Elder Scott was born on November 7, 1928, to Kenneth Leroy and Mary Whittle Scott in Pocatello, Idaho. When he was 5, his family moved to Washington, D.C., where his father served with the Department of Agriculture, later becoming an Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. He was called to the First Quorum of the Seventy in 1977 and was called to serve in the Presidency of that quorum in 1983. He would serve in that capacity until his call to the Quorum of the Twelve in October 1988.