Donated baby grand piano replaces one lost in Perryville tornado

FOX23 News at 9 p.m.

PERRYVILLE, Mo. (KBSI) — Nearly two years after a tornado damaged Perryville High School and destroyed a piano students spent years fundraising for, music is once again coming from a baby grand inside the choir classroom.

Perry County School District 32 received the donated piano through Pianos for People, a St. Louis-based nonprofit that rehomes donated pianos.

For Taylor Kluender, director of choral activities at Perry County School District 32, the donation replaces more than an instrument. The original baby grand represented years of work by a choir program that has grown significantly during her seven years with the district.

Kluender said her largest class had only about five or six students when she first started. As the program grew, students raised money through fundraisers including chocolate bar and lollipop sales to purchase the baby grand.

“It has a lot of sentimental meaning to past students who’ve now graduated, current students who were a part of getting it,” Kluender said.

That piano was lost when a tornado hit Perryville High School in March 2024.

Kluender said rain entered her classroom along with sludge and insulation. The piano eventually rusted and could not be salvaged.

While the school recovered, the choir program had to find other places to make music.

“I was teaching in an elementary cafeteria, a middle school cafeteria. I was teaching in a parking lot at one point,” Kluender said. “I was teaching a lot of different places on an electric piano that we moved around on a cart.”

Kluender said students became accustomed to moving the electric piano wherever they needed it.

“The kids got really used to lifting it up on the cart and off the cart, but we made it work because we wanted to make music anywhere we could,” she said.

Even after renovations allowed Kluender to return to her original classroom, the program continued using the electric piano because the baby grand had never been replaced.

Kluender said an administrative assistant began searching for organizations that could help and found Pianos for People. The district submitted a letter explaining the tornado damage.

“We wrote up a request, a school letter that said, ‘Hey, this is our situation. We lost our piano. This is how many students this affects,’” Kluender said.

The school was selected to receive one of the nonprofit’s donated pianos.

The replacement comes as the choir program now serves hundreds of students across the high school and middle school.

Kluender said the piano will also help students prepare for upcoming solo and ensemble competitions. Students will be able to rehearse on an instrument similar to the pianos they encounter at competitions and while working with professional musicians.

For Kluender, its return also sends a broader message about the value of fine arts education.

“Getting this piano says, ‘Hey, this is important. This is something you should put your time towards,’” Kluender said. “This teaches you real life skills. This, you know, it feeds into the support and the wonderful skills that kids learn. Not just music, but everything else in the fine arts.”

Kluender said students were already applauding and celebrating as the piano was brought into the school.

She said the support is another sign of how much the choir program has grown — and how strongly the Perryville community has supported it through the recovery.

“We’re looking forward to the future, and we really appreciate the support that we received from everyone in the community,” Kluender said.