A week after retiring last summer from teaching nearly 20 years of print journalism at BYU in Provo, Utah, professor emeritus Alf Pratte started to tackle writing a history of BYU-Hawaii's first 50 years.
Two months later, Pratte and his wife, June, came back to Hawaii where they previously lived in Honolulu from 1964-81. "We feel like we're back home," said Pratte, who likes to say he's had four careers so far.
Armed with a B.A. degree in journalism from BYU and experience as a stringer for the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News, Pratte first came to Hawaii as a reporter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin for their first five years in the islands. By 1967 Pratte had completed his master's thesis through BYU on the history of the Star-Bulletin and had also started the Hawaii Record-Bulletin, a statewide LDS newspaper which continued for over 25 years.
His second career took Pratte to the State Capitol where he worked for the Senate minority. In this position he wrote speeches, raised funds, and helped establish state parks such as the one in Malaekahana.
While working at the Senate, Pratte earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Hawaii and later went to work for their Sea Grant College's Marine Advisory Program for all of the U.S. Pacific Islands.
But the rising cost of living eventually drove Pratte to accept a position at Shippensburg University near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he taught for three years until BYU recruited him away.
Pratte describes his experience back at BYU as "wonderful. I wanted to give the Lord the best. I taught news writing, reporting, editing, magazine writing, media and law, journalism and ethics, the literature of journalism, and international journalism. My specialty, however, was the history of the mass media."
He also authored the first chapter of a history textbook used in 120 universities across the United States.
BYU-Hawaii President Eric B. Shumway recently met Pratte at an opera at BYU and invited him to Laie after he retired. "I'm not here as a missionary. I'm here as a special assistant to the president because I have to travel," Pratte said.
He explained his new assignment allows him to continue his work with the Annenberg Press Commission ??? a select group of academics and professionals who "examine the ills and problems of the press" and come up with textbooks for schools.
"I'm the only guy from the western U.S. [on the Commission], plus I'm certainly the only Latter-day Saint," he said.
Pratte added he's already started to work on the written history of BYU-Hawaii, based on primary records, interviews with people who were here, and an extensive amount of historical data previously compiled by retired BYU-Hawaii history professor Ken Baldridge.
"Ken Baldridge has been working on this for over 20 years," Pratte said. "He has done unbelievably extensive work up until about 1986. That research has really been done. I don't think much better can be done on it, but unbelievable things have also happened since then. I will focus most of my energies in that period."
Pratte said he envisions the project will take about a year to get ready for publication, and will probably run over 500 pages.
"It's not just writing, it's editing," he continued. "For people who think this is unbelievably difficult, it is; but because the Mormons are such good record keepers, and we have such good archives, a lot of it is already here."
While Pratte is busy compiling and writing history, his wife, who is a former advisor at Utah Valley State College, is volunteering as a manager in the Honor Code office. One of their five children, Mitchell, attended BYU-Hawaii in the early 80s; and another son, Doran, married BYU-Hawaii graduate JoEll Allred. The young couple now lives in Orem, Utah, while Doran is working on his MBA degree.