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By Jerry
Johnston
Desert News
staff writer
The first
thing you notice about Norma Nichols is she doesn't wear a CTR ring.
And that's a little like Coco Chanel not wearing perfume.
In 1970,
Nichols chaired the committee that invented the ring. They needed some
kind of "badge of belief" for both boys and girls.
"Back then boys didn't wear necklaces and earrings," Nichols
says slyly, "so a ring seemed like a good idea." It turned
out to be a legendary idea.
Today, at
age 90, Norma Nichols has vivid memories of her time on the LDS
Primary General Board. She served from 1956 to 1970 - an era that, in
hindsight, was the "Golden Age" of Primary.
Nichols was
in the room when Naomi Randall was assigned to come up with words for
a children's song to be sung at General Conference (she came up with
"I Am a Child of God").
Nichols was
there to brainstorm new names for classes (Merry hands, Firelights),
to redesign the bandelo and to serve popcorn to Australian kids who'd
sung "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree" but had never
tasted popcorn. It was a heady time. Clara McMaster and Mildred Pettit
were writing some of the most memorable melodies in Mormon history,
penny drives fueled the Primary Children's Hospital and kids waited
for the mailman just to get the latest "Children's Friend."
"They
were great years," Nichols says. "I was writing assignments
all the time."
Amid that
grand flurry of creative ideas, however, no one imagined a little ring
with the letters CTR would become the emblem of LDS youth. "I
remember we thought about dropping the word 'the' out and having just
a CR ring - Choose Right," Nichols says today. "I went home
that night to think about it. That's when the inspiration came that
the word 'the' was the most important word of all. Choosing right
could mean many things, but choosing the right meant there was only
one way. We kept the 'T' in CTR." Surprisingly, the phrase Choose
the Right appears nowhere in scripture. The Bible says "choose
the day" and "choose the way." It says "choose
life" and even "choose death," but "choosing the
right" never comes up. The expression does appear in an 1864 talk
by Brigham Young: "God rules and reigns and has made all his
children as free as himself to choose the right or the wrong,"
but it wouldn't be until Joseph Townsend used the expression 14 times
in his famous LDS hymn that the words took root in the culture.
Choose the
Right would become the CTR class in Primary. And the CTR class is what
spawned the ring seen 'round the world.
Coy Miles
was contracted to come up with a design for it. Joel Izatt did the
artwork.
Nichols and
her committee thought a shield would be nice, to "shield"
children from temptation. And a green background was chosen to
represent the evergreen tree - a tree that stays constant from season
to season. And the price had to be right. After some debate, the
committee settled on 35 cents.
Looking
back at those years today from her cozy Copperton home, Norma Nichols
wouldn't change a thing.
Well, maybe
just one thing.
"Because
I was the chair of the committee, people always focus on me when it
comes to the CTR ring," she says. "I wish the other members
of the committee would get some recognition."
No sooner
said than done. Thank you Virginia Cannon, Vauna Jacobsen, Ruth
Clinger, Virginia Bryner, Jean Hughes and Helen Evans. And thank you
Norma Nichols, for choosing the right and letting us know about them
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"Choose
you this day
whom ye will
serve
but for me
and my
house we will
serve the Lord "
