Otis Romriell Obituary (2022)

Otis James Romriell was born on October 9, 1928 to parents Lester Romriell and Beulah Davis Romriell in the small southern Idaho farming community of McCammon, where Brigham Young sent his Jersey Isle born ancestors in the 1850s. As an only son, he grew up helping his parents on the farm and excelling in music and sports. While playing varsity football and basketball, he played the trumpet and created the Otis Romriell Band, often performing and playing for dances multiple times a week from Pocatello to Lava Hot Springs. As an LDS missionary in the five-state Southern States Mission, he served as a traveling elder, often driving hundreds of miles a day to assist elders and local church branches. After his mission, he attended BYU where he met and fell in love with Donna Mae Peck, from Baker, Oregon. They were married in the Salt Lake Temple on June 2, 1952. Settling in McCammon, they operated the family farm for several years. After teaching part time at the Marsh Valley Seminary, he fell in love with teaching and returned to BYU with his growing family to continue his education. But he encountered many obstacles and difficulties in completing his degree, including financial restraints that required returning to the family farm for several years. He finally graduated in Education from Utah State University, while raising five children in the two-bedroom student housing known as the Triads. Later he would also earn a Master's Degree in Social Psychology. Even though both degrees were from USU, he always considered himself a diehard BYU Cougar. Otis began teaching LDS Seminary full-time at West Side High School in Dayton, Idaho. Over the years he also taught in Preston, Idaho, then moved to Hyde Park, Utah and taught at Logan Junior High and Sky View High School. Before retiring, he served as Area Director for Seminaries and Institutes, covering Northern Utah and parts of Wyoming and Idaho. Always ready to serve, Otis and Donna accepted calls in the 1990s to establish and teach LDS Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia and later in Toronto, Canada. Otis loved music and the outdoors. He played the piano beautifully by ear, masterfully embellishing popular songs, as well as improvising and creating his own original music, and performing for hundreds of events over the years. Always overly modest, he would warn those requesting that he couldn't even read piano music. He shared his love for gardening, fishing, camping, and hiking with his family and friends, later including his grandchildren, spending weeks in the summer exploring high mountain lakes of Idaho and Wyoming with those he loved and growing gardens of fruits and vegetables. For all of his accomplishments, Otis will be most remembered for his sincere love and concern for the well-being of everyone he met. Whether as a CES Director, student-ward Bishop, parent, home-teacher, neighbor, or bystander, he exemplified the action-filled love of the Good Samaritan. Home-teaching families fondly remember how many years he devoted to everyone in their family. He warmly embraced the gay partners of grand-children, readily inviting them into his home and life. Years later, former students would recognize him in far off places with warm embraces, thanking him for being their "best teacher ever." Most of all, Otis was a devoted family man. He loved and sacrificed for all. After Donna, his loving wife of 54 years, died in 2006, he lived with his two single daughters. Up until the last few months of his life, he fully contributed to the household and ward, visiting his neighbors, doing household chores, including laundry and dishes, and offering spiritual and emotional support to everyone he met. He also exhibited an incredible memory, recounting precise details of his life, even up to a few days before passing away on Monday, November 7, 2022. In addition to Donna, Otis was preceded in death by Ruth, his only sister, and Laurie, the wife of his first-born son. He is survived by his six children-Michael, Brian (Loree), Don, Melanie, Joe (Anne), and Deanna, as well as 12 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren. He will be missed by all. Funeral services will be held Monday, November 14, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. in the Canterbury Chapel, 6722 West 10400 North, Highland, UT. Family and friends may attend a viewing from 9:00 -10:45 am prior to the services. Interment will be in the Lehi Cemetery. Condolences may be sent to the family at www.olpinmortuary.com.