When Glenn Stroh saw the pictures, he knew something was amiss.
Shortly after the October 20th tornado hit on that Sunday night, pictures of the damaged campus started flooding in.
Hicks Gym and the Chapel were hit the hardest. The torrential rain and wind had brought in water, soaking chairs, books and the organ.
An organ requires very specific and highly-regulated temperatures to function properly. And, the instrument must stay dry, in order to keep its wood and leather pieces in the highest order.
For Stroh, the choirmaster and organist for the school, this organ was special. He’d played it since its introduction to campus in 2014, and was instrumental in its installation. According to him, the instrument could’ve lasted much longer without many changes made.
“It was, by all standards, a new instrument when the tornado hit,” Stroh said. “You typically expect an instrument like that to last 100 years.”
But then, just five years after its addition to the community in the chapel, it needed major repairs. Stroh, though grateful no one was hurt during the storm, knew the instrument had a long road ahead before it was useable again.
“We couldn’t do anything immediately, because we couldn’t get back on campus,” Stroh said. “But, when we started seeing pictures, it was just gut-wrenching.”
Once it was safe to enter campus again, efforts to rebuild the organ began. It was taken apart and shipped away, requiring a complex remodeling by its original builder, LeTourneau Organs.
But, at school, the show had to go on. One of the organ’s primary duties was to support the choir, and that presence was gone. An evensong was scheduled for just two weeks after the tornado hit. The decision was made to hold an evensong at the chapel, even with all the logistical challenges, so the community rallied to help make it happen.
“Obviously, we didn’t have an instrument, so we arranged to have a piano there, and we had a wonderful pianist and former organist at St. Mark’s named Daniel Stipe there as well — he played the evensong,” Stroh said. “Churches in the area… opened their doors to us to rehearse because we couldn’t get students back on campus in our rehearsal spaces.”
Eventually, the chapel implemented an electronic instrument in place of the organ, but Stroh knew the organ’s absence left a significant hole in the community — one that largely wasn’t filled until its reinstallation in September 2022, nearly three years after the storm.
“In a sense, we felt that return to normal,” Stroh said. “But of course, the whole time (without the organ) before that was compounded by the pandemic, and so it was a double punch for us, especially in the choral department. That made it all the more gratifying when we had that return together. So, I think of it more like an evolution — it’s just like, ‘Oh, here’s the next chapter.’”