John was born on June 14, 1934, in Logan, Utah, to Muriel Mae Mathews and Leo Mack Higgins; he was the oldest of three children. He spent his early years in Utah before moving to Las Vegas at the age of 12, where he graduated from Las Vegas High School in 1952. He then enrolled at the prestigious research university California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, where he majored in mathematics. After his freshman year at Caltech, John was called to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Northern Far East Mission speaking Japanese.
After his three-year mission to Japan, he returned home and transferred to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics and was given a teaching post at the Church College of Hawaii (now BYU-Hawaii), where he met Seiko Takeda of Shimanto, Japan, who was there studying English. They married on December 30, 1961, in the Los Angeles Temple. John then pursued a PhD in mathematics at the University of California Davis, and after earning his doctorate, he and Seiko returned to Utah, where they raised their three children. John began his career as a math professor at BYU, but he later moved to the Computer Science Department and became an expert on data security and cryptography; he frequently published articles on those subjects in scholarly and scientific journals as well as books on mathematics and Halley’s comet. As a professor, he was highly regarded and well-loved, both by students and colleagues who appreciated his dry sense of humor, clever anecdotes, and merciful grading. One bit of advice he frequently gave his colleagues was to “be nice to the students.” His children and grandchildren alike could count on him for endless math homework help—as long as they could tolerate lengthy discourses and explanations on the principles of mathematics.
John was a devoted member of his church, and he and his wife served for many years as temple workers in the Provo and Mt. Timpanogos Temples and then later as missionaries in the Panama City Temple from 2009 to 2011. He loved learning a little bit of every language so that he could converse with people from all over the world who entered the temple. His bookshelves at home contained countless language guides in everything from Mandarin to Navajo to Czech. His desire to study and learn never left him.
Besides being a mathematician and computer scientist, John was many things: devoted and patient father, amateur astronomer, World War II history buff, passionate animal lover, insatiable reader, and classical music aficionado. He loved to travel and enjoyed taking his children and grandchildren to Disneyland, Europe, and Japan. He enjoyed golf, cycling, Formula 1 racing, and sometimes BYU football (depending on the season). He beat everyone at Trivial Pursuit, and almost anyone who knew him considered him to be one of the smartest men they knew.
John is survived by his three children, Ann Higgins Conover (Craig), Ellen Higgins Bahr (Benjamin), and Michael Higgins (Chandra); his nine grandchildren, Mary and Sarah Lamphier; Charlie (Maika), Sam, and Jane Bahr; and Olivia (Cody), Grace, Lucy, and Victoria Higgins; one great-granddaughter, Leia Kagawa Bahr; and siblings Kathie Higgins and Heather Higgins. He is predeceased by his wife of 60 years, Seiko Takeda Higgins, and his parents, Muriel Mae Higgins and Leo Mack Higgins.
A funeral service for John will be held on Saturday, September 2, 2023, at 11:00 a.m. at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1550 Buchanan Blvd., Boulder City, NV 89005. Interment to follow at 1:00 p.m. at Palm Eastern Cemetery, 7600 S. Eastern Ave., Las Vegas, NV 89123.
Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.palmeastern.com for the Higgins family.
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