Let Tradition Ring

Since 1978, the Spirit Bell has rung out to help football fans celebrate Rams touchdowns. The tradition was started by members of the now-defunct Sigma Phi Epsilon (Sig Ep) fraternity and for the last seven years has been the responsibility of the Block and Bridle (B&B) Club. The bell arrives at football games and rides in the annual Homecoming Parade with B&B members and Dominic, ASU’s live Rambouillet ram mascot.

Heading into this football season, though, the bell was starting to show some significant wear and tear. Dr. Micheal Salisbury and Corey Owens of the Agriculture Department faculty, along with B&B members Tait Cooper and Josh Andrews, hatched a plan to fix it up.

“There were some scratches on the bell, some dents and some duct tape that was covering up some old letters on the stand,” Cooper said. “So we looked in our budget and found that we had enough money to refurbish it.”

Corey Owens “Dr. Salisbury suggested I talk to Ralph Garcia in Facilities Management since he had painted stuff for us before,” Owens said. “Originally we were just going to re-paint it, but it developed into a much bigger project than we first envisioned.”

It took about a week for Garcia to shine the bell and paint the stand, and then the others got in on the fun.

“We decided that we wanted to weld ram horns on the side and the ASU logo on the front, and paint those, too,” Cooper said. “So we went to Dr. (Will) Dickison, and he said he would cut everything out for us on our new plasma metal cutting table. I helped cut out the stuff on the plasma table with him, welded a few things together and we went from there.”

“The Block and Bridle Club paid for the materials,” Owens said, “with money members had set aside from their fundraisers. We bought the paint and the metal, and we had all the equipment to do everything we needed to do at our new Mayer-Rousselot Center out at the ASU Ranch.”

Now it is an even bigger honor to be chosen as a Spirit Bell ringer at the Rams football games. Cooper, a senior from Olton, gets to pick the bell ringers and who gets to take care of Dominic on the sidelines.

“I can take six people down there with me,” Cooper said, “so I usually change a few up for every game so more people can have that experience. Then we all kind of rotate. If some want to ring the bell, they can—and those who want to take care of Dominic can do that.”

“I feel pretty special to be able to say I’m in charge of the Spirit Bell that has so much history and tradition.”

Tait Cooper

History of the Spirit Bell

Many of the students get interested in the Spirit Bell once they learn its history. It began over 60 years ago when the bell was sounding arrivals and departures on a Santa Fe Railroad steam engine. Once steam engines went out of style, the bell ended up in a chapel on land owned by the Willeke family off the Mertzon Highway. When the 1978 Sig Ep pledge class went looking for a Spirit Bell, June Willeke Hudson donated it in memory of longtime San Angelo ranchers Mr. and Mrs. Doc Willeke.

The Sig Eps used blueprints from Texas Tech University’s spirit bell and materials donated by local businesses to construct the trailer that still carries the ASU bell. It rang on the sidelines when the Rams clinched the 1978 NAIA National Championship at Bulldog Stadium in McAllen.

In 1980, the cast iron yoke had to be repaired after the trailer flipped over on its way to the Homecoming Bonfire, landing the bell in a vacant lot off Jackson Street. A later Sig Ep pledge class donated a custom vinyl cover that has since deteriorated into non-use, and further repairs to the yoke and a new paint job were completed in 2000.

When ASU’s Sig Ep chapter disbanded seven years ago, it “loaned” the Spirit Bell to the Block and Bridle Club, whose members now proudly ring it in the new home of the Rams, LeGrand Stadium at 1st Community Credit Union Field.

“When I first started with Block and Bridle, I didn’t really pay much attention to the Spirit Bell,” Cooper said. “But now that I’ve been put in charge of it, and especially after we’ve refurbished it and made it look really nice, it is a really cool deal to be a part of. I feel pretty special to be able to say I’m in charge of the Spirit Bell that has so much history and tradition.”