Scott Swanson
The school bell, a longtime source of school pride for Sweet Home High School, is back.
The cast-iron school bell, which weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 pounds, was unveiled before alumni who packed Husky Stadium July 14 at the 100th All-Years Reunion celebration by Ben Dahlenburg, who found it and got some other alums to restore it.
Dahlenburg, a graduate of the Class of 1970, said the bell has been in storage for years and only a few people, including he, knew of its existence and location.
It hung in the tower of the original high school building until that building was torn down in the 1940s. Then it was mounted in front of the school on a rock until the 1970s.
School spirit took its toll on the bell over the years, alumni say. Sweet Home students would paint their school colors on Lebanon’s wooden Indian mascot and the Warriors would respond by doing the same to the bell – or worse.
“During that time Lebanon was a big athletic rival and Sweet Home would steal Lebanon’s big wooden Indian statue and they’d steal our bell,” Dahlenburg said. “It was so heavy they probably just dumped it into the back of a pickup.”
During one of those raids, the yoke in which the bell was mounted broke and it eventually was put into storage in a school district warehouse. That’s where Dahlenburg found it, around 1980, he said.
“It was just a bell and a clapper,” he said.
Dahlenburg, who was welding instructor at the time, had his students manufacture a yoke and harness “to make it look like a bell.” Construction trades teacher Harold Miner had his students build a bell tower and the bell was mounted in it and rung by students at the end of the last day of school each year.
In the 1990s the tower began to rot, so the bell was taken down for safety reasons, he said. From there it made its way to East Linn Museum, where it was mounted on the pad in front of the building.
“They displayed it as another bell, not as the high school bell,” he said. “I’m not sure how they got hold of it. But I came along and I knew it was wrong. I knew where the bell was that they wanted, so we made a switch and put the high school bell back in storage for the last eight years.”
Dahlenburg said when the Sweet Home Alumni Foundation held its first reunion, in 1992, he helped replace missing photos in the hallway at the high school. This year, he decided to get the bell restored and present it as a gift.
“There’s a lot of history there,” he said. “It wasn’t 10 or 15 feet from where I found it the first time.”
He contacted a friend, Burlin Miller (Class of 1957), whose son-in-law, Shawn Anderson (Class of 1996) operates Anderson’s Auto Body.
“They agreed to refinish it and restore it as a gift,” he said. “Burlin’s role in the whole process was to get Shawn to do the work.”
The three also installed wheels so the bell could be rolled in and out of the gymnasium, so it could be used for sporting events there and at Husky Field.
He said he was planning to replace the frame, built by students in 1979, but Anderson talked him out of it.
“Three alums and the students, who are all alums now, contributed to this,” Dahlenburg noted.
The moment of truth came during the alumni rally at Husky Field. The bell had been rolled in and was sitting under a background hanging with a husky emblazoned on it.
Miller and Anderson had a conflicting commitment so they couldn’t be there, but Dahlenburg told the crowd about the bell’s history, but didn’t mention its presence. He then whipped off the covering.
There was an audible gasp of pleasure from the audience and spirited applause.
“That made me feel good,” Dahlenburg said. “I wish Shawn and Burlin could have been there.
“I hope it stays out of storage this time.”
The only remaining piece to complete the restoration is to put a rope on the bell.
Dahlenburg is asking anyone who knows how to tie a bell’s rope to contact him at (541) 367-4677.
“I know where to buy one on e-Bay, but if someone could make one, that would be better. They can get pretty fancy.
“If we don’t get one by fall, I’ll buy one.”
Principal Keith Winslow said the bell is currently too wide to be easily rolled through doors – district personnel had to remove a center post to get it into the high school building through the front door.
“It’s in the library right now, where the kids can see it,” he said. “It’s pretty cool.”
He said possibilities include building a raised case for it in the gym foyer where it would be protected from damage but where students could see it. He said one possibility might be to reserve it for special occasions – state playoff games, for instance.
“We can ring it every time they score,” he suggested.