Richard Gordon Scott (November 7, 1928 – September 22, 2015) was an American scientist and religious leader who served as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Scott was born in Idaho in 1928 and grew up in Washington, D.C. He attended George Washington University as an undergraduate, graduating in 1950 with a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering. He then served a full-time LDS mission in Uruguay from 1950 to 1953, achieving fluency in Spanish. Upon his return in 1953, Scott married Jeanene Watkins, his college girlfriend and the daughter of U.S. Senator Arthur Watkins, and began working as a nuclear engineer for Naval Reactors under the leadership of Admiral Hyman Rickover. Scott worked for the U.S. government until 1965, when the LDS Church selected him to serve as a mission president in Argentina. He completed his service in 1968 and returned to Washington, D.C., where he worked for a private nuclear engineering consulting firm. Scott's scientific career ended in 1977 when the LDS Church called him to serve as a general authority. Following the death of Marion G. Romney in 1988, Scott was chosen to fill the subsequent vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and served in that position until his death in 2015. Background and education Scott was born in Pocatello, Idaho, to Kenneth Leroy Scott and Mary Eliza Whittle. When he was five years old, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where his father worked in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. His father was not a member of the LDS Church at the time, and his mother was marginally active, until the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture in the Eisenhower administration, church apostle Ezra Taft Benson, named Kenneth Scott as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. Benson's influence led to his father's conversion and the reactivation of his mother. In 1988, as church president, Benson appointed Richard as a church apostle. Encouraged by his bishop and home teachers, Scott had attended church sporadically at times during his youth but felt out of place. He lacked confidence socially and athletically at school, although he excelled academically, was a class president, played the clarinet in the band, and was a drum major in the marching band. During his high school summers, Scott worked various jobs to earn money for college. Working on an oyster boat off the