Yesterday, the joke was on us. We had a 4:00 meeting in a building right beside the Vacc Bellower on the campus of the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Ambling along, close to the bellower, we heard the bells start to play an elaborate song, which made us think that it had already struck four o’clock. We picked up our pace, wondering how on earth we got behind schedule. Looking up, we saw it was five minutes until four. As it turns out, they were simply programming the bells now that there is a full carillon. With 49 bells, the set is complete.  The tower and bells were a gift of Dr. Nancy Vacc, who donated them in remembrance of her husband, Dr. Nicholas Vacc. Both were professors at UNCG.

If you look in the center of the tower, you see a person programming the keyboard console to use the full  range of octaves of the bells. Our guess is that the man on the lift is making sure that the keyboard console is linked correctly to the bell clappers. For a brief moment, as the song played yesterday, we thought that canonical hours had been implemented on campus and it was time for mid-afternoon prayer. We’re betting noon will be a good time to experience the euphony and timbre of the Vacc Belltower.