So we got us one heck of a blizzard and tomorrow has already been cancelled. Well, not tomorrow exactly, but you know what I mean.
I do hope the wind dies down though so they can get the roads cleared before Thursday morning. See, I have to travel an hour away because I have a bell to ring.
This year, Founder’s Day at Illinois State University (my undergrad alma mater) is the 15th and it is the Sesquicentennial of ISU. The oldest public institution of higher education in the state is 150 years old.
Since 2002, members of the Illinois State University family have celebrated the heritage of the state’s first public university in this special Founders Day ceremony. The bell from Old Main, the first building on the campus of what was then called Illinois State Normal University, is permanently displayed on the University Quad at the site of Old Main. Throughout the years, the bell was a symbol of daily campus life as it tolled the hours each day.
Although the Old Main building was deemed to be structurally unsound and removed from the campus in 1958, the bell remains a reminder of the campus that sprung up from the prairie. During Founders Day activities, the bell is brought back to active service as selected members of the University community pull the rope to ring it once for each year in the life of the institution.
I was a 2nd year (2003) bell ringer and as such am invited back each year to assist by ringing my little commemorative replica bell. I did participate in 2004 since I was still there, but have not made it back before now. The year I was an official bell ringer (2003), Founder’s Day was actually on my birthday. So if Birthday Month is truly and finally on my side now I’ll be able to make it over to Normal to participate in a few of the Sesquicentennial festivites at the university dearest to my heart—for so many reasons—and see some of my friends and hang out with many of the other past bell ringers; many of whom are far more prestigious than lowly little me.
Happy Birthday, ISU! “and gladly would he learn, and gladly teach“