COLONEL DAVID R. LYON
First BYU Army ROTC Professor of Military Science
Colonel David R. Lyon was born 21 June 1920 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He graduated from the University of Utah in 1941, and entered active duty in the U.S. Army in January 1942. He holds a master's in business administration from George Washington University in Washington DC.
After combat duty in Korea, where he was decorated with the Bronze Star and promoted, Lyon served on the staff of the Far East Command in Tokyo. He later served on the staff of the Commander in Chief, Pacific, in Hawaii.
Lyon served four years as an instructor at the Artillery School in Fort Sill, Oklahoma; four years as a faculty member at the Command and General Staff College in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas; three years on the faculty of Cornell University in Cornell, New York; and four years as the professor of Military Science at Brigham Young University.
Lyon came to Brigham Young University from command of a Nike-Hercules air defense group in New York. Colonel Lyon inaugurated the BYU Army ROTC program in 1968. The university had established the Air Force ROTC program when the Air Force became a separate service after WWII and was authorized by Congress to initiate Air Force ROTC programs at a number of institutions. They provided additional officers for the Air Force to augment those commissioned at the Air Force Academy. It was not until 1967 that the U.S. Army was authorized to add any new ROTC units, and BYU applied for and was approved to host one of them. One of Lyon's sons was a cadet at Brigham Young University and was commissioned through that program while Lyon served as the professor of Military Science there.
He directed the program until his retirement from active duty in 1972. A former chief of staff of the U.S. Army, General Harold K. Johnson, gave the commissioning address at BYU that year. General Johnson congratulated Lyon on the success of the program and presented him with a second award of the Legion of Merit. Lyon remained at the university for six more years in University Relations, and served as president of the Provo Chamber of Commerce from 1978 to 1979 and chairman and board member of the American Red Cross for eighteen years, among other areas of civilian service.
Lyon served in a variety of church callings throughout his life. Some of them include branch president in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, bishop in Oahu, Hawaii, bishop in the BYU Ninth Ward, and High Priest group leader. He and his wife Cherie Lyon married in the Salt Lake Temple 11 May 1942. They served a church mission to the French Island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean 1981–1983. They have four sons, a daughter, twelve grandchildren, and four great grandchildren.
Colonel Lyon died March 19, 2002. His wife Cherie Lyon's death preceded his by only a few months.
