The Good Life – November-December 2015

“
The organ
has such a
wonderful sound
that when it plays,
you can’t help but
be inspired.
— Lance Johnson
Lance E. Johnson has had a somewhat
unique career. As the founder of a
family business who also boasts the
title of “The WurliTzer Man,” he’s a
well-known institution in the Fargo-
Moorhead area.
Even though he first set out to be an
electrical engineer back in his college
days, he found his true calling as an
organ builder and organist.
Johnson, owner of Johnson Organ
Company, and his son, who is the
owner of Johnson Organ Services,
have now installed and serviced pipe
organs in six states and band organs in
20 states.
‘I fell in love with it’
When Johnson was about four years
old, he asked his parents if he could
sit behind the organist at Bethlehem
Lutheran Church in Fergus Falls,
Minn., so he could better hear her
play, and after that they always sat in
the front pew. His parents gave him a
reed organ for Christmas when he was
15 years old, and later he also gained
an interest in pipe organs.
In 1954 when he was 16, he founded
Johnson Organ Company. In 1958 he
bought an old pipe organ from WDAY
studios, which had been in storage.
In 1963 he sold it to a roller rink in
Moorhead, which is now the location
of a Hardee’s, and he played there for
10 years.
He graduated from Concordia College
in Moorhead as an organ major in
1964. But before he decided on the
organ, he studied electric engineering
for a few years at North Dakota State
University (NDSU).
At first he didn’t see a future in being
a pipe organ builder or organist, but
when the main organ builder and
servicer near Fargo died in 1958,
Johnson stepped up and worked to
make it into a career.
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