FEATURE STORY

First Presbyterian's pipe organ is undergoing restoration work. (Photo courtesy of Lucas Strough)

Historic Kilgore Pipe Organ

undergoing repairs after winter storm

BY LUCAS STROUGH lstrough@kilgorenewsherald.com

At the start of 2021, most folks in Kilgore were looking forward to the new year ahead, hoping and praying it would be better than the last. Many hoped for a return to normalcy after the chaotic nature of 2020.

In January of this year, Lorenz Maycher, founding director of East Texas Pipe Organ Festival “began tentatively scheduling this year’s festival and had most of our artists lined up and matched with their instruments very early on.”

The festival, like many other events in 2020, opted for a reduced online schedule in November — and organizers and patrons alike were excited about a return to an in-person festival.

Also in January, the 1949 Aeolian-Skinner, Opus 1173 organ at First Presbyterian Church, a renowned instrument which is the flagship organ of the festival, was removed for long overdue restoration and re-leathering work, with the plan that the organ would be returned in early summer and playable for an in-person festival in November.

Then, in the middle of February, a record-breaking winter storm smashed into the southern U.S., dumping inches of snow and ice across Texas. The storm ground Kilgore to a halt until first responders were able to clear roads and direct traffic. As the clean-up began, people began to discover the extent of the damage the storm caused.

“As a result (of the storm), the pedal chamber at First Presbyterian Kilgore suffered substantial structural damage,” Maycher said in June, adding that, at the time, it was unknown when the repairs would be complete.

By late July, progress on the restoration project was well underway, with workers carefully removing and storing thousands of decades-old organ pipes, taking pains to avoid damaging the hand-tuned instruments.

Gala Strunk, organist and choirmaster at First Presbyterian, explained the project was intended to fix any issues with the

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