As a child of the late 1990s, I attended a Scholastic book fair. Among the throng of books displayed was the Animorphs series. Too young to read, I sat in my school library and stared at their covers. Each one showed the phases of a human teenager turning into an animal. The “middle morph” always stayed with me, the stage where the teen looked caught, unfinished, half human and half something else.
Those images come back to me from time to time. From starting college, getting married, having children, and beginning a career, I have felt how uncomfortable those in-between stages can be. Every new beginning brought some stretching, followed eventually by the relief of discovering who I was becoming.
I am preparing for another change now, another middle morph, and it feels fitting that BYU-Idaho is also looking back on its own transformation from a two-year junior college to a four-year university. That shift had its own unfinished stage, a time when the campus was caught between forms and still learning what it would eventually become. The story of that morph is best understood through the memories of LaNae Poulter and Betty Oldham. During the transition, Betty served as President David A. Bednar’s executive assistant, and LaNae worked as a University Communications project manager. Together, they show how faith and courage carried a developing university forward.
"Now is the Time"
When I asked Betty when the transition really began, she didn’t hesitate: “The same day.”
In a Monday morning President’s Council meeting, the agenda was already set; the discussion routine. As the meeting progressed, President Bednar told the council about a short phone call last Friday from President Gordon B. Hinckley, who had said, “David, I think now is the time for Ricks College to become a four-year institution.”
Betty observed the responses of each of the vice presidents around a conference table. These men were pillars of Ricks College, with roots that reached deep into its history and cherished traditions. There was no pushback. No hesitation. Only one shared question: “How can we help?”
“That’s one of the reasons BYU-Idaho could exist,” Betty said. “I believe that was the day that the transition started, when those vice presidents said, ‘Okay, if that’s what the prophet wants, let’s make it happen.’” Those leaders decided to trust the Lord’s design even before they could see what the final shape would be.
That afternoon, Salt Lake called again. The public announcement would happen the next morning. They had one night to prepare. Teams worked late into the night writing scripts, setting up communications, and ensuring that, by morning, every student and employee would know where to gather.
Near midnight, Betty crossed paths with President Bednar in the hallway.
"Does any of this scare you?" she asked.
He responded, "If I thought I had to do this alone, I'd be scared to death. But I know who's in charge."
Even in the middle morph, confidence came from remembering Who shaped the change.
Faith in the Unfinished
The next morning, as President Hinckley made the historic announcement, the Hart Gym erupted in cheers before he could finish the sentence. Listening from the executive office, Betty smiled, then winced. “We don’t have a thing to offer you by way of four-year degrees,” she thought. “We don’t have anything.”
Yet, the students stayed. They stood together in that phase between Ricks and BYU-Idaho, cheering for what they could not yet see.
Betty encouraged her son, a student at Ricks, to transfer to another college for his bachelor’s degree, but he looked at her and said, “Mom, I’m supposed to be here.”
In every transformation, there’s a moment when the old form dissolves, and the new one has yet to take shape. Yet the students at Ricks College didn’t run from that uncertainty; they chose to live inside it. Their faith became a bridge that carried the institution from what it had been to what it was becoming.
“Those students recognized the gift that was being given to them,” Betty said. “Without them, BYU-Idaho couldn’t exist. The miracles couldn’t happen without the faith of those students.”
"Faith Precedes the Miracle"
Miracles did not arrive with bows; they showed up in brown paper sacks. Whether it was a well-timed phone call, a question that reframed a problem, or a nudge to act that withstood doubt, miracles came in unexpected and simple ways that pushed the transition forward. “Faith precedes the miracle” was not just a motto. For everyone at Ricks College, it was a method.
President Bednar sought feedback as the institution united its efforts on all sides. He widened his circle with new councils and forums that met weekly to make decisions together. Betty recorded minutes, distilling hours of discussion into key points to move forward. Sometimes she went home unable to write, overwhelmed by what she’d witnessed. A quiet impression told her, “This isn’t your story to tell.” The story belonged to the Lord, unfolding one small, obedient step at a time.
On the academic side, faculty began their own middle morph. More than a hundred associate programs were reimagined into a lean set of four-year degrees. Courses changed names mid-catalog. Requirements shifted constantly. It was chaotic and uncertain, but they kept moving. Like the students, the faculty learned to live in the in-between, trusting that the Lord would reveal the path as they walked.
A Blueprint for Becoming
While Betty assisted and chronicled the administrative core of the transition, LaNae oversaw the campus identity to replace anything labeled “Ricks College” with “BYUIdaho.” Hundreds of rebranding projects, from car decals and campus signage to business cards and the alumni magazine, all underwent transition.
Later, LaNae studied the transition from its outer edges. During her doctoral research, she met with the board’s secretary, Roger Christensen, who drew a cube that explained the process. To better serve students, every side of the cube had to shift: faculty, budget, space, degree programs, and support services. Each face represented part of the whole. As one side moved, the others had to adjust.
It was a perfect symbol for the morph itself: every part changing shape to create something stronger, more complete.
Through that cube, the miracles multiplied: one-year faculty hires to experiment with curriculum, seven major construction projects racing ahead, and even the development of the BYU-Idaho Center, where President Hinckley urged President Kim B. Clark, “Build it bigger, build it faster.” As Betty reflected, it felt like President Hinckley was saying, “You’re not quite catching the vision of what’s coming.”
At one point, President Bednar wondered aloud, “What will this campus look like when it serves 35,000 students?” LaNae remembers thinking, “That will never happen.” But faith’s quiet reply was, “watch.”
Within five years, nearly every program was accredited. Even the accreditors, trained to question and measure, said, “To have this happen is nothing short of a miracle. We have never seen it before.” On paper, it was an achievement; in memory, it was evidence of divine design shaping human effort.
Becoming What the Lord Sees
Near the end of our conversation, LaNae described a visit to campus in 2007 from Elder Richard G. Scott, the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees. Employees speculated what the visit might mean, but Elder Scott had one purpose. He said, “On behalf of the officers of the Board of Education of the Church, which is of course the First Presidency, the Board members themselves, and the Executive Committee … my only reason to be here is to express thanks to you.”[1]
His message of gratitude recognized what faith and devotion had built: a university still taking shape, still transforming, but already radiating the Spirit of its purpose. He reviewed the physical facilities, the new curriculum, the student programs, and the culture of consecrated effort that had carried the institution through its most uncertain years. “The success isn’t one person’s contribution,” he said in essence. “It is an integration of all.”
BYU-Idaho’s mission is to develop disciples of Jesus Christ who are leaders in their homes, the Church, and their communities. That mission is itself a kind of morph: an invitation to become something more, to move forward in faith even when the final form is still unseen.
The story of Ricks to BYU-Idaho is a reminder that every divine transformation looks messy in the middle. Whether you’re a student, an employee, or simply a soul between callings, there will always be that middle frame, caught between what was and what’s next.
But that’s where the miracle happens. That’s where the Lord shapes what we cannot yet imagine.
So when you find yourself in your own middle morph, do what they did. Step forward into the uncertainty with faith. Then with open hands, ask: “How can I help?”