It was the winter of 1964, one year after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. School was generally stressful at Brigham Young High School, with each teacher giving enough homework to consume an entire evening, multiplied by six or seven teachers daily.

I am no genius. I spent many nights working on homework from the time I got home up until 2 or 3 in the morning. Sometimes I even took books to church on Sundays, sat in the back and read them surreptitiously in a desperate attempt to keep up.

We heard that her track record was about one chance in eight or nine of her predictions being anywhere close to accurate.

Neil Riddle, our classmate and a confirmed genius, was my debate partner and one of my best friends. Some of us began to notice that Neil was falling behind in his classes, skimping on class reading and homework.

One day in November someone asked Neil why he was so unprepared lately. He openly shared with his friends that he had heard about one of Jeane Dixon’s predictions, that an earthquake was coming to Utah’s Wasatch mountains.

He said she predicted that, before the end of this year, a massive earthquake would occur, and these mountains, including Timpanogos, would drop in height by approximately 10 feet.

If this happened, can you imagine the death and destruction that would befall the Utah Valley cities of Provo, Orem, and other cities up and down the Wasatch front between Provo and Salt Lake City?

So what did this have to do with Neil? He said he figured if there was even a chance that was going to happen, then there was not much point in studying, was there? -- so he just stopped. We thought it was amusing that Neil would pay much attention to Jeane Dixon.

Neil thought it was humorous, too, but that didn’t stop him from stopping. I’m guessing he thought it would make a good story to tell on himself later on.

When January 1965 arrived with no sign of any local earthquake, Neil went back to studying, and was soon caught up in his classes. Neil got back on track so fast that he qualified to skip his senior year in high school and moved up to university level work, leaving us behind.

I have searched extensively to find any mention of a Jeane Dixon prediction about an earthquake in Utah in 1964, but have found no trace of it. If you know of such a prediction, let me know and I will link to it here.