He is also noted for writing the music to the Latter-day Saint hymn "I Believe in Christ" and being one of the few main forces behind the design of the Conference Center organ.
He is the author of Magnum Opus: The Building of the Schoenstein Organ at the Conference Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In 1949, his father died and the family subsequently moved to Salt Lake City, Utah.
As a young man, Longhurst served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Eastern Atlantic States Mission.
Longhurst married Nancy Meldrim, a native of Syracuse, New York, in the Salt Lake Temple in 1969.