Standards Tennessee | Sacred Spaces | Bentley Bell History
For centuries, Sunday bells have called communities from the ordinary
business of the week toward a common hour of worship. On a college campus,
the summons carries across walks, gardens, residence halls and playing
fields, briefly gathering a scattered community by sound.
Some bells mark the hour; others are rung by hand, continuing a practice older than the
institutions around them. The sound requires no screen, notice or
invitation. It simply travels. On a quiet Sunday morning, chapel bells
remain one of the oldest ways an educational settlement announces that
another week is about to begin.
Philanthropy sometimes begins with conversation rather than campaign. In 2002, Donne Bentley Wright of Chattanooga and her husband, Spencer Wright, heard Sewanee registrar Paul Engsberg describe the English change-ringing tradition he had encountered at Durham.
The Wrights offered to fund a ring for Sewanee. Eight bells were cast at London’s Whitechapel Bell Foundry on July 4, 2003 and installed in historic Breslin Tower the following year. Named for members of the family, including Donne Wright’s parents, Mildred and George Bentley, the bells became more than a memorial. Students learned to ring them, and every Sunday they still summon the community to worship.
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