A half century of hymns

By Kevin O Brien

For Mark Schroeder, the balcony at Trinity Lutheran Church in Athens is a something of a second home. With his beloved pipe organ and upright piano just a few feet apart, Schroeder is surrounded on all sides by music, whether it’s hardcover hymnals or loose sheets of songs.

For the past half-centuiy, Schroeder has been providing the soundtrack for worship at Trinity Lutheran Church, playing at services every Saturday and Sunday and at weddings and funerals for generations of parishioners.

At a special worship service on Nov. 17, Schroeder, 65, was honored for his 50 years of service as the church’s organist. I laving started as a substitute organist when he was just 15, Schroeder played his first-ever worship service on Sunday, April 28, 1974. Eight years later, on May 1, 1982, he was named the church’s official organist, a role he has held ever since.

At the end of the Nov. 17 service, after Schroeder performed a piece from “Fantasia On the Old 100th,” Pastor Mark Schwarze remarked on Schroeder’s penchant for showing up before him every week to joyfully perform for a service at the Athenian Assisted Living Community. “When the Bible talks about serving the Lord with gladness, that’s Mark,” Schwarze said. “So, I’m thankful for him.”

The parishioners’ appreciation for Schroeder’s decades of dedication was something he felt right away on that special Sunday in November.

“Some people hugged me before the service,” he said, smiling.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, when he was playing the postlude, people stayed

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THE MAN BEHIND THE MUSIC - Mark Schroeder, head organist at Trinity Lutheran Church in Athens, was recently honored by the congregation for his 50 years of service to the church photo bychris kepner Schroeder

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in the pews to listen to the full song rather than leave as he was playing. After the service, he and others enjoyed a special marble cake with a treble clef sign made with frosting.

“Oh my goodness. It was just amazing,” he said.

Born in Wausau on Jan. 12, 1959, Schroeder eventually moved to Athens with his family and started taking piano lessons when he was 10 years old. Two ladies, Delores Schmidt and Darlene Dietrich, took turns giving him lessons at the church, and he also took music classes as a student at Athens High School.

At some point, he also took organ lessons at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church.

“There is a big difference,” he said about the piano and the pipe organ, which has two row of keys (known as “manuals”) and a vast array of buttons, switches, pedals, toe studs, and pistons used to create the rich melodies familiar to church-goers.

Schroeder enjoys exploring and tinkering with the different controls on the pipe organ, which has the ability to create up to 320 combinations of tones and timbre.

“I really like the different sounds,” he said.

When asked about his first time playing in front of the congregation when he was just 15, Schroeder said he doesn’t remember being nervous, but he definitely recalls the exhilaration he felt when he was named the head organist less than decade later on May 1, 1982.

“I was like ‘yes!” he said. “I was really excited.”

Besides serving as the head organist at Trinity Lutheran, Schroeder has also played piano for student singers at Athens Middle/ High School for the past four decades.

“This is my 40th year as the accompanist up there,” he said. “It doesn’t seem possible, but it’s the truth.”

Another 50-year milestone he observed this year was with the Athens Old Timers Band, where he plays trumpet. He also knows how to play the Clavinova and the Yamaha digital piano.

But, compared to his work at Trinity Lutheran, those are just side gigs.

During his 50th-year commemoration, he was asked to pick six of his favorite songs to play. He chose “Praise To the Lord, the Almighty,” “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven,” along with three communion hymns – “Draw Near and Take the Body of the Lord,” “I Come, O Savior, To Thy Table,” and “Lord Jesus Christ, We Humbly Pray.” The closing hymn was “The Lord, My God, Be Praised.”

Attending the service were several of his family members, including his brother, Allen and Allen’s wife Shari, along with his niece, Chelsea, and nephew, Eric. Schroeder also has an older brother, David, and a sister, Kathie.

A livestream of the service, which is available on YouTube, opens with Schroeder at the organ console, meticulously reading the sheet music and running his fingers across the keys as people can be heard settling into to the pews. At the end of the service, Schroeder speaks to the congregation about the history and technical aspects of the church’s organ, which was made by M.P. Moller in Hagerstown, Maryland.

“It is a beautiful-sounding instrument,” he said.

One of his most cherished memories from his years as the church organist came in April of 1991, when the organ was given a muchneeded overhaul. “It was just getting to the point where it wasn’t sounding so great,” he said.

Schroeder said a repairman spent over a week taking the instrument apart and replacing the pedals and the console and adding a ninth rank of pipes.

“I was the first one to see the updated version of the console,” he said “It was just so amazing.”

MUSICAL MATRIARCHS - Mark Schroeder poses for a picture with Delores Schmidt, left, one of his childhood piano teachers, and Ellen Czech, a retired elementary school teacher at Trinity Lutheran School. PHOTO BY CHRIS KEPNER