July 1, 2025 would have been Kiplyn Davis’ 46th birthday and her dad Richard Davis spent the day serving others.
“I’m just headed for a temple assignment … and (then) going to a city council meeting,” Richard told Serve Daily on the day of his daughter’s birthday.
Doing service for others has been a way of life for Richard and Tamara Davis, and has only increased since Kiplyn was murdered by a SFHS classmate 30 years ago.
The couple is this year’s Fiesta Days Grand Marshals, and in an interview given to Spanish Fork 17, the couple who both grew up in Spanish Fork, spoke about just that.
“When we lost Kiplin … we saw how the community rallied around us … hundreds of volunteers,” Richard told the interviewer. “I don’t know how you pay that back. You don’t. You can’t, but you try. We decided it was time to do everything we could to serve the community of Spanish Fork.”
One of many ways the couple has given back to the community is through the Kiplyn Davis Scholarship Fund that they started not long after their daughter went missing. Richard told Serve Daily that the fund was brought about due to Kiplyn’s passion for school and educating others.
“When Kiplyn was in school, she wrote an essay saying that she wanted to be a kindergarten teacher,” Richard said. “She loved little kids and so she wanted to be a kindergarten teacher.”
Richard spoke about not only the passion Kiplyn had for the prospect of teaching others, but of the education experience itself. He talked about her love for developing friendships at school in classes that she had particular interests in – classes like drama and dance.
“Kiplyn” loved Spanish Fork High School and she loved her teachers and the faculty, and she loved the students,” Richard said. “She liked being a Spanish Fork Don.”
He explained that during the initial search after she went missing, there was some money donated. He knew that he wanted to give some of that money to a couple of his daughter’s friends to help them pursue a college education.
“During what would have been her senior year in high school, we had some people give us a little bit of money to help us with our search for her,” Richard explained. “We weren’t quite sure what to do with the money and we just thought it’d be good to get to help a senior with their college education. That first year, we used the money to give out college scholarships to two of her friends that were graduating.”
Every year since then, the Davis’ have given a scholarship to one or two Spanish Fork High School students in Kiplyn’s name. In 2024, Richard and Tamara decided that they wanted to be able to continue the scholarship even after they are gone. So, Richard, with the support of Tamara, wrote a book titled, “When an Angel Leaves Your Life,” to help raise funds.
“I just thought it was time to write something about it, you know, some of the things that have happened and how it changed my life and share a little bit about Kiplyn,” Richard said. “I just sat down two winters ago and didn’t have much to do. It was snowing and I just sat at the computer and started writing. I’ve thought about that title for years, you know, and so I just put some things together that I kept in a journal since Kipling disappeared – newspaper articles and things like that. I just put them sort of together a little bit, took some highlights and that’s how the book came about.
“When the book was done, people wanted to read it, and so we decided that we’d sell it and use funds to add to the scholarship fund.This last year we gave two scholarships because of sales from the book. We just thought that after me and Tamara are gone that we would like to carry (the scholarship) on, so we just thought it would be good to use that money that way.”
Richard explained that the application for the scholarship starts in May, and said that it is most often awarded to students who may not be at the top of their class, and may just be out of reach for other scholarship opportunities.
“We try to pick somebody that’s not going to get very many scholarships,” Richard said. “We pick somebody with maybe a 3.7 or 3.8 GPA, who just isn’t going to get a major scholarship and then we see what they’re doing, where they’re gonna go to school and what their goals are in life. It seems like every year we pick somebody who it’s really going to help and we’ve been really excited and really thankful for this opportunity to do this.”
Richard and Tamara will be presented as Grand Marshals at the Fiesta Days Grand Parade on July 24.
It’s been wonderful to serve the community,” Richard said. “I love to brag about Fiesta Days because it is such a great part of our life.”
More about Kiplin and to buy “When an Angel Leaves Your Life,” go to Kiplyndavis.com. Copies of the book are also available at Stone Drug at 159 N. Main in Spanish Fork.
For a list of ideas on ways to serve the community check out the left hand side of page 9 or click here.
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