St. Paul UMC - Goldsboro

North Carolina, USA

St. Paul UMC is a church whose search for a new organ to replace their 1982 custom Allen began in 1999. Bob Daffer flew the organist to Miami to see several custom hybrid organs installed by Central Music as well a the Ruffatti pipe organ at Church of the Epiphany. It was clear that the organist at that time had a strong desire for a pipe organ as his first choice and a hybrid as his second.  We arranged for Francesco Ruffatti to visit the church in order that his company might prepare a proposal for a pipe organ.

As time went by, faces changed and a new committee was formed and another pipe organ company entered the picture. By the mid 2000s, a decision was reached to purchase a new Casavant pipe organ.  Raising the money for the organ was not much of a problem but the additional $1 million to renovate the Sanctuary to accept the new organ was just not something the congregation could get fully behind.

At this point, the organist moved on to another church and the project went dormant. It was learned in late 2010 that the project was again alive and that the proposal for the Casavant had been tabled. There was a new organist who joined with another member of the congregation to resume the new search and Rodgers was back in the running along with Allen. We took the committee to see three Rodgers hybrid organs in N.C. and S.C., along with the large Ruffatti we installed in Charlotte, N.C.

By the summer of 2011, the decision was made to purchase a new custom Rodgers four manual organ with 10 ranks of new Ruffatti pipe. The new organ would include 16 channels of audio in the front chamber and four channels for the antiphonal that would be mounted behind 85 facades pipes by Ruffatti. Felix Hell performed the dedication concert May 13, 2012. 

Al Murrell, Vice President and Salesman, R. A. Daffer Church Organs, Inc.
Bob Daffer, President, R. A. Daffer Church Organs, Inc.