of the disaster, made great efforts to save family records and genealogies.

He said that while students won't have the Teton flood to face, they will have other challenges. He counseled them to listen to the Spirit when those challenges come.