Paul Allan Randle

Paul Allan Randle was born on March 20, 1940 to Allan Charles and Sarah Holley Randle in Salt Lake City, Utah. He died early on the morning of September 22, 2023 in Logan, Utah.

Paul was the second child of five as World War II was beginning. As a result of being born during such meager times, he grew up hard-working and practical, sometimes to a fault, dedicating his life to providing for his family. He graduated from East High School in Salt Lake City and then served briefly in the military. Following this, he served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Northern States Mission from 1961-1963, where he was a member of the Mormon Ten Melody Men, a traveling group of singing missionaries. Upon his return, he met Margaret Bishop, whom he married on August 28, 1963 in the Logan LDS Temple. He graduated from the University of Utah in 1965 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance. He then received his Master’s in Business Administration in 1967 from the University of Utah. In 1970, he received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in Corporation Finance, Investment Theory, and Urban Land Economics.

Following his education, he and Margaret moved to Logan, Utah where Paul became a professor of Finance at Utah State University until he retired in 1999. 

While he worked as a professor, he taught classes, published in journals, wrote books, and started many businesses, including creating financial planning software for families and professionals, and, most notably, serving as an economic consultant who worked on and testified as an expert witness in hundreds of court cases for as long as he possibly could. 

Paul was a life-long member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served in a wide variety of positions, including bishop, in several bishoprics, as a high councilman many times, and frequently as an engaging and thought-provoking Sunday School and Priesthood instructor. Some of his favorite callings were serving the youth in the Young Men and Scout programs; he had a knack for speaking to teenagers on their level and planning and executing extraordinarily fun activities with tireless energy. This is probably because to some degree, Paul never really stopped being 16.

After Margaret’s death in 1990, Paul married Lorraine Harris Burgon in the Logan LDS Temple on February 1, 1991. They lived in Logan until his death.

Paul was a jack of all trades and a master of many, but if you asked him, he was a jack of all trades and also a master of all trades. If you walked into his house, his garage, or his office at any time, you might find a fleet of motorcycles (street bikes and dirt bikes), enough fly fishing gear to open his own fly fishing shop, all the Dutch ovens and grills needed for and outdoor cookout for hundreds of people, a professional photography setup, an arsenal of firearms, kayaks and canoes, rock climbing equipment, skis, a trailer loaded up with mountain bikes, or a driveway full of road bikes. Never one to shy away from an adventure, he would lead incredible week-long white water river rafting trips or backpacking trips in the Wind River Mountains, then turn around and spend a week authentically exploring New York City, taking his family to the best shows, local restaurants, and introducing them to “his friends” (New York camera shop owners), his confidence and knowledge convincing anyone he was a real New Yorker and not some guy from a small town in Utah. He used to sigh dramatically and say, “I work so that others may play,” but we all know that he worked so hard because he wanted to play just as hard.

Paul was a man who lived in wild contradictions–a politically liberal Mormon who would sooner die than let anyone touch his guns or tell him he couldn’t ride his bike in his own neighborhood; who once read the unabridged Les Misérables in French; who had a PhD in finance but probably read more voraciously than any of his three children with English degrees; who would blast classical music in his office, it often moving him to tears, but was also the most avid outdoorsman any of us knew; who traveled to the Galapagos Islands and Africa within the last decade of his life. Henry David Thoreau once said, “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,” and Paul Randle was the epitome of living deep and sucking out all the marrow of life. 

 When someone says a person is “a character,” they’re talking about people like Paul. He was hilarious, irreverent, demanding, brilliant, terrifying, so much fun, and loved his family (but probably never as much as he loved his dogs). Most of the Paul Randle-isms we all remember are not appropriate for a public forum, but he always had a dirty pun (or several, due to his lightning-fast wit) or a string of creative profanity up his sleeve. Time and again since his passing, people have commented that he was larger than life or that sometimes he didn’t even seem real. Luckily for us, he was.

Despite his many accomplishments, Paul will be remembered for how he made people feel. Many have commented that he was the person they needed most at any given time in their lives, whether it was when they were a teenager and he was their Scoutmaster, one of his college students and he was their professor, or when they were peers and he was a sounding board. He was never the person to give you the standard cliché greeting card advice; rather, it would probably sound something like, “Well, you know, life’s hard in the far west. Let’s skip Sunday School and get a Diet Coke and a cookie.” (By the way, per Paul Randle, Diet Coke and Peanut M&Ms, a Zone Bar, or an oatmeal raisin cookie all count as a well-rounded breakfast. And Sunday School was always optional before it really became optional. Also, he fully took credit for the shift to two-hour church. There is very little evidence that he was actually behind this change.) His…very honest honesty could hurt your feelings and make you laugh in the same breath (or sometimes the laughter came a few breaths later), but when a situation called for love and compassion, he always brought love and compassion in the way people needed it the most, especially when it came to his kids. 

Paul is survived by his wife of 32 years, Lorraine Harris Randle and his children, Holley (Kirk) Gifford of Rexburg, ID; Heidi Shafer of Logan, UT; Annie Morgan of Salt Lake City, UT; Dan (Susan) Randle of Omaha, NE; Kate Jones of Alexandria, LA; Alison (Brett) Bardsley of Hyde Park, UT; Rex (Emily) Burgon of North Logan, UT; and Andrew (Stacia) Burgon of Pleasant View, UT. He leaves a legacy of 21 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren. Additionally, he is survived by his siblings, Frances Randle Thompson, Stephen Randle, and Mark (Linda) Randle. He is preceded in death by his parents, Allan and Sarah Randle; his first sweetheart, Margaret Bishop Randle; his sister, Marian Randle Romney; his sister-in-law, Rosanne Davies Randle, and his brother-in-law, Lee Thompson.

A viewing will be held at Allen-Hall Mortuary at 34 East Center Street in Logan on Thursday, September 28, 2023 from 6:00-8:00 pm. An additional viewing will be held at the Canyon Ridge Ward at 1380 Mountain Road, Logan, UT from 11:30 am-12:30 pm on Friday, September 29, 2023. Directly following the viewing, the funeral service will be held at the same location at 1:00 pm with Bishop Ben Boyer conducting. The graveside service will be held at the Logan City Cemetery immediately following the funeral. 

The family would like to express gratitude to The Gables Assisted Living & Memory Care and Dr. Michael Stones for their care of Paul during the final year of his life; Paul’s niece, Sarah Randle Burke, for providing the flowers for the funeral service; the Canyon Ridge Ward Relief Society; and for the many friends, family members, and colleagues who have shared love, support, and wonderful memories of Paul with his family during this time. 

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