Welcome home from President Hinckley
E-mail story
It's easy. Send a link to the story you were just reading to a friend. Just fill out the form on this page and we'll send it along.
Your name and e-mail address are transmitted to the recipient. Otherwise, it is considered private information; see Privacy policy.
President Gordon B. Hinckley was among those who welcomed home members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir after their concert tour to the northeastern United States June 24-July 11. He wasn't among the crowds of loved ones at the Salt Lake International Airport awaiting the singers' arrival Saturday, July 12, but he did make a special trip to the Tabernacle Sunday morning to greet the choir.
"I just wanted to come over this morning and say 'Thank you' for the tremendous job you have done," he told them. "What a marvelous trip this has been: how far you have gone, thousands upon thousands you have entertained, the vast good which you have done for the Church and the care with which you have conducted yourselves — not a cross word, no argument, nothing of the kind — almost three weeks of continuous travel under adverse circumstances. . . ."
President Hinckley expressed love and appreciation to the choir, and said, "We so much honor and respect you. We want to say 'Thank you' to you and thanks to the Lord for preserving you and watching over you and protecting you and bringing you home safely. . . . The blessings of heaven have attended you, and we are so grateful to you and to the Lord for this great and significant tour."
He congratulated the choir on its 75 years of broadcasting. "There is nothing else like it in all the world," he said. "Seventy-five years is a long time. I know. I have been here all that time, and I heard that first broadcast which was publicized with one microphone and my friend, Ted Kimball, sitting up on that ladder [to speak into the microphone] through the entire broadcast.
"What a wonderful, wonderful thing has happened during these three-quarters of a century. You have won the plaudits of the world."
