BYU-Idaho’s newest podcast is called “The Roots of the Mighty Oaks.” It’s a podcast designed to help listeners learn more about the history of BYU-Idaho and the people behind the names of the buildings on campus.
The first episode is about Jacob Spori, who was the first principal of Bannock Stake Academy, which eventually became BYU-Idaho.
The host of the podcast, Eden Rowe, says she was surprised to learn that when Spori joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he had to leave his family because of persecution in his home country of Switzerland.
“So, because of that, he had to leave his family,” Rowe said. “His family secretly supported him, but they didn’t support him out loud, I guess, because they didn’t want segregation to come for them as well, which I thought was really interesting. But eventually they all joined the Church, and they all left Switzerland together.”
There are three episodes available. The first is about Spori, with the other two about Thomas E. Ricks and Brigham Young. Rowe says she plans to have 15 episodes for the limited podcast. Future episodes will share the stories of Eliza R. Snow, John Taylor, Gordon B. Hinckley and more.
The name of the podcast is inspired by a prophecy attributed to Jacob Spori: "The seeds we are planting today will grow and become mighty oaks, and their branches will run all over the earth."
The idea for the podcast came from a class Rowe was taking where she had to create a podcast episode. She was working as a campus tour guide trainer for Brett Crandall, who was also teaching the class. She thought it would be good to teach the tour guides more about the buildings on campus.
“And so that kind of inspired this assignment for a podcast, and he really liked it, and he was like, ‘Let’s actually make this happen in real life.’ So, I became a podcaster without even trying, which is kind of funny,” Rowe said.
Rowe believes it’s important to learn more about the people behind the names of the buildings at BYU-Idaho.
“One of the coolest things I’ve learned is God is actually in the details of everyone’s life,” Rowe said. “None of these stories are easy, like the stuff they went through it makes me feel like, ‘Oh, life is hard, it’s supposed to be hard.’ And it was really hard for them, but as they relied on God and Christ and the Church, they were able to find joy in their hardships. And so that’s just inspiring for us as well to apply that into our lives.”
You can find episodes of The Roots of the Mighty Oaks podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube. New episodes come out each Friday.