Brigham Young University

the early twentieth century, stake academies had largely been discontinued as public schools became more established in the western United States. Ricks Academy survived as it had added a year of college work to its curriculum and in 1917 was granted state certification, which allowed graduates to teach in the state of Idaho. At that point, it was known as Ricks Normal College with George S. Romney as its first president. In 1923, it was renamed Ricks College and functioned as a two-year junior college. It would serve as a junior college for most of the remainder of the twentieth century, except for a brief period from 1948 to 1956 when it operated as a four-year institution.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the LDS Church began to close, or hand over, its academies to state governments because of better established public education and economic strains on the church. Ricks College was offered as a gift from the church to the state of Idaho at the 1931 legislative session, but was rejected. Bills handing over Ricks College …