| Viewing Single Post From: Blog and Media Roundup - Wednesday, July 1, 2009 | |
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| abb | Jul 1 2009, 04:53 AM |
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http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-1176774.cfm Bell-ringer still has what it takes By Neil Offen : The Herald-Sun noffen@heraldsun.com Jul 1, 2009 Bookmark and Share DURHAM -- It's all in the wrist, Timothy McIntosh explained. And he should know. For four years, 1958-62, five times a day -- except on Sunday, when it was just four -- McIntosh was the official bell-ringer at N.C. Central University. Now almost 70 years old and living in Mitchellville, Md., McIntosh got to show off his technique one more time Tuesday morning as his alma mater celebrated the 100-year anniversary of its birth. McIntosh rang the brown bell sitting on a scaffold outside the Edmonds Classroom Building three times as NCCU began a year's worth of celebrations of its centennial. The school was chartered as the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua For the Colored Race on June 30, 1909. McIntosh's forceful ringing almost drowned out NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms' opening "Good morning" to the crowd that had gathered for the ceremony. "You've got to give it a good wrist motion and then let the rope flow," McIntosh explained. "I was pretty good at it." He had a lot of practice. He rang the bell that stands in the center of the campus and that was used by the school's founder, James Shepard, to wake the students up, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and for the beginning of classes every day. He did it on the weekends, too, although there were no classes on Sunday. McIntosh rose at 5:30 a.m. so he could ring the bell to wake the students up -- at 6 in the morning. "He was none too popular with the folks in the residence halls nearest the bell," Nelms said. Nevertheless, McIntosh was back at his stand, every day, for a good reason. "It was a good job," he recalled. "It got me through college." For his exertions, he was paid $60 a month. Tuition and room and board at the time, he remembered, was around $1,100 a year, so "$60 a month was very good money." McIntosh, a math major at NCCU and a retired civilian financial analyst with the Army, was asked to reprise his old role as bell-ringer at the centennial kickoff a week ago. "They just asked if I'd like to ring the bell again," he said. "It was an honor." |
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| Blog and Media Roundup - Wednesday, July 1, 2009 · DUKE LACROSSE - Liestoppers | |
7:03 AM Nov 25
