TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – “The Simpsons” writers this week killed off a character first introduced to the hit show 35 seasons ago.
On Sunday’s episode, the First Church of Springfield’s organist, Alice Glick, dropped dead in the middle of a sermon, according to PEOPLE and USA Today. A memorial was held at Springfield Elementary, where Principal Skinner said the “dead lady you’ve never met” had left her life savings for the school’s new music program.
The elderly woman, then voiced by the late Cloris Leachman, first appeared on “The Simpsons” in 1991. Tress MacNeille has been serving as the voice of Mrs. Glick in recent years.
This was not the first time Simpsons writers appeared to kill off Glick. Back in 2011, Glick was severely attacked by a Robopet, and appeared occasionally in later episodes as both a ghost and a living person.
A tally by WikiSimpsons shows Glick had appeared or been mentioned in more than 30 episodes across the life of the show, as well as “The Simpsons Movie” and “The Simpsons: Tapped Out” video game.
However, Sunday’s episode means it’s curtains for the longtime organist, according to the showrunners.
David Silverman, from left, Tress MacNeille, Al Jean and Matt Groening attend a panel for “The Simpsons” on day three of Comic-Con International on Saturday, July 21, 2018, in San Diego.(Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP) 
FILE – Cloris Leachman attends the premiere of “The Comedian” during the 2016 AFI Fest on Nov. 11, 2016, in Los Angeles. Leachman stars in the faith-based film “I Can Only Imagine” which has made over $22 million in just six days of release on a $7 million budget. Leachman, a character actor whose depth of talent brought her an Oscar for the “The Last Picture Show” and Emmys for her comedic work in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and other TV series, has died. She was 94. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
“In a sense, Alice the organist will live forever, through the beautiful music she made,” executive producer Tim Long told PEOPLE. “But in another, more important sense, yep she’s dead as a doornail.”
Last year, another longtime character on “The Simpsons,” barfly Larry Dalrymple, was killed off. He joins a now-growing list of “Simpsons” characters to have died, including Bleeding Gums Murphy, Maude Flanders, Edna Krabappel and the original Snowball.
Matriarch Marge Simpson was also controversially killed off earlier this year, though the creators say it was just another “speculative” fantasy sequence popular with the show.
“Marge will probably never be dead ever again,” executive producer Matt Selman told Variety after the episode aired and sparked concerns about the blue-haired star.
Nexstar’s Michael Bartiromo contributed to this report.