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More than 40 years after it was placed in front of Luverne High School, the cast iron bell pedestal received a needed facelift last week.
Since 1972 the pedestal has battled various weather elements while on display near the school’s flagpole. Time had worn away some of the mortar, and the wooden platform was rotting.
Last week Luverne High School Class of 1985 graduate David Niessink worked at refurbishing the pedestal.
He admits he never knew there was a display on the high school’s lawn.
“What bell?” was Niessink’s question when school staff asked if he could repair the pedestal’s brick-and-mortar base.
Owner of Superior Caulking, Niessink and Jamie Rotert from Salem, South Dakota, completed the task in a matter of days.
The result is a display that looks “more beefy,” he said.
After tuck-pointing the brick base, Niessink and Rotert added stone cast caps to seal out moisture. Niessink also replaced the 4-by-4-inch wood blocks that secured the bell to the platform with blocks of cedar. “It looks good,” he said.
The bell display was a Luverne High School Class of 1972 project.
Fred Manfred Jr. of Luverne was class president at the time and led the project along with senior class officers Dick Iveland, Lynette Noll and Dennis Olson.
It was a school tradition for graduates to take on a class project. For the Class of ’72 officers, they didn’t have to look far for a project idea.
“There was this bell that sat under the south bleachers in the gymnasium,” Manfred said. “We weren’t sure what the bell was.”
Markings on the bell do not indicate its original location.
Retired custodian Marv Doering said the bell possibly came from the former high school that was built on Fledging Field (currently Dingmann Funeral Home) in 1895.
Manfred said the old high school was torn down in the late 1950s, shortly after the current high school opened in 1956. His father purchased the brick from the former school to construct his home, which is now Blue Mounds State Park’s interpretive center.
For their class project, the Class of ’72 cleaned and painted the bell for display. The same finish is on the bell today.
A plaque reading “Class of 1972” was later added to the display.