Yesterday President Hinckley, President Monson, President Faust, and five apostles made the short road trip down to Provo for the dedication of the newest building on the BYU campus, the four-story, 280,000-square-foot Joseph F. Smith Building (photos can be seen here).

In his dedicatory remarks at the Marriott Center, President Hinckley said: “It is my opinion that no man, save the Prophet Joseph only, has had a greater and better understanding of the origin and history of the church, and of its doctrines not only concerning this life, but also concerning the eternities.” Noting President Joseph F. Smith’s position as sixth president of the church, President Hinckley commented in his usual self-effacing manner: “I am the 15th, and I feel like a pygmy when I think of standing in the same circle with him.”

It’s impossible to tell whether President Hinckley’s predecessors would agree with his assessment of President Smith’s or his own stature. But President Hinckley’s figurative self-description is not new. When he was called to be an apostle by President McKay at the October 1961 General Conference, then-Elder Hinckley told the congregation: “I am subdued by the confidence of the Lord’s Prophet in me, and by the expressed love of these, my brethren, beside whom I feel like a pygmy.” Twenty years later, when he was called to be a counselor to the ailing President Kimball, President Hinckley remarked: “I feel like a pygmy among giants as I think of you [President Kimball] and President Tanner and President Romney….I feel like a little boy moving into the big league” (Sheri Dew, Go Forward with Faith: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1995), p. 383).

President Kimball offered similar self-effacing thoughts at President Lee’s funeral in December 1973, calling Lee a “giant” and describing himself as a “pygmy.” At just 5′ 6″–or three inches shorter than Lee–President Kimball may not have been speaking in entirely metaphorical terms.

In 1951 he wrote to his wife, Camilla, from New York:

Yesterday as we got in the elevator to come down, two little midgets came down with us. I certainly got a lift when I, the scrubbiest of the scrubby, could look far down on grown men so much smaller than I. I frequently find men thinner, but seldom find them shorter.

There is no question that President Kimball was sensitive about his height. Once he related his negative reaction to an incident in which a “tall and handsome” General Authority said of a potential stake president: “Well, he’s a good man, but he’s such a little runt.” President Kimball, only half-jokingly, remarked: “I’ve always held that against him a bit” (Edward L. Kimball and Andrew E. Kimball, Spencer W. Kimball: Twelfth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1977), p. 275).

When BYU’s Board of Trustees decided to name a new building after him, President Kimball reportedly said: “Please don’t let it be a short building.” The building, the Kimball Tower, is BYU’s tallest at more than 161 feet high (twelve stories). Unfortunately, the story is apocryphal (Edward L. Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), p. 150).