At 10:30 morning worship this Sunday, August 3, 2008, Tyrone Presbyterians will host Reverend Norman Huff and soloist Eileen Kough Mitchell, as they lead the congregation in the hymns of Bucknell President Robert Lowry.
With Pastor Mark Liller on a 300th anniversary tour to Germany with the Church of the Brethren, Reverend Norman Huff will lead worship and deliver a message entitled, “The Real Miracle,” based on Christ’s feeding of the 5,000. Huff serves as interim pastor at Lower Spruce Creek Presbyterian.
In addition to Reverend Huff, guest musician Eileen Kough Mitchell will offer two soprano solos – “Lord Make Me An Instrument Of Your Place” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” In the autumn of 1982, Mrs. Mitchell sang Waring’s favorite, “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” when Tyrone citizens unveiled the monument to Fred Waring on the front lawn of Lincoln School.
For many years, Mitchell has worked as Director of Choral Music at Juniata Valley High School in nearby Alexandria. She also serves as Minister of Music at Tyrone’s Church of the Good Shepherd. A 1975 graduate of Tyrone, Mitchell earned her bachelor and masters degrees from Penn State.
To enhance her musicianship, Mrs. Mitchell spent two summers studying voice and choreography with Fred Waring, in the early 1980’s, at Waring’s summer workshops at Penn State. For five summers, she also conducted her Juniata Valley music students to Waring music workshops at East Stroudsburg University, near Waring’s home at Shawnee on the Delaware.
Both Reverend Huff and Eileen Mitchell will lead the audience in singing three hymns by Robert Lowry. Lowry lived from 1826 to 1899.
He distinguished himself as a Baptist preacher, hymn composer, and both professor and president of Bucknell University, in nearby Lewisburg.
The audience will sing these three Lowry favorites – “Shall We Gather At The River” and “All The Way My Savior Leads Me.” They will end with these Lowry lyrics: “My life flows on in endless song, about earth’s lamentation/I hear the clear, though far off hymn, that hails a new creation/No storms can shake my inmost calm, while to the rock I’m clinging/Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?”
