75 Years of Transforming Lives
Joe Peterson (third from left) in front of childhood home.
history at the College of Eastern Utah from 1958 to 1968. Chas Peterson later taught at USU in Logan from 1971 to 1986. Brad’s brother, Mike, went on to become interim-president of CEU from 2008 to 2010, handing the reigns over to Peterson just prior to USU’s official merger with CEU in July of that year.
of his life, despite his own early impatience with school. Out of sheer boredom in class stretching all the way back to grade school, he began drawing. That eventually led him to oil painting and recognition in the form of trophies and ribbons by the time he got to high school. In time, he shifted from an oil medium to clay.
degree in English from Brigham Becky, was born in Price where her father, the son of Young University in 1982. a Greek immigrant, was a His transition from the liberal coal miner, but she spent her arts into administration began childhood in Monticello. She when he was at Dixie College, was attracted to not only his where he became dean of arts boyish good looks, but to his and sciences and later interim intellect and work ethic. academic vice president. “They go hand in hand,” she said. “He is a life-long learner.” During that period, he began work on his doctorate that He keeps up on the Spanish eventually led to a Ph.D. in he learned as a Mormon higher education leadership missionary by reading books in and policy studies from the Spanish every night. “He looks University of Nevada Las Vegas. Later, he became vice up every word he does not know,” Becky said. “He loves president for instruction at Salt Lake Community College. to learn.” By then, his return to Price was almost fait accompli.
She said another quality that attracted her to him was his tenacity.
He was born in Monticello in “If Joe starts a project you a bare-boned clinic that today know it will be finished,” she serves as the pro shop at the said. “And when he starts on Monticello golf course. He something, he focuses comarrived on this Earth just down pletely on it; he never stops Both boys grew up in the the road from Blanding, the midway and he never lets go. His love of ceramics workings of the academy. other USU Eastern campus He’s a great project guy.” continues to this day as attestover which he now presides. ed by the hundreds of pottery Peterson’s role models cont. next page On the contrary, his wife, included his father, whom he items that occupy his home and office and the homes and saw transform from a dairy rancher into a history teacher. offices of friends and family. Others included his uncle, Levi Peterson, a gifted writer who While everybody expected him taught English for several de- to become an artist or an art cades at Weber State College; teacher, he said he fancied himself more a writer and his father’s older brother, began penning fiction while in Leon, who taught English in Thatcher, Ariz; and his father’s college in the tradition of his uncle. Once again he displayed father, Joseph Peterson, his great promise that included the namesake, who was a longpublication of several of his time school administrator in stories in “Sunstone” magazine rural Arizona. and in Utah-based journals, Yes, the patterns of academia such as “Dialogue.” He eventuJoe Peterson today, in front of childhood home. are plainly seen in the ceramics ally went on to earn a master’s
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