Meet Our Staff
Pastor: Dr. Peg Falls-Corbitt

Dr. Peg Falls-Corbitt lives in Conway with her husband of thirty-four years Doug Corbitt. Becoming a Presbyterian pastor is Peg’s second career. Her first was teaching college. Peg holds the title of Distinguished Professor Emerita of Philosophy from Hendrix College where she taught from 1987 to her retirement spring 2021. Doug is also a philosopher. (In fact, they met when both were teaching at St. Mary’s College at Notre Dame, IN in 1986.) Doug teaches in the Honors College of the University of Central Arkansas. They have two daughters, Annie who is in philosophy graduate school at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and Jeannie who is a Presbyterian minister in Grace Presbytery (Texas). While Peg and Doug have clearly passed onto their children a love of academic study, teaching, and service through the church, the family also shares a strong passion for the outdoors, especially hiking in U.S. National Parks. The family has hiked together in every National Park on the US mainland west of the Mississippi and have also hiked National Parks in Hawaii and Alaska. The hobby Peg loves but can’t seem to generate equal enthusiasm for among the rest of the family is reading or watching murder mysteries, especially those situated on the British Isles or countries in the British Commonwealth.
Peg grew up in Wynne, AR, nurtured in the faith from her earliest days by the loving congregation of Wynne Presbyterian Church and by a large extended family that, going back several generations, is peopled with a good share of Presbyterian preachers, elders, and deacons. It was a family and a church that encouraged the strong use of the mind in understanding one’s call to faithful discipleship, so when Peg discovered philosophy as an undergraduate at Rhodes College (then Southwestern at Memphis) majoring in that field seemed very much apiece with her faith journey. From Rhodes she went to Vanderbilt University, receiving her M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy but also rounding out her studies in that department with several classes at Vanderbilt Divinity School.
Electing to teach at church-related liberal arts colleges was another way that Peg found it meaningful to weave together her faith and philosophical commitments. Prior to returning to Arkansas to teach at Hendrix, which is related to the United Methodist church, Peg taught at Graceland College, a college in Lamoni, Iowa connected to the Reorganized Latter-Day Saints as well as St. Mary’s, which is Roman Catholic. Her recent election to the Austin Presbyterian Seminary Board of Trustees feels to Peg as an extension of this enduring commitment to spaces and places where academic study and the life of faith and Christian discipleship intersect.
While teaching at Hendrix, Peg also served as the college’s Director of the Miller Center for Vocation, Ethics, and Calling and as the Associate Provost for Engaged Learning. In these positions she developed programs and curricula that immersed students and faculty in learning outside the classroom in the U.S. and abroad. She designed and led workshops, mission trips, and service internships focused on helping students explore their “calling,” or what they wanted to do in life and how that related to their ethical values and faith commitments.
Wherever her academic career has taken her, Peg followed a sense of call to leadership in the church. She was ordained a ruling elder when in Iowa and a deacon while living in Indiana. Her primary activities as an elder at First Presbyterian Conway have centered on its mission programs related to hunger and food insecurity and on teaching many adult (and some youth) education classes. She has taught New Officer Training classes as well as Bible studies and topical classes on Reformed Theology and on the church and social issues. At the Presbytery level, Peg has served on the Future of the Church and Mission Committees and is a co-facilitator of the Presbytery’s Task Force on the Matthew 25 Initiative. She has led three theological discussions at Presbytery meetings: “The Church in Civil Discourse,” “Politics in the Church,” and “Matthew 25 and Eradicating Poverty.”
Whether God was calling her to quite a different level of leadership in the church—that of pastoring a church—Peg has long pondered. She moved from just wondering if it were so to preparing for the answer to be yes by, first, completing the online courses for Austin Seminary’s Certificate of Ministry over a three-year period, 2018 – 2020. Retirement from Hendrix was the next step in her discernment process, ending one well-loved career to see if, in the time that opened up, God would be calling her forth into another. The unexpected third step in the discernment process came when the Pastor Nominating Committee of First Presbyterian Morrilton reached out. Conversations were held; a sense of fellowship in the Spirit developed as Peg grew to know and appreciate the Morrilton congregations’ long history of faithful discipleship and mission. In those conversations seemed to be a whisper of the Spirit’s “Yes” to her following a new career. Peg now serves in ministry with the congregation of First Presbyterian Morrilton.
Peg grew up in Wynne, AR, nurtured in the faith from her earliest days by the loving congregation of Wynne Presbyterian Church and by a large extended family that, going back several generations, is peopled with a good share of Presbyterian preachers, elders, and deacons. It was a family and a church that encouraged the strong use of the mind in understanding one’s call to faithful discipleship, so when Peg discovered philosophy as an undergraduate at Rhodes College (then Southwestern at Memphis) majoring in that field seemed very much apiece with her faith journey. From Rhodes she went to Vanderbilt University, receiving her M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy but also rounding out her studies in that department with several classes at Vanderbilt Divinity School.
Electing to teach at church-related liberal arts colleges was another way that Peg found it meaningful to weave together her faith and philosophical commitments. Prior to returning to Arkansas to teach at Hendrix, which is related to the United Methodist church, Peg taught at Graceland College, a college in Lamoni, Iowa connected to the Reorganized Latter-Day Saints as well as St. Mary’s, which is Roman Catholic. Her recent election to the Austin Presbyterian Seminary Board of Trustees feels to Peg as an extension of this enduring commitment to spaces and places where academic study and the life of faith and Christian discipleship intersect.
While teaching at Hendrix, Peg also served as the college’s Director of the Miller Center for Vocation, Ethics, and Calling and as the Associate Provost for Engaged Learning. In these positions she developed programs and curricula that immersed students and faculty in learning outside the classroom in the U.S. and abroad. She designed and led workshops, mission trips, and service internships focused on helping students explore their “calling,” or what they wanted to do in life and how that related to their ethical values and faith commitments.
Wherever her academic career has taken her, Peg followed a sense of call to leadership in the church. She was ordained a ruling elder when in Iowa and a deacon while living in Indiana. Her primary activities as an elder at First Presbyterian Conway have centered on its mission programs related to hunger and food insecurity and on teaching many adult (and some youth) education classes. She has taught New Officer Training classes as well as Bible studies and topical classes on Reformed Theology and on the church and social issues. At the Presbytery level, Peg has served on the Future of the Church and Mission Committees and is a co-facilitator of the Presbytery’s Task Force on the Matthew 25 Initiative. She has led three theological discussions at Presbytery meetings: “The Church in Civil Discourse,” “Politics in the Church,” and “Matthew 25 and Eradicating Poverty.”
Whether God was calling her to quite a different level of leadership in the church—that of pastoring a church—Peg has long pondered. She moved from just wondering if it were so to preparing for the answer to be yes by, first, completing the online courses for Austin Seminary’s Certificate of Ministry over a three-year period, 2018 – 2020. Retirement from Hendrix was the next step in her discernment process, ending one well-loved career to see if, in the time that opened up, God would be calling her forth into another. The unexpected third step in the discernment process came when the Pastor Nominating Committee of First Presbyterian Morrilton reached out. Conversations were held; a sense of fellowship in the Spirit developed as Peg grew to know and appreciate the Morrilton congregations’ long history of faithful discipleship and mission. In those conversations seemed to be a whisper of the Spirit’s “Yes” to her following a new career. Peg now serves in ministry with the congregation of First Presbyterian Morrilton.
Music Director: Nita Herrick-Brewster
Nita received her BMED in 1966 from the University of Central Missouri, and her MED in 1969 from the University of Missouri. She taught high school choir and private voice lessons in Missouri for several years before relocating to Texas, and later Arkansas. In 1976 she joined the music faculty of Arkansas Tech University, teaching voice and directing Opera Workshop until retirement in 2010. From 1979 to 1989 she studied voice privately at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock. In 1989 she became the Music Director of FPC. She has performed with the Arkansas River Valley Community Theater, and as a Resident Artist with the Arkansas Opera Theater in Little Rock. As a member of the National Association of Teachers Singing she served as the Southern Region Governor and chaired the 2004 National Convention.
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Secretary/Bookkeeper: Erin Sommers
Our secretary Erin was born and raised in Morrilton. She has worked at FPC since February of 2021. She has two children, Kade and Khloe, who are the joys of her life. When not at the church she likes to read, go to concerts and plays, go on scenic drives, and spend time with her family and friends.
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