Scott H. Faulring papers, 1735-2006

Scott H. Faulring was born in New York in the Niagra Region. He joined the United States Air Force (USAF) in the 1970s and served for many years. He was stationed in the Middle East twice, once in Turkey and once in Saudi Arabia, where he managed air bases during the First Gulf War. But his favorite hobby and later profession began when he met a member of the LDS Church in the service. Faulring later joined the LDS Church himself. He soon became interested in the history of the LDS movement and during his time in the Air Force he took early Church documents from microfilm and typed them into computer files. One of these projects, a typescript of Joseph Smith's journals, appeared in 1989. Over a period of time he worked closer with Brigham Young University (BYU) and became a professor of Aerospace Studies as part of BYU's Reserve Officer Training Corps (BYUROTC). Faulring retired from the Air Force in 1995 and began employment with the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) and assisted in many projects. One of the more significant projects that Faulring was involved in was the scanning of the Joseph Smith Bible Translation Manuscript. He worked closely with the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (RLDS, now known as Community of Christ) to allow FARMS to assist in scanning the manuscript. Another theme in LDS history that Faulring did a large amount of work on were witnesses of the Book of Mormon. Research on the papers of Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, Martin Harris, and other witnesses consumed much of Faulring's attention. In 1999, Faulring was hired as a research historian for BYU's Joseph Fielding Smith Institute. While there, he helped work on the beginning phases of the Joseph Smith Papers Project.