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Gordon B. Hinckley was a master of the moment.
Consider his first act as newly named president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Unlike his predecessor, who made his announcement from a wheelchair and then left immediately, Hinckley strolled into the March 12, 1995, landmark news conference on his own and stood for 30 minutes taking questions.
It was calculated symbolism meant to assure the Mormon faithful and the assembled journalists that Hinckley, then 84, born June 1910 was vigorous enough to lead the then-9 million-member church.
For the next 13 years, I observed many such moments as I followed the man Mormons consider a "prophet, seer and revelator" across the globe.
I heard him speak to throngs of Mormons at Madison Square Garden and at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and in Omaha, Neb., and Nauvoo, Ill. I followed him to Ghana, Zimbabwe and South Africa, and to temple dedications in Boston and Santiago, Chile.
Hinckley clearly enjoyed bantering with reporters. At the Nauvoo Temple dedication, I asked why the church would spend millions to rebuild an exact replica of the structure destroyed in the 19th century, yet have a standing Angel Moroni statue rather than a recumbent one as in the original temple.
"I like it better," he said without losing a beat.
He was the same genial presence whether meeting the president of Ghana, showing off heated seats in his new car to his family or shaking red pompoms to cheer the University of Utah's basketball team. As the years passed, he seemed to grow increasingly comfortable in the role, developing a unique, grandfatherly style of speaking and a habit of dropping spontaneous one-liners into the tightly scripted LDS General Conference.
At Hinckley's first news conference, I foolishly asked him if he planned to travel as much as President Howard Hunter had because I had been told he didn't enjoy life on the road.
"Oh, I expect I'll get out among our people," Hinckley said. "It's important for us to meet with the people and feel their pulse."
What an understatement.
Within a few years, Hinckley was the most traveled Mormon president ever, thanks, in part, to the use of Jon Huntsman Sr.'s jet. Yet, unlike LDS President Spencer W. Kimball, who also spent time abroad, Hinckley did not like to be touched or hugged by devotees. His handlers kept eager well-wishers mostly at arm's length. Instead, Hinckley expressed his affection for the people in organized "hankie-waves" from prophet to people or by throwing kisses to the crowd.
He knew excessive adulation was dangerous, yet he drew energy and strength from it.
At his seventh stop on a frenzied trip across Africa in February 1998, Hinckley seemed spent. He walked slowly to his seat under the blazing lights in a Cape Town auditorium, sat down and wiped his glasses.
But when he arose to speak, Hinckley suddenly came alive.
He gave his signature pep talk, light on doctrine and heavy on simple encouragement. It was the same talk I had heard on every stop of this trip, but he delivered it as if it just sprang from his mind. He told the people to smile and be happy, and spread the gospel in every land.
I saw that transforming power again in Chile.
In January 2006, doctors discovered a cancerous tumor in Hinckley's colon. Though he was not sick, people feared the chemo treatments or cancer would kill him. But the LDS Church had scheduled a rededication of its Santiago temple for March 12 with Hinckley presiding and speaking at a cultural celebration the night before.
So Hinckley climbed out of his bed and jumped on the plane.
When he stepped out of the car at the arena, the aged president looked weak and thin, and leaned on a cane. I had never seen him like this; I wondered if he would be able to speak.
But when he arose, a cheer went up in the stadium and an inner strength seemed to enter his system. He spoke for more than 15 minutes, recalling details and incidents from his past and noting current events.
Hinckley's skills as a communicator were sharpened the longer he served.
In his first months as prophet, he had no trouble answering general questions about the church's biggest challenges, which, he said, were "growth, growth and growth." But he bristled when asked about six Mormon intellectuals who were excommunicated or disfellowshipped from the church in September 1993. He repeatedly shrugged off those disciplinary actions as if they were aberrations and not a pattern in the church.
In September 1997, Hinckley scolded me like an exasperated parent when I asked him about the Mormon doctrine of Mother in Heaven, a co-deity with God, and why the LDS Church was downplaying rather than celebrating that feminist idea.
"Now, Peggy, you know I have already spoken about this," he said sternly during a question-and-answer session at the annual Religion Newswriters Convention in Albuquerque.
Most of the time, though, he deftly parried the most pointed questions, such as those involving Mormon teachings about salvation and the afterlife.
Though Hinckley had told me at a July 1996 news conference in Council Bluffs, Iowa, that he wouldn't give me a one-on-one interview for "seven years," he relented in February 1998 while on his African tour.
We sat on a couch in an ornate lobby of a Zimbabwe hotel and chatted about Mormonism in Africa.
I asked him whether it troubled him that many illiterate African Latter-day Saints could not read the faith's unique scripture, The Book of Mormon.
"They are converted by the faith of the missionaries," he said, adding that the church was working on a literacy program for members and was translating the temple ceremony into various tribal languages.
Though I was supposed to limit my questions to a discussion of the church in Africa, I couldn't help but ask a personal question.
"Do you ever wish you could step down from the prophet pedestal and just be a man?" I wondered.
Hinckley looked surprised at the question.
"I don't ever speculate about that," he said. "I am what I am not of my own choosing." pstack@sltrib.com" Target="_BLANK">pstack@sltrib.com