The Story of the FCC Pipe Organ

Our cherished, century-old pipe organ was built and installed in 1926 by Henry Pilcher's Sons Organ Company. Later, the console was added by Austin Organs. Its purchase could possibly have been made in part by a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, as well as major donations from our church. Over the years, the FCC organ has been played by many memorable organists, including Elizabeth Killinger, Siota Davis, Pat Parkey, Jeannette Ladenburger, Joyce Holbrook, Bobbie Gibson, Verna McKenzie, and Bobbie Mitchell. The instrument made glorious music, and is the only pipe organ in Corbin.

The FCC organ resides in all three floors of the building's architecture: the sanctuary, basement, and upstairs. The three primary parts are separated this way: the console, the wind system, and the pipe work (including windchests). The sanctuary, which houses the console, is the control center where the organist plays the instrument. It contains the manuals (the keyboards for the hands, of which we have two), the pedalboard (a keyboard for the feet), stop controls, and expression pedals. The basement has the wind system which is responsible for producing a steady stream of pressurized air (known as "wind") to the pipes. Key components include the blower (a large electric fan or turbine) and reservoirs. The upstairs is for dedicated pipe chambers, which are hidden. The pipework and windchests allow the sound to be directed and blended into the main acoustic space of the sanctuary.

In October of 2024, the organ quit working. We were afraid it was on its last legs, since it hadn't been refurbished for 50 years. Music director Bobbie Mitchell, who has been playing the organ at FCC since 2002, contacted the DC Schroth company in Brooks, Kentucky, who repair and refurbish pipe organs across the country. They determined that the organ needed a new blower, and that many of the parts made of leather needed to be replaced after 98 years. We heard a lot of organ terms we didn't understand.

"The primary action is located underneath the Swell windchest, and as such, we would recommend that, due to the age of the organ, as well as the access limitations of the action, that we would remove the entire primary and take the occasion to re-leather it."

That's just one sentence of the initial estimate. It may as well have been Greek to most of us, but Bobbie understood. We learned that repairs couldn't start until after Christmas, and would cost almost $20,000. We canceled the annual Christmas organ concert in 2024, and decided to go ahead with repairs with the goal of having the organ ready for Easter.

Rick, Mike, and CJ saved us some money by removing the old blower. But after work began, every step of the repair process revealed more problems, and more components that had to be upgraded. Once all the organ parts were installed, Bobbie was able to play the organ at a couple of services, but then the instrument failed again. The electrical system feeding it couldn't power the upgraded organ. Bobbie contacted Infinity Electric to diagnose the problem. Meanwhile, we had to sing louder for Easter services.

Over time, the cost of repair ballooned to more than twice the original estimate. The fundraising side of the project demonstrated a powerful congregational and community commitment to preserving the historic instrument that has provided glorious sounds and experiences through the years. The congregation held constant pledge drives and events to keep the project going. Several donors gave thousands of dollars each to ensure the survival of this irreplaceable instrument. The new goal was to get the organ up and running for the 100th anniversary Homecoming service in September of 2025. Surely a year of work would do the trick!

Still, every repair revealed more trouble. By July, we were told that we needed a phase 3 electrician to complete repairs. We scoured the region to find an electrician with that particular expertise. When we found him, we learned that we needed some specialty parts, and they would take eight weeks to be delivered. The news came only four weeks before the Homecoming service! A prayer request went out to the congregation.

But the Lord works in mysterious ways. We knew a guy. Mark Young works in Texas (he and Tracy go back and forth to tend to their jobs), but he was here for his daughter Bailee's wedding when we got the news. Mark is an engineer with nationwide contacts, so he was able to locate all the rare parts we needed, and coordinated with the phase 3 electrician to get them here in three days instead of eight weeks! It was expensive, but you don't do 98% of a project and then quit at the end zone.

With only a couple of weeks to go, the organ was again playable, but some of the keys were sticking. I made jokes about squirting some WD-40 into them, but a tuner from DC Schroth was already scheduled to come tune the instrument and he saw to the problem just in time. That's how the 99-year-old pipe organ was able to make such beautiful music for the Lord and for people who'd traveled from all over to attend the Homecoming service.

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But what if prayers aren't answered in the way we want? Any time a delay in organ repair was announced, I would say "We'll just have to sing louder." Sure, I was trying to assuage some of the disappointment, but it also ties into the way we worship. We want to provide beautiful music for our Lord, but we also want that music to include everyone in the experience. Worship doesn't require beautiful music, just a "joyful noise."

Sometimes God has a different plan from the one we envision. In 1818, the organ at St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, Austria, was not working after it had been soaked in a flood. Christmas was approaching- what would they do for music? Assistant priest Joseph Mohr pulled out a poem he had written two years earlier, and on Christmas Eve, he walked three miles to the next village to ask his friend Franz Xaver Gruber, an organist, to write music for it that could be performed with just a guitar and singing voices. And it had to be ready for Midnight Mass. Gruber had a tune composed in just a few hours, barely enough time for the singers to go over it, but the song was performed at Midnight Mass, and it went over well. That's quite an understatement. In English, the title of the song is "Silent Night."

Some say when God closes a door, He opens a window. We must always be ready to see the opportunity in a window, because great things may come of it.

Join us for our annual Christmas Organ Concert on December first at 7PM. Thanks to Bobbie Mitchell, who contributed greatly to this story.