This biographical sketch adapted from the "News
of the Church: Elder Ned B. Roueché of the Seventy in the Ensign,
May 1998 on the occasion of Elder Roueché's Call to the Second Quorum
of the Seventy.
Growing up on a farm in Kaysville, Utah, taught young
Ned Roueché (pronounced Roo-SHAY), born on 5 August 1934, how to
work. His parents were less active during his childhood years, but one
night Ned, who enjoyed ballroom dancing, was
asked to help with a floor show at an MIA dance. “I went on a Tuesday
night and decided to go to church on Sunday. I began attending and never
quit,” he recalls. A year later his bishop called him on a mission at the
age of 21. “I knew it was the right thing to do,” he says.
After serving a mission in Mexico, Ned married JoAnn
Sheffield in the Salt Lake Temple in 1958 and studied engineering at the
University of Utah. After the birth of the third of their five children,
he interviewed with IBM and knew he wanted to join the
company. Following one more year of schooling at Weber State College
in electronics engineering, he began his 31-year career in field engineering
with IBM.
During those years he dedicated his hours out of
the office to his wife—whom he describes as being a support and inspiration—and
to his family, to the community, and to the Church. He served as bishop
of the Kaysville First Ward and then the Sixth Ward and later served nearly
10 years as a counselor in a stake presidency. He likes people and recalls
a conversation he had while fishing with a less-active friend, who said
to him, “Whatever you have, I want.” It proved a turning point in his friend’s
life. “I’ve enjoyed feeling directed as I’ve worked with people,” he says.
“And I’m happy that I’ve always been ready and willing to serve the Lord.”
Upon his release from the stake presidency, he worked
with Varsity Scouts for a four-year period, during which time he retired
from IBM. “It was good preparation,” he admits, for his calling to serve
as president of the Venezuela Barcelona Mission, where he served from 1994
to 1997.
Of his call to the Seventy, Elder Roueché
says, “My wife and I enjoy serving the Lord. I have gained a deep testimony
of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, the Lord’s living prophets,
and the Savior, our Redeemer, and His restored Church, which continually
blesses our lives.”
On October 1, 2005, a grateful Church, assembled in General Conference, extended an honorable release from the Second Quorum of the Seventy to Elder Ned B. Roueché, and with raised hands, gave him a vote of thanks for services long and honorably rendered.
