Kimball's presidency was noted for the 1978 announcement ending the restriction on church members of black African descent being ordained to the priesthood or receiving temple ordinances.

[4] During his childhood, Kimball had a number of medical problems, including typhoid fever and facial paralysis (likely Bell's palsy), and he once nearly drowned.

Though only 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 metres) tall as an adult, Kimball was an avid basketball player, and he was the star and leading scorer on most of his school and recreational teams.

[4] During summer holidays, he often worked at a dairy in Globe, Arizona, milking cows, cleaning stalls, and washing bottles for $50 to $60 per month as well as room and board.

In 1921, Kimball began work at the Thatcher branch of the Arizona Trust and Savings Bank, where he was eventually promoted to assistant cashier at $225 per month, a high salary at the time.

In the 1920s, local stake clerks still performed the extensive record-keeping and reporting duties that are now digitized and done centrally at the LDS Church's headquarters in Salt Lake City.

[19] Kimball was active in many civic organizations, including the Parent-Teacher Association, city council, Red Cross, Boy Scouts, and he was elected leader of the Arizona Rotary Club in 1936.

From there, they visited Paris, Monte Carlo, Genoa, Rome, Pompeii, Florence, Venice, Vienna, the Swiss Alps, Belgium, the Netherlands, and London.

As stake president, Kimball coordinated the LDS Church's humanitarian response, which quickly mobilized funds, materials, and manpower to care for displaced residents and begin recovery.

[23] Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the subsequent entry of the United States into World War II, a number of young men from the stake left to join the US military.

[27] Kimball was initially so shocked by the call that he asked Clark's permission to ponder it for several days before he went to Salt Lake City to meet with him in person, as part of a previously scheduled family trip.

[32] Kimball lamented the global destruction of World War II and once wrote in his journal, "How outraged the Lord must feel to see His children fighting down here like wild beasts.

Kimball's eldest son, Spence, was nearly killed in 1945 while serving aboard the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, when bombs dropped from Japanese airplanes damaged the ship and ignited its tanks of aviation fuel.

[34] In an attempt to give comfort to families of those killed in combat, Kimball drafted a well-known letter in which he wrote that sin, not premature death, was the only true tragedy in life.

[44] Kimball subsequently repeated his warning at a BYU campus devotional, stating that there were "too many Pharisees among the white [students and faculty]... too many Levites who pull their robes about them and pass by with disdain.

"[45] When not touring missions or presiding over weekend stake conferences, Kimball spent weekdays answering correspondences at his home or working in his office at LDS Church headquarters in Salt Lake City.

[48] Kimball's experiences impelled his writing of The Miracle of Forgiveness, first published in 1969, which dealt with the serious nature of LDS standards on sexual morality and counseled church members on repentance and avoidance of such problems.

[47] Beginning in 1932, Kimball suffered from boils and infectious sores, which plagued him until the advent of antibacterial medicines such as sulfonamides and penicillin during World War II.

[49] In May 1948, while he was holding church meetings throughout Navajo and Apache communities in Arizona, Kimball suffered severe chest pain from a heart attack, after he had spent an afternoon struggling to lift an automobile out of deep sand.

[56] In early 1950, when he was 55, Kimball, who had never smoked or used tobacco, began experiencing persistent hoarseness and after a physical examination, he underwent a biopsy of a white spot in his throat.

[63] Immediately following the conclusion of the LDS Church's April 1972 general conference, Kimball successfully underwent a 4.5 hour open-heart surgery that was performed by Nelson.

[75] In June 1977, Kimball asked at least three general authorities—apostles Bruce R. McConkie, Thomas S. Monson, and Boyd K. Packer—to write him memoranda "on the doctrinal basis of the prohibition and how a change might affect the Church."

[76] On May 30, 1978, Kimball presented his two counselors with a statement that he had written in longhand that removed all racial restrictions on ordination to the priesthood, stating that he "had a good, warm feeling about it".

[79] Bruce R. McConkie later said: "There are no words to describe the sensation, but simultaneously the Twelve and the three members of the First Presidency had the Holy Ghost descend upon them and they knew that God had manifested his will....

The story led many national news broadcasts and was on the front page of most American newspapers, and in most largely Latter-day Saint communities in Utah and Idaho, telephone networks were completely jammed with excited callers.

"[85] In August 1978, the First Presidency issued a second statement elaborating on the first, in which Kimball and his counselors stated that the ERA's "deceptively simple language ... [constitutes] encouragement of those who seek a unisex society, [and] an increase in the practice of homosexual and lesbian activities.

[87] At the October 1980 General Conference, about 30 picketers marched outside the Salt Lake Tabernacle, and when Kimball was presented to the congregation during the customary sustaining of church officers, three women stood and shouted "No!

[91] In July 1979, Kimball suffered a series of three minor strokes, theorized to have been caused by small nylon fibers shed by his artificial heart valve, which briefly incapacitated him but had little lasting effect.

[4] At the Sunday afternoon session of the church's April 1982 general conference, Kimball unexpectedly took the pulpit to deliver a short closing message, which proved to be his final public address: My beloved brothers and sisters, this is a great experience for me.

God bless you, brothers and sisters, I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.Over subsequent years, Kimball would occasionally attend meetings in the Salt Lake Temple and was able to give assent or direction on matters of significance, such as the calling of Russell M. Nelson and Dallin H. Oaks to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1984, but he was otherwise mostly incapacitated.