Paul Morris Hasvold was born to Morris P. and Ruth M. (Levorson) Hasvold on March 15, 1933 in Watertown, South Dakota. He attended Luther College 1951-1955, majoring in music and philsophy and graduating as valedictorian. He pursued graduate studies at the University of Michigan, where he earned his M.A. in philosophy, and Luther Theological Seminary, where he graduated in 1960. Hasvold also attended the University of Oxford on a Fulbright scholarship. He taught religion and philsophy at Luther College, 1957-1958, and for four years at the University of Kansas after he completed his work in Oxford.

After being ordained a Lutheran minister, Hasvold served for four years at East Koshkonog Lutheran Church near Cambridge, Wisconsin, 1967-1974. During his tenure, Hasvold participated in the Lutheran-Episcopalian Dialogues, which was a gathering of Lutheran and Episcopalian theologians who met periodically from 1969 to 1972. These meetings resulted in the publication of a report called Lutheran-Episcopal Dialogue: A Progress Report, which posed inter-communion bewteen the two groups was appropriate.

Hasvold then served 24 years at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Decorah, Iowa, where he and the congregation sponsored several Hmong and Vietnamese refugees in the area. He also worked as an advocate for the disabled. In addition to serving on Winneshiek County's chapter of ARC (then Association for Retarded Citizens, now The Arc), he served on the Iowa ARC Board of Directions, 1979-1989, chaired Iowa ARC's Governmental Affairs Committee 1981-1986, was president of the ARC of Iowa, 1986-1987, and board member of the ARC of America, 1983-1988. In the 1980s, Governor Robert Ray invited Hasvold to serve on the Governor's Commission for Human Services, which evaluated the effects of prosed legislation on those who received services. He drafted what became the Bill of Rights for Handicapped Citizens, passed in the Iowa legislature in [year].

Hasvold married Carol Williams on December 29, 1958. He passed away on January 19, 2015.

Obituary, https://www.fjelstul.com/obituary/2920023

Decorah Journal Article "Pastor Hasvold Believes its a Long Way between Saying and Doing," June 18, 1998, Vol. 135, Iss.25.