At the age of forty and with nine children at home, Gloria B. Larkin decided to go back to school and finish her undergraduate degree. The fact that she was busier than most college students didn’t sway her choice in major: accounting, a rigorous program at BYU Marriott.
Larkin had always enjoyed mathematics and did some bookkeeping on the side, but she never had the chance to earn a degree before her life became busy with raising her six children. Life seemed to close any doors leading her back to school. First, she went through a divorce. Then she married Roger A. Larkin, who had five children of his own. However, after receiving multiple admonitions in priesthood blessings to finish her educa- tion, she decided it was now or never.
Larkin started out at Dixie College, where she completed her general education requirements before transferring to BYU Marriott in 1991. “The accounting core was highly ranked,” Larkin says. “I loved the math part, and I had great professors and a rigorous workload. The school itself has a won- derful atmosphere, and I loved rubbing shoulders with the younger shining stars who attended college with me.”
With the added workload of school, Larkin had to quit her part-time job to have enough time for homework and family. While her husband helped provide for the family, he also added to the family’s schedule by going back to school himself. He attended BYU along with Larkin, earning his degree in physical plant administration. “We were extremely busy,” Larkin says. “Our children were all mostly teenagers at the time, and they had busy lives of their own, so it took a lot of planning and hard work.”
After four years of managing intense accounting projects and organizing family schedules, Larkin graduated with her BS in accounting with a minor in mathematics in December 1995. “It opened lots of doors for me,” she says.
“The classes in the accounting program were so good, and I felt well prepared.” Larkin worked for several different companies as a controller before she found a position at Boulder Ranch, a network of mobile-home and rental
communities in northern Utah. For seven years, Larkin handled all the finances for the firm’s eight separate companies. Her duties included keep- ing the finances separate and properly recorded for each company. She also conducted payroll and delegated accounts payable and receivable.
In 2013 Larkin left Boulder Ranch when she and her husband were called to serve a mission in Germany. They were assigned to work with the young single adults at the YSA center in Leipzig. Again she felt right at home working with the “shining stars” of the Church, just as she had felt with young college students during her time at BYU Marriott. “I told the young adults of Germany that they reminded me of our hardworking BYU stu- dents, who also had great integrity,” Larkin says. “It was wonderful to help these young shining stars excel.”
After eighteen months in Germany, Larkin and her husband came home and served another mission in Provo. They currently live in Mapleton, Utah. While they no longer wear name tags, they stay busy with their thirty-four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
