Victory Bell Rings Again: UNK Athletics revives campus tradition

Former Phi Tau Gamma/Alpha Tau Omega fraternity member Tom Paxson, left, and UNK Athletic Director Marc Bauer are pictured with the Loper Victory Bell at Cope Stadium. (Photo by Erika Pritchard, UNK Communications)

KEARNEY – Tom Paxson had a grin on his face as he leaned against the metal trailer.

“It’ll make some noise,” he said before ringing the largest of two cast iron bells attached to the blue and gold rig.

With each chime, time seemed to slip a little further into the past. Paxson started thinking about homecoming parades, pep rallies and football games at Foster Field.

He was proud to see this prominent piece of University of Nebraska at Kearney history back where it belongs.

“We need to have a home for it, a permanent home. We don’t want to sell it and we don’t want to give it to anybody else. We want to give it to the university.”

EARLY ORIGINS

The long and mysterious journey of what’s now known as the Loper Victory Bell began around 1950. Or 1960. Depends on who you ask.

That’s when Phi Tau Gamma, the first fraternity on campus, acquired the 36-inch-diameter, roughly 1,000-pound church bell.

Paxson, the chapter’s unofficial historian, roster keeper and alumni president, can only imagine where it came from.

“There were a lot of farm brothers in the fraternity back then, so my best guess is it came out of some small church in a Hildreth-type town,” he said. “Somebody probably got it for a song and it was sitting in the back of a barn somewhere.”

A California native and Beatrice High School graduate, Paxson attended UNK from 1963 to 1968, immediately after the school’s transition from the Nebraska State Teachers College at Kearney to Kearney State College. He believes the Victory Bell predates his enrollment by more than a decade, although the earliest reference in the UNK Archives doesn’t come until an Oct. 21, 1960, edition of The Antelope student newspaper.

That article, “Students Journey for Chadron Tilt,” mentions approximately 20 members of Phi Tau Gamma traveling to the Panhandle for the annual football game between these in-state rivals.

“They will be accompanied by the Phi Tau bell to ring the team on to victory,” it reads. The final score was 25-0, with Kearney coming out on top.

Paxson recalls a later road trip to Hays, Kansas, but admits “memories are very foggy. To the point where we’re not sure we even made it to the game.”

Back on campus, the Victory Bell was a fixture during football games and homecoming festivities. Strategically positioned in front of the main grandstand, it served as a rallying call and signal of Loper success.

During homecoming parades, the two-wheeled trailer hauled fraternity members and cheerleaders, often marking the end of the procession. Phi Tau Gamma won the $100 grand prize for its “For Whom the Bell Tolls” float in 1961, according to a student newspaper report. Many more homecoming awards followed.

In 1962, a “bell pull” was proposed and unanimously supported by the student council. The plan was to pull the Victory Bell trailer from Kearney to Hastings using a team of Shetland ponies to “channel student enthusiasm during the Bronco Days celebration.”

However, this idea was scrapped after administrators from both campuses expressed concerns.

Eventually, a smaller school bell was added to the Victory Bell setup, allowing students to ring one after Loper touchdowns and the other following a win.

LOST AND FOUND

The pony pull plan was far from the only hijinks associated with the Victory Bell.

“I’m guessing every decade from the ’50s through the ’80s, the bell was stolen and/or vandalized,” Paxson noted.

One time, it was found partially submerged in the mud and muck at Cottonmill Lake. Another time, it ended up in a cornfield north of Kearney. On a third occasion, it was hidden in a shed on an abandoned lot in town, covered in camouflage paint.

Usually, the fraternity received a phone call or cryptic clue revealing its location.

“I don’t think anybody wanted to destroy it,” said Paxson, who blames the shenanigans on rival fraternities.

“But I can’t prove any of that.”

Mark Reid also remembers a few of these “kidnappings,” as well as confrontations when other fraternity members would ring the bell.

“I think at one point they tried to tie off the ringer so nobody would try it,” he said.

Reid doesn’t know much about the bell’s beginnings. He joined the fraternity in 1984, nearly 20 years after Phi Tau Gamma affiliated with a national organization and became Alpha Tau Omega.

Originally from Australia, he graduated from Kearney State College in 1989 and served as an adviser for Alpha Tau Omega in the early 1990s and again from the 2000s until the chapter disbanded in spring 2015.

“It’s a mystery. It really is,” Reid said of the Victory Bell. “It defined ATO for a long time because it was always associated with the fraternity. Whether it was being used or not, it always had a prominent place outside both residences, the old house and URS. It really became an icon for the fraternity.”

END OF AN ERA

The fraternity stopped bringing the bell to football games – likely sometime in the 1980s – but it was still featured in homecoming parades and showcased at the Alpha Tau Omega house at Seventh Avenue and 23rd Street.

When the fraternity moved onto campus in 1991, it was displayed outside University Residence South (URS).

“For a long time, it didn’t get a lot of love,” said Reid, an operations manager for NRG Media in central Nebraska. “It just sat out there and suffered the elements, all through the Nebraska summer and winter. And it held its own.”

Unfortunately, the fraternity didn’t last as long. With membership dwindling, the Alpha Tau Omega organization disappeared from campus almost a decade ago, ending 100 years of combined history at UNK.

“It was the most popular fraternity for a long, long time. We had a lot of good students and a lot of wonderful men,” said Paxson, who became the Victory Bell’s caretaker.

Another alumnus, Duane McCan, restored the bells and trailer before a Phi Tau Gamma/Alpha Tau Omega anniversary celebration in 2016. About 150 brothers attended the event at Kearney’s Holiday Inn.

That was the Victory Bell’s last public appearance. It sat in an outbuilding on Paxson’s property between Kearney and Gibbon for several years.

‘WE NEED THIS’

UNK Athletic Director Marc Bauer was looking for old Loper sports memorabilia to display – items that represent the school’s storied history.

But he didn’t expect this email from Rich Brodersen, a UNK graduate, Loper public address announcer and longtime UNK Athletics staff member who currently works for the University of Nebraska Foundation.

How would you like to revive the Victory Bell?

Bauer jumped at the opportunity. “We need this,” he thought to himself.

“There are institutions that would love to have something like this,” he said. “I think our history is important, whether it’s the Normal School, Nebraska State Teachers College, Kearney State College or UNK. To be able to revive a tradition like this, that’s pretty awesome.”

Bauer and Brodersen brought the Victory Bell back to campus this summer and it will be officially unveiled during Saturday’s home football game, scheduled for 7 p.m. at Cope Stadium. Former Phi Tau Gamma and Alpha Tau Omega fraternity members will be on hand for the event.

“I’m so glad this is happening,” said Paxson, who retired from a sales career with Baldwin Filters in 2004. “ATO will have a presence on campus again, and I think that’s important.”

“It’s something that’s unique,” Reid remarked. “It’s one of those things that ties back to the history of UNK and one of its legendary fraternities.”

“And it works,” he added. “You can hear it.”

Just like the glory days, UNK students will soon be celebrating their beloved Lopers by ringing those big bells. You might even see them rolling down the road again in downtown Kearney.

“I’d take it to Fort Hays tomorrow,” Paxson said with a smile. “It drives real nice on the highway.”