Collegiate Times

The speakers on top of Burruss Hall project the bells' sound across campus

Correction: This story has been modified from its original version. — This story has been modified from its original version. The entire article may now be found below. The Collegiate Times regrets this error.

The interior of the room labeled "C13 Storage" on the third floor of Burruss Hall tells that it is rarely visited.

Gray dusty pipes and walls welcome the few maintenance visitors who come by, and the primary occupants of the room are lonely projection lights that shine into the auditorium below. But in this room, diagonally across the entrance, is a smaller room that houses a campus secret.
In this smaller, enclosed and windowless room are the very bells of Burruss.

"You're going to be really disappointed," warned Kim Briele, an electrical engineer from the facilities department who takes care of the bells, in the elevator on the way up. "It's a big box."
The room is tiny, maybe half the size of a regular dorm room. A large electric keyboard with a nice wood finish sit on the wall on the left, and directly in front are two large rectangular cabinets with golden lined edges. Inside are the bells.

"The bells are very, very small," said Ray Smoot, chief operating officer of the Virginia Tech Foundation who used to work in Burruss and oversaw care of the bells from 1975 through 2006. "And what you're hearing is the amplified sound of those very small bells. It's not like there are a whole bunch of big bells up in the tower somewhere."

According the Briele, the bells play at 7:45 a.m., 8 a.m., noon, 5 p.m., 6 p.m., 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. on weekdays and at noon, 5 p.m., 6 p.m., 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. on weekends from eight large speakers on the roof that are turned almost all the way up. Both the carillon and the keyboard can be played independently of each other out of the speakers on the roof. Local Sharon Knight volunteers to play the keyboard live occasionally at special events. 

The bells ring automatically, as they are set on a timer. The only time that Briele ever needs to touch the bells is a week before the time changes.
The bells can also be requested for weddings and other special occasions.

"Sometimes people will want them to play as their guests are arriving," Briele said, "and then they'll want them to play again as they're leaving the church." 

Such a request has not happened in the past few years. Briele speculates that it is because people are unaware of the fact that they can request music through the chapel.     

The history of the bells traces back to 1958 when the carillon was first installed, long after Burruss Hall was completed in 1936.

"An electronic carillon costing $28,000 was installed in 1958," said Tom Tillar, vice president for alumni relations, reading from a document. "And dedicated at homecoming at 1958."

He believes that the reason the bells were added was to enhance the collegiate setting.

"I think it was done because it added to the atmosphere of the campus," Tillar said. "Burruss was kind of the central building with the tall tower, and so the carillon was created to play tunes at certain hours."

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