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The Rev. George Lower is pictured outside his home on Wednesday, March 28, 2026, in Springville.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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The Springville Community Presbyterian Church is pictured.

Courtesy Emily Lower

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The Rev. George Lower has met countless individuals throughout his global ministry, from Anchorage, Alaska, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but none are more recognizable than an ex-classmate from more than 60 years ago.

While a student at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in the early 1960s, Lower shared a Hebrew class with Fred Rogers — the host of the renowned children’s television show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

Sitting inside his Springville home on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, two days prior to Mister Rogers Day on Friday, 94-year-old Lower can happily recount the memories of being study buddies with an American icon.

“He was just such a wonderful person. Everybody just loved him,” Lower recalled. “And it was just so special, and his ministry was so unique, because it was children’s television, and that wasn’t done in those days. There wasn’t anything like that.”

Studying Hebrew together

“Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” ran nationally for 33 years, from 1968 to 2001. Before he started the show, Rogers worked in children’s programming locally in Pittsburgh while also attending the seminary in preparation to become a Presbyterian minister.

During their time at the seminary, Lower remembers Rogers’ life circumstances varied from his own. Rogers was married, had children and was working full time while taking a low class load at the seminary. Meanwhile, Lower, a native of the Philadelphia area who chose to pursue the ministry following a stint in the business world and a two-year service in the Army, was a single man completely dedicated to his studies.

Despite the differences, Lower said the two were study partners. Rogers would come up to campus on days of Hebrew class, and prior to class, they would find an empty room on campus and open up the Old Testament. Lower particularly remembers reading the Book of Ruth in Hebrew.

“We’d studied so we knew it because we were called on by the teacher to translate, and boy, if you didn’t know it, you felt like a jerk,” Lower said.

Who was better at speaking the ancient language? Lower was, according to himself, because he could put more time into studying than Rogers.

“I got a 98 on my final exam,” he said.

When it came to overall talent, though, Rogers was hard to beat. Lower said Rogers overcame a number of health problems growing up and was in great physical shape, swimming on a daily basis. He also described him as a talented musician and pianist.

Lower believes Rogers’ greatest attribute was how he treated individual people — something he learned from and applied to his own ministry.

“Fundamentally, just loving people as they are and accepting them as they are. That was so important,” Lower said. “So many people have trouble accepting themselves. They think they’re different. And he just always said, ‘I just love you the way you are, the way you’ve been created.’ He just affirmed people as they were. And to me, that was his major message. It was being accepting of people.”

Lower’s own ministry

After marrying and serving as a pastor in Anchorage, then Edinburg, Pennsylvania, Lower moved to Springville to lead a small mission church.

While he would leave periodically on international mission trips, Springville would become home for his wife and three children, and later for him and his second wife following his first wife’s passing.

The Springville Community Presbyterian Church he presided over was first built in the 1800s to provide schooling for children in the community.

While serving as pastor, Lower had some memorable tales. He said the wildest one came when he married a couple at 8,000 feet in the air.

The best man of a wedding he had agreed to officiate happened to be a helicopter pilot, and the bride and groom decided they wanted to be married airborne next to Mount Timpanogos. So Lower, the best man, the bride, the groom and the maid of honor piled into a helicopter and took off from Heber Airport.

“They turned my seat in the front so I could face the back, and there was the bride, the groom and the maid of honor, and we had the service, and the pilot just hovered,” Lower said.

When the service ended, the helicopter returned to the airport, picked up the rest of the small wedding party and showed them where the marriage had taken place.

“That was one of my crazier weddings,” Lower said.

One of the most unique opportunities Lower had was to serve as a church minister to Protestant students at Brigham Young University.

“There used to be almost 1,000 Protestant students at BYU. … But then so many (LDS Church) members wanted to go there, and here all these Protestants were taking all these spots, so the church decided, we just can’t accept all these Protestant and Catholic students anymore.”

While he was there, Lower said he was given a list of who the Protestant students were and where they lived. He received an office on campus to meet with students and held Sunday night programs at local churches.

One time, he invited the BYU president at the time, Jeffrey R. Holland, to speak to the group, and Holland obliged.

“He said, ‘Oh, I’d be happy to come,'” Lower said. “‘I’m the president for all the students, not just the LDS students.’ He came and he had a nice talk, and he said, ‘I just care about each one of you. I’m so glad you’re here at our university.’

“And I’ll always remember him, because he always had a great memory. Because whenever I would see him on campus, he’d say, ‘Hi George, how are you?'”

As pastor, Lower oversaw a number of community initiatives, including Narcotics Anonymous, a 12-step program at the church. His daughter, Emily Lower, said it is now the longest-running program in the state, and the church also runs six additional 12-step programs.

Now, the church congregation has 20 to 30 people, said Emily Lower, who is the church’s office manager.

“When Dad was the pastor it was bigger, but all the Protestant churches were bigger, so they’re just small right now,” Emily Lower said. “So it just feels like a little family. It’s one of the friendliest churches you’ll go to.”

Through an impressive career, Lower lived up to the teachings of his dear friend and was loving, accepting and a neighbor to all.