Priests Leadership Conference (PLC) is a 4-day leadership training course for young men of LDS Priest-Venturer age (16-18+).  It is sponsored by a group of LDS stakes in the Taylorsville area of Salt Lake County, Utah.  PLC had its origins in an experimental course called National LDS Explorer Leadership Conference, presented in 1985 and 1986 at Philmont Ranch, New Mexico, under the sponsorship of the Young Mens General Board of the LDS Church.  This program was an adaptation of an adult LDS-oriented Exploring course, Explorer Leadership Institute (ELI), which was based to some degree on the traditional advanced scout leader training course, Wood Badge.  After the successful piloting of this course at Philmont Ranch, starting in 1987, the course began to be offered by the three Utah BSA councils.

     In 1988, local leaders of the Olde English Fort District of the Great Salt Lake BSA Council (which had within its boundaries about 50 Exploring units in nine Taylorsville and Bennion LDS stakes), under the guidance and direction of an LDS Relationships Committee for the District, began to search for methods to strengthen the application of the "older boy" programs of scouting for the young men under their stewardship. This assessment concluded that the Exploring program, when utilized knowledgeably and expertly, could provide significant tools to assist priests age young men and their leaders and advisors in meeting Aaronic Priesthood goals and purposes. However, as compared to the younger boy levels of scouting, there was an almost complete absence of understanding on the part of among adult leaders as to how to use the Exploring program. Additionally, few if any Explorer age boys or their parents in the area had a vision of the value and attractiveness of the program.  These District leaders concluded that only by a massive amount of training of boys and their leaders could the Explorer program become viable.  And since there were almost no successful examples of good Explorer Posts in the area for people to use as models, training would need to be experiential, where participants actually lived the Exploring method for a few days in order to really catch a vision of the program and learn how to implement it.  The approach used for the advanced Exploring leadership courses being offered by the Utah BSA Councils at that time was identified as having the potential to meet this need, with two exceptions.  These were: 1) the lack of capacity of the Council courses to train in the numbers that these local leaders envisioned were needed, and 2) that the cost of the Council courses would prohibit many leaders and young men from attending.  These local leaders envisioned the need to train as many as 100 young men and 50 adult leaders yearly within the District area in order to maintain a high level of Exploring.

     As a beginning, the goal was set to sponsor the course for Taylorsville area youth (believing that a youth course would find the most support at the start), holding the cost to the $65-70 range.  This course was offered by Olde English Fort BSA District initially in 1990, and repeated at least yearly since.

     In 1993, several of the Taylorsville and Bennion LDS stakes assumed sponsorship of the course.  At that time, the Church announced that it would not longer participate in BSA-sponsored training courses containing priesthood-related instruction.  BSA Council-sponsored courses for adults and youth in LDS Exploring leadership were canceled.  However, a group of Taylorsville and Bennion Stake Presidents, drawing on the precedents of Church-sponsored scout training and programs such as Little Philmont and stake and area scout camps, sought and received permission from the Area Presidency to continue the program (renamed Priests Leadership Conference or PLC) under Church sponsorship.  Since 1993, the course has been provided by the Taylorsville and Bennion stakes themselves.

     Since 1990, over 800 young men (as of June 2003) have attended the yearly course.  The Stakes have also experimented with methods to involve adult leaders as participants and have trained approximately 80 adults either as members of an adult post in the youth course or in a special weekend version of PLC for adults.