Franklin Lynn Lusk
1929 - 2023
Franklin Lusk, a singer, conductor, and music administrator worked in eleven schools including seven in higher education during a career that spanned forty years.
Franklin was born in Albion, Michigan, the youngest of five children born to Walter Lee and Ruth Florence Ellis Lusk. He attended Bethel College in Mishawaka, Indiana, graduating in 1952. While attending BC, he married Betty Marie Kocher in 1950. They would have two children, Christine Marie, in 1953, and Diana Lynn in 1957.
Lusk returned to Bethel College in 1955, where he chaired the fine arts department for five years. In 1961 he became associate professor in of voice and choral music at Houghton College in Western New York. Following three years there and a graduate study leave, he became director of music and associate professor of music at Marion College, now Indiana Wesleyan University, in 1966, positions he held until 1973, when he accepted a position at Taylor University. During this time Betty completed a Master of Library Science Degree at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, in 1970.
In 1975, Lusk completed a Doctorate of Music degree with a voice performance major and minors in choral conducting and music history at Indiana University. That fall he became a member of the Andrews University music department, where he conducted the AU Singers, taught vocal literature, and gave voice lessons. During that time, the University Singers under his direction released a record, The Coming King, which featured arrangements and original compositions by two AU faculty members. The Singers under Lusk\\'s direction also did a 23-day tour to seven of the Caribbean Islands in December 1977.
Lusk accepted a position as Director of Vocal Music at Forest Lake Academy in Florida in 1979, where he worked for the next five years. In 1984, he accepted an invitation to chair the music program and direct choral activities at Helderberg College in South Africa, a position he held for the next five years. In the liner for a CD released in 2000 by the college, A Millennium Celebration, that included recordings of its choirs through the years, it was noted that Lusk, "having conducted all ranges of of choral ensembles from a cappella to to major oratorios with full orchestral accompaniment, brought a rich background in vocal music to Helderberg College."
In his last year in South Africa he was Vice Rector for Academics at Bethel College in the Transkei, an Adventist College located north of Cape Town. During that year he also taught a general music class with an enrollment of 350 students.
When he returned to the U.S. in 1990, he taught in the Edinburgh, Texas, public school system for six years before retiring to Sun City West, Arizona, in 2004. In 1997 he was one of three former Bethel College choral directors invited to conduct a choir of 200 formed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the school. Lusk was also honored by his alma mater with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002.
He was living in Texas, when he died on May 19, 2023. He was survived by his wife, and daughters.
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Sources: Information provided by Franklin Lusk, August 2011; 1930 U.S. Federal Census records; Lake Union Herald, 23 September 1975, 16; 25 November 1975, 16; Rita Waterman, "Carols in the Caribbean," Lake Union Herald, 15 November 1977, 4, 5; Winter 2000 and Fall 2002 issues of Bethel College Alumni Magazine.