Mark is a retired music educator whose 30 year teaching career includes stops at Wichita County High School, Arizona State University, Ottawa High School, Central Junior High School, Lawrence High School, Pinckney Elementary School and South Junior High/South Middle School. Mark currently serves as Chancel Choir Director of First Baptist Lawrence. He has served as choir director, off and on, since 1991. Mark is married to Stephanie Renee (Janzen) Robinson, a retired elementary school music teacher. They have two beautiful adult children, Corbin and Claire.
Mark Robinson
Evelyn Falen
Evelyn has lived in Kansas her entire life, but in four different parts of the Sunflower State. She was born near Parsons, went to college in Lawrence, and lived in Dodge City and Marysville before moving back to Lawrence in 1998. She has been a church musician since she was 13 and has taught piano since her high school days. She has served First Baptist Church as organist/pianist since 1998.
Evelyn loves teaching piano and she loves dogs—she currently has a Corgi (Ely) and a Corgi/Mini Australian Shepherd (Auggie). Evelyn is a member of Lawrence Music Club and has been chairman of their Junior Festival (Lawrence) for 20 years. She also is currently co-president of Lawrence Accredited Music Teachers Association. Evelyn has two daughters and five grandchildren, who live around the world.
Holly Grassy
Holly Grassy is originally from Towanda—a quaint town near Wichita, which is not a particularly interesting place to be from, except that it is home to a high school having one of the few fully circular buildings in the country when it was built (aptly named “Circle High”). Holly came to Lawrence as a KU student and was drawn in by the charms of the town and decided to stay. A graduate of KU’s Liberal Arts School, she has a B.A. in English Literature. After working for a local software company, and then a brief stint in a start-up company as an HR manager, she came to First Baptist in 1999 as the Office Manager and then began working as the bookkeeper part-time in 2003 after her second child was born. Holly is an avid KU Basketball fan, enjoys reading, hunting around on iTunes, baking and cooking for friends and family, and spending time with her three boys and husband Patrick.
Dr. Christy Miller
Christy Miller, FBC’s instrumentalist for the 8:38 a.m. worship service, is a Kansas native and folk music historian with a special penchant for mid-century American folk music. She is Executive Director of Americana Music Academy in Lawrence, and holds a doctorate degree in Musicology from the University of Kansas. Her research has taken her to archives throughout the US and England. A 2015 BMI Woody Guthrie Fellowship allowed her to spend weeks neck-deep in Woody Guthrie’s personal papers and unpublished writings and lyrics, and she has presented her work as part of numerous local and national conferences and publications.
Christy is also an experienced and passionate teacher: she has twenty years of piano teaching experience and has taught collegiate courses at William Jewell College and the University of Kansas. She is the co-founder of Piano Detectives Club, a beginning piano curriculum for children. She is driven by the belief that music is for everyone. Christy also collaborates with FBC’s pastors in planning the 8:38 worship service.