Longtime Liberty employee serves with heart, soul, and a lot of sawdust
If you have spent any time on Liberty University’s campus, you’ve seen the handiwork of Dave Morgan. From the law school’s replica Supreme Courtroom, with its bench and lectern fashioned out of mahogany from Africa, to the wood beams, cross, and doors in Worley Prayer Chapel; the window-style mirrors and entrance doors in DeMoss Hall’s Grand Lobby; and so many beautiful handmade desks and tables, the university is a treasure trove of Morgan’s custom woodworking projects over the past 41 years.
Dave Morgan supervises one of his staff as he puts the finishing touches on a pulpit. (Photo by Jessie Jordan)
When a former employee told him that his fingerprint is literally all over campus, Morgan said, “I never thought about it that way.” He retired on June 1, leaving a legacy at Liberty as he and the staff of 17 woodworkers he oversaw have advanced the university’s mission through their craftsmanship.
The functionality of the custom wooden works of art, some Morgan made with his own hands and some he planned and designed, is often subtle, like the acoustical ceiling panels that enhance the sound in the Tower Theater and display cases for trophies. Morgan’s team has supplied departments with vital storage spaces over the years: equipment cabinets in the School of Nursing, instrument cases in the School of Music, and the hundreds of lockers that serve Liberty’s student-athletes.
“The things that are interesting to me or the attention-getters probably aren’t as important as the fact that we did smart podiums, classroom tables, bookcases, and things like that, because they’re used day by day by day,” Morgan said. “They’re the things that are really making an impact, but they aren’t glitzy.”
Morgan and his cabinetry team created the reception desk in the School of Aeronautics in DeMoss Hall to look like the fuselage of a commercial airplane with the overhead lighting a replica of a biplane wing. (Photo by Jessie Jordan)
The creativity and attention to detail shine through in many projects, like a biplane wing replica that hangs over the reception desk for the School of Aeronautics and the ornate frames on paintings portraying scenes from Christ’s life and death in the Montview Student Union, Alumni Ballroom.
Reflecting on the mountain of projects Morgan and his staff have completed, he said it is clear that his time at Liberty was divinely orchestrated.
Morgan moved with his wife, Kathy, from central Pennsylvania to Lynchburg in July 1981 so he could study residentially at the Liberty Bible Institute, later named the Willmington School of the Bible. After completing his two-year certificate, he enrolled in Liberty (then Liberty Baptist College) as a business major.
But he quickly realized his calling was to be a woodworker, not a pastor, evangelist, or businessman. He had experience from two woodworking jobs in Pennsylvania and had done a lot of reading to learn more about the craft.
Lockers, desks, and podiums are staples of Morgan’s work around campus. (Photo by Chase Gyles)
“When I was hired at Liberty, I wasn’t thinking this was a long-term situation,” Morgan said. “I was thinking of finishing school and getting out of here. But we did so many special events, and the whole thing has evolved. I’ve told several people that I feel that I was put here (by God). There are a lot of guys that can do what I do, have more knowledge, and are better at it. I was privileged to be here. I feel it was my calling.”
Morgan actually launched his construction career at “The Old Time Gospel Hour,” the television ministry of Thomas Road Baptist Church, where Liberty founder Dr. Jerry Falwell was the founding pastor.
“When they were doing a lot of television (evangelism) here in the late ’80s and early ’90s, we did a lot of sets for the ‘Old Time Gospel Hour,’” Morgan said, noting he worked on the offices and a handful of pulpits used by Falwell over the years.
He and his crew also built sets for 22 consecutive productions of TRBC’s annual “Virginia Christmas Spectacular” — including its Living Christmas Tree, a multi-tiered platform bespeckled with flashing lights for its chorus to perch in — and the sets for several Liberty theatre arts productions, including “Big River,” “My Fair Lady,” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”
The Liberty Cabinet shop is currently located in the former Liberty Christian Academy gym. (Photo by Jessie Jordan)
Morgan’s workshop has relocated multiple times over the past four decades as the campus grew and the staff handled more challenging requests. For the last 12 years, the team has worked out of the old Lynchburg Christian Academy gymnasium (next to the original TRBC).
“When I was hired, the shop consisted of a 10-inch table saw and a 10-inch radial arm saw and that was it,” he said. “The shop has been expanding, getting bigger and bigger, and now, considering that we’re 2,500 square feet with CNC (computer numerical control) machinery, we’ve come a long way, and we’re more and more involved than we used to be.”
In the earlier days, Morgan did a lot of work himself, but as campus and his cabinetry crew expanded, his expertise was called on for the planning and design phases. He held meetings with departments across the university to assess their needs.
Morgan remembers being told about a master plan of campus from the early 1980s that outlined Falwell’s vision.
“Everybody kind of laughed; you know like, ‘We’ll never accomplish it. It’s too much,’” Morgan recalled. “Sometime in the early 2000s, we reviewed the plan, and all but one building was in place.”
Morgan said the fulfillment of Falwell’s original vision, evidence of God’s blessings on the university, has reaffirmed his faith.
The DeMoss Hall Grand Lobby mirrors, doors, and frameworks were created at the Liberty Cabinet Shop. (Photo by Jessie Jordan)
“Dr. Falwell had the vision, and it may not have surprised him (to see what it is today); it was pretty real to him,” he said. “To see what the campus is now compared to what it was when I first got here, with all the mud and a few buildings, it looks like a college campus now. For a lot of us, when things actually started falling into place, it was like, ‘Oh, this is real.’ It was like seeing the hand of Providence at work.”
Morgan said in the early years, Falwell often stopped by the workshop.
“He liked to be involved in construction,” Morgan said. “He was always visiting construction sites to see what was going on. He liked to be around things that were being built and going up.”
Looking back, Morgan said it was an honor to play a role in Falwell’s vision becoming reality.
“It’s nice to think you were a part of what was going on, that I had a small part in helping to get it accomplished,” Morgan said.
The Liberty School of Law Supreme Courtroom bench is a replica of the one in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Joel Coleman)
Woodworking is an art form, one that requires a tremendous amount of skill and patience, persistence to the point of perfectionism. However, as much as he looks to Jesus as the Author and Perfecter of his faith, Morgan has always been humble about his work and knows he is far from perfect.
“I’m nothing special, (but) I’m glad the Lord used me here,” he said. “There are some great people here, and that’s what makes Liberty great — people of faith, who abide by and live out their faith by the way they treat other people.”
Now that he has stepped down from full-time work, he leaves no regrets, but the sentiments are bittersweet.
“I have mixed feelings,” he admitted. “You can’t work someplace as long as I have and just walk away and think nothing of it. … I’d like to cut back, I’d like to have a little less stress, but on the other hand, I still enjoy what I do.”
He’ll be working part time for a while and says he’ll “probably piddle at home making things.” He’s looking forward to spending more time with Kathy and their three sons (two are Liberty graduates) and two grandchildren in Lynchburg.
Morgan and his team fashioned the cross and beams as well as the doors in the Worley Prayer Chapel, one of the longest-standing structures on Liberty University’s campus. (Photo by KJ Jugar)
