PHOTOS by Kathy Dickson and Jamie Nygaard. Click to enlarge and view at your own pace.
By Benji Bergstrand
Each fall for nearly eight decades, Dick Boehr has reached for his Messiah song book to begin preparations to sing George Frideric Handel’s venerated oratorio performed annually at Bluffton College/Bluffton University. It never gets old for him. “As soon as you touch that Messiah book and feel how worn it is, you kind of get an emotional high,” Boehr said. “Things start to come back to you about the whole story of Christ’s birth and resurrection.”
The plain black book, well-worn and clearly well-loved, isn’t even Boehr’s first Messiah book. During his incredible over three-quarters of a century run, Boehr estimates that he has worn out three previous Messiah song books. His first book would have come from his father John or his Aunt Elizabeth.
It was Elizabeth who first led the family to Bluffton when she moved to become a professor at Bluffton College in 1918, and she started the family tradition of singing in the Messiah. Boehr recalls his aunt’s musical interests fondly. “If there would’ve been singing, she would’ve sung it,” he said.
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