Bowen maintained an intimate friendship with J. Reuben Clark and was said to have summarised his three main virtues as having "vigorous and discriminating intellect," "prodigious power of work," and "uncompromising, undeviating honesty.

[4] In 1935, Bowen became the Superintendent of the LDS Church's Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association (YMMIA), succeeding George Albert Smith.

Grant to fill a spot in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that was left vacant by the death of Alonzo A. Hinckley.

During World War II, Bowen said: "We must... sustain our country to the full measure of the requirement of loyalty and patriotic devotion."

[6] Bowen was involved with the search for a new BYU president after World War II, and was one of the strongest supporters, along with John A. Widtsoe, of eventual appointee Ernest L.

[7][8] It has been argued Bowen was probably the chief author behind an unsigned review of the prominent book No Man Knows My History by Fawn M. Brodie, which was one of the first biographies of Joseph Smith to take a secular and critical approach.