Introducing a New Heartlanders Prospective
Dr. Kevin Price grew up in the small town of Green River, Utah (watermelon country). He served as a missionary for two years in the California, Anaheim mission under the leadership of Elder Rex C. Reeves. He attended Rick’s College (now BYU-Idaho), then transferred to BYU in Provo where he met his wife, Melinda and was married in the Salt Lake Temple. He has two daughters; Kaylie is director of marketing for a company in Wisconsin and Julia is in her last semester at BYU in the School of Business. Kevin severed in his Kansas ward as the High Priest’s Group Leader, Gospel Doctrine Instructor and Secretary to the Young Men’s program. He now serves as the Emergency Preparedness Coordinator.
He did his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at BYU in Rangeland Ecology and Ph.D. at the University of Utah in Geography specializing in biogeography (plant ecology), remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) (or computerized mapping and analysis). He was a professor for 3 years at Utah State University, 19 years at the University of Kansas and 6 years at Kansas State University. He has conducted research throughout the world and has been the Keynote or Invited speaker on drone applications in agriculture and natural resource management throughout the world at over 100 conferences. He served as a scientific advisor to NASA, NOAA and a former US Secretary of State.
Kevin is currently the Chief Emerging Technologies Officer for Air Data Solutions with offices throughout the US. He analyzes drone and airplane acquired imagery including natural color, color infrared, thermal and LiDAR.
During his presentation he will introduce attendees to emerging mapping technologies and demonstrate how they can be applied to a variety of challenges with emphasis in archaeology. His ultimate desire is to help find the Great City of Zarahemla which he believes to be in the US.
Come and see Dr. Price speak on Fri April 10 at 1:30 pm and he will be followed by Wayne May. See complete schedule here.
Kevin Price, PhD biogeography (plant ecology)
FIRM Foundation Presentation:
Fri April 10- 1:30 to 2:25 pm Main Stage
“Rapidly Emerging Technologies for Archaeological Site Surveys and Virtual Reality 3D Modeling: Looking for the Great City of Zarahemla”
An Email from Dr. Price to Heartlanders
Dear Colleagues,
“In reading comments from time-to-time even on John’s [Lefgren] new Facebook page, people say geography is not important to the Book of Mormon. When they make this statement, I know they have probably never had a class in geography. The art and science of map making testifies they are absolutely incorrect. Most geographers would have a fit if they heard such an ignorant comment.
If it is not important, then the church should stop printing maps of the Holy Land in the backs of all our Bibles. I taught gospel doctrine for several years and while teaching Old and New Testament, I projected maps onto a screen of the Holy Land to give my class members a mental map of where these events took place. I got LOTS of positive feedback from class members about how much the maps helped them better understand and love the Bible. Guess which maps I used when I started teaching Book of Mormon – NONE. A correct visual image of the Geography of the Book of Mormon is missing for our Book of Mormon and it is very sad.
I pray that we as a group [Heartlanders] will be blessed by the Lord to change this lack of geographic understanding for the Book of Mormon. We are missing a critical component for deeper understanding of the Book of Mormon and that is a “Sense of Place.” Geographers often say that without a sense of place, the story is classified as a fairytale. All of us know the Book of Mormon is NOT a fairytale, but many do not yet have the spiritual testimony of the Book of Mormon, and to them, without a map of known locations, the stories in the Book of Mormon may seem like a fairytale.
There is no reason that I can think of, that the Lord would not want us to know the locations of Book of Mormon events. Most of you have presented extremely compelling evidence for the Book of Mormon events taking place in the Heartland, yet we still struggle to show the evidence many need to believe our views are correct – if we had made such a compelling case, the church would announce our findings to the world. Is the church under a curse because we have NOT believed the words of the prophets when they have CLEARLY told us the Book of Mormon events took place in the USA? If so, I am glad to be a part of those working to remove this curse.
I do not have the depth of experience and understanding in the writings of past prophets or the archeology and anthropology, but I do have an understanding and access to the instruments and data analyses need to begin uncovering greater evidence. Thank you for letting me be a part of this team.
We have GOT to find Zarahemla.” Best wishes, Kevin Price
Another Email from Dr. Price
“Thanks Rian. I do not know what sparked that outburst, but I suspect spending time teaching my 25 year old daughter to beware of the false prophets at BYU she set me off. The more I talk to people about the Central [America] model in contrast to the Heartland model, the more my blood boils. I have heard of people who left the church when the anti-Mormon literature started publishing the DNA findings showing that the MesoAmerica peoples have Asian DNA connections.
Had the Centralists not lead so many members to believe the BoM events transpired in Central America, we would not have been vulnerable to the anti-Mormon attacks on this one. I sent my daughter the links to Wayne’s [May] video on Geography of the Book of Mormon and Rod’s [Meldrum] video on DNA. Thank goodness she is very receptive to the Heartland model and I have caught her before she got indoctrinated with falsehoods of the Central model. The Central model is much more insidious than many people may imagine. We have got to get this one turned around and put these priests of Baal out of business.”
Best wishes, Kevin Price
More From Kevin Price
“The big thanks goes to all of you for taking up this issue years ago. Your work is making significant inroads to many who have been confused by the M2C priest craft for years. That model is so flawed. I remember about 15 years ago talking to an active member of the church in my Lawrence, Kansas Ward about archeological supporting evidences for the Book of Mormon coming out of Mesoamerica. He was doing his Ph.D. in archeology at the University of Kansas. He studies focused on Mesoamerica. I figured he would have all kinds of interest finds or know of interesting finds, so I asked him if they are finding archeological evidence in Mesoamerica that supports the Book of Mormon and his answer was “NO.” I was shocked, but never forgot his response. He offered no caveats, no buts, just flat out NO.
Since that time, I became more attentive to what was being discovered in Mesoamerica and found the M2C model like eating cotton candy – it looks big and beautiful, but when you take a bite, there is nothing there.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion about the importance of geography to the Book of Mormon, but as I said, I have not seen the church remove the maps of the old world from the back of our Bibles. So why is geography important to Bible studies and not to Book of Mormon studies?
When I first started teaching in 1986 in the Department of History and Geography at Utah State University, the big thing in Geography was the recent study findings of the shocking level of geographic illiteracy in the US. This illiteracy started in the 1960s when Harvard eliminated the Department of Geography thinking it was not important. Many universities followed Harvard’s lead, and this trickled down to many public schools.
America lacks knowledge and appreciation for geography and this illiteracy is manifest in our political leaders who make huge political mistakes that takes us into wars and destroys our countries lives and treasure.
I was among those who lacked education in geography because I was an ecologist. It was not until I started collecting field data and learned how big the world really is that I realized the inadequacies of traditional ecology field work. In a lab or classroom it seems easy to quantify ecosystem biophysical and biochemical characteristics but this quickly changes when you get into the field and start laying down 1.0 meter square quadrats (area from which samples are taken) on the ground from which to extract samples and you soon realizing there is not enough money or time to collect a representative same for your area in interest.
As an example, the Konza Prairie is a National Science Foundation Ecological Site in which millions of dollars are funneled for research of the Tallgrass Prairie. They have one watershed that is a favorite study area for many. Each year they collect plant and animal data on this prairie. They lay down forty 0.1 meter quadrats in this watershed and collect biomass and species composition samples. Forty times 0.1 = 4.0 square meters, or in other words, they used samples from 4.0 square meters to describe the condition of the 300,000 square meter watershed. This is a common situation and one of the reasons I ended up doing a Ph.D. in geography – I knew I needed a better way of studying the world.
Who knows, maybe the Lord is directing me to get a Ph.D. in Geography and develop skills in using space age imaging technologies so I could work with a team like we have to bring forth the Book of Mormon geography. Anyone who says Geography is not important does not understand geography and should not be expressing such an opinion.”
Best wishes, Kevin Price
Complete Report below on the Fort Glenford Magnetometry Survey December 2018 By Richard D. Moats, Project Archaeologist and Calvin J. Hamilton, Imaging Specialist and Wayne May Research specialist. Heartland Research Group, Finding 270 BC Adena Roundhouses.
Fort Glenford Magnetometry Survey FinalChoose an option below to
Help Wayne Find Zarahemla
