The Terrific Tricia Bishop

Tricia Bishop was born in Price Utah They didn't live their long, only for a couple of years until her dad graduated from the College of Eastern Utah. Then the family moved so he could attend SUU in Cedar City. Her dad then went onto to start his career as a high school and College coach. This was a huge part of Tricia's life. In fact, their whole lives revolved around the high school and teams her dad was coaching for.

Tricia's dad's career began in Dayton Idaho, just over the Utah border. He coached there for 5 years. They lived across the street from the school. Tricia attended Kindergarten and first grade here. The family had a laborator retriever named Lady. When school was out for the day, Tricia says she remembers her mother saying to the dog, « Lady, take Tricia over to dad. » Lady would walk Tricia across the street and stay with her on the football field until football practice was over for the day. She also remembers going to school with her dad and coloring while he taught classes. Their whole world was the team. Her mom even made her a cheerleading outfit and every game Tricia would ride the bus with her dad and the players to the games.

The next job her dad took was to coach at Bear River High School where he coached another 2 years. Tricia was in 3rd and 4th grade. While her dad was busy coaching, her mom was a dancer and set up a dancing studio in their unfinished basement both in Idaho and Tremonton and started teaching. She was Tricia's first dance teacher. From age two, Tricia always danced. As she grew she worked with other teachers. As a kid she remembers for fun putting on her mom's records and tapes and spending hours making up dances.

After that, Tricia's dad got a job at Skyview High as the head basketball coach. But they were only there for 3 months because in October her dad got a call from Bobby Knight (head basket ball coach at Indiana University) saying he wanted her dad to come work for him. So the family packed up and moved to Indiana. Her family lived there until Tricia's junior year in High School.

Living in Indiana was hard for Tricia. She says it was so hard to be around so many kids that didn't share her values. She says High School there was just like an 80's movie. The kids drank and partied and their was a party at whoever's house the parents weren't home for the weekend. In school she kept herself busy cheering, being on the basketball team and of course, dancing. Sports gave her something to do and a place to belong.

Outside of school she only had 1-2 friends and her best friend was Jewish. They lived in the same neighborhood and the families became close friends. They had to find activities to do that didn't involve drinking and partying so they went to the mall alot, the arcade and hung out at each other's homes. To this day she and her friend are still in touch.

She also said school in Indiana was much stricter and not very much fun. They couldn't have any absences. The only absences that could be excused were the doctors or a funeral and you had to have a doctors note. If you were absence, you had to do detention. Not only that but you couldn't make up any work you missed. When her dad took Tricia out of school to go to the Indiana University Championship game she had to make up 3 days of absences in detention. They also didn't have any dances or assemblies.

Her senior year of High School Tricia's dad was offered the head coaching job at Utah State University in Logan. Tricia said Logan ended up being her favorite place to live. She was so grateful to be in a school where she could do sports and have fun. She loved having so many kids around her with her same standards.

After she graduated from high school, Tricia attended her first year of college at USU and hated it. She lived at home and everyone she went to high school with basically were doing the same thing. Nothing changed, it was like glorified high school. So her second year she went down to Ephraim and attended Snow College. Tricia loved Snow College. She loved the smaller classes. She loved being out of the cold. She loved her roommates and she of course loved being on the dance company and drill team.

After graduating from Snow College, Tricia went on her mission to the Harrisburg Pennsylvania mission. She loved her mission. She says the thing she gained to most on her mission was tolerance. She says she also gained a rock solid testimony of the gospel and came to know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the real deal.

Tricia says they had to bear their testimony a lot in Pennsylvania. Especially in the city of Lebanon. It was a city just outside of State College Pennsylvania. At that time an ex-communicated member of the church had come out with the anti-mormon movie and was touring college towns preaching hard his anti-mormon propaganda. During this time Tricia says they had no investigators, no member referral. All they were doing everyday was knocking on doors and since they were forbidden by their mission president to engage in bashing, they were left with bearing their testimonies. They would bear their testimonies to the people they met and walk away.

After her mission, Tricia attended SUU and continued with her major in Theater and Dance with a minor in history. Her dad was sure she wouldn't make any money with that degree so Tricia tried some biology classes but just hated them. In fact, everything else she tried didn't work out. She knew she wanted to teach so she could be home with her kids when they went to school. She continued with her major.

During her last year she went into a sporting good store in Cedar City. A football player on the College team, named Ryan Bishop, was working there. They met and she stayed in the store talking to him for about 45 minutes. He asked for her phone number and as Tricia left the store she thought,  « I don't have to date anymore. » Which she thought was funny because she always made fun of people who claimed to fall in love at first site.

They started dating and found their backgrounds were mirrors of each other. His dad was the football coach at SUU. They finished their Senior years and got married in Logan. Ryan's dad wasn't active in the church and his mom had never gone through the temple so she asked Ryan and Tricia to wait to marry in the temple until she could be there. They went ahead and had a beautiful civil marriage.

They both got jobs up North. Ryan coaching at Bear River High and she teaching theater and started the dance program at Mountain Crest. They lived in Logan and added 2 sons to their family, KJ and Reggie. From their they moved to Farmington when Ryan was hired as the head football coach at Davis High and Tricia was hired on at Kaysville Junior High. Here they added their youngest son, Bode to their family.

When Bode was about a year old, their bishop came to visit them. He wanted to know why they had never married in the temple. He said they paid tithing and held temple recommends so he wanted to know what the hold up was. They explained they were waiting for family members to be there with them. He told them he felt it was time. Ryan then called his mom up and told her they were going to be sealed. She had always hoped Ryan's dad would get active but she could see he wasn't so she got herself ready and went through the temple. It was a beautiful day with their 3 sons kneeling around the alter and Tricia says it was worth the wait to be able to have some of Ryan's family there with them. »

Tricia said if she were giving her younger self advice it would be to follow your passions. Don't let others talk you out of what you want to do. » Advice she'd give to others is, « Let your kids be who they are. Each kids is very different. Sometimes we have preconceived ideas of who they should be or that they should be like another child. But life is much better when we embrace who they are and enjoy each of them as individuals for what they have to offer. Let them beat to their own drum. »

Tricia is very accepting of others and easy to talk to. She brings great experience to our ward and we are lucky to have her. I hope you all get the chance to get to know her.