There will be a new sound on campus in the upcoming winter months and it won’t be the cold winds gusting against bedroom windows.

The complementing bells for the McFarland Memorial Tower arrived Monday morning by the means of six semi-trucks.

Each bell was donated by a different donor and manufactured by the Verdin Company of Ohio.

“We have a foundry back in Cincinnati, but to be honest, it wasn’t big enough for these bells,” said Tim Verdin, plant manager of the Verdin Company. “So they were cast in Holland and brought over by boat.”

Altogether, the bells weigh about 26,000 lbs. with the heaviest bell at nearly 5,000 lbs. The bells were originally meant to ring down the block at Altgeld Hall. Yet basic engineering changed its destiny.

“They were supposed to be for Altgeld when it was refurbished,” said Steve O’Connor, project manager for the University. “But the structure engineer analyst came in and it was determined the building couldn’t hold the weight. So then the bells were kind of just sitting there as an idea.”

Richard McFarland’s donation for the construction of the tower enabled the bells to serve a purpose. A preview day is scheduled for Oct. 18 for the families that donated bells, O’Connnor said.

It took construction crews about three hours to unload the bells, but only about five to ten minutes per section to install into the tower. The bells are picked up, each section at a time, by a crane and then hoisted into the air with cables as the only means of support. Construction crews greet the bells at the top of the structure and fasten them to the tower.

“The first section, consisting of only one bell, took the longest to install because they had to weld it into the structure,” O’Connor said. “Everything after that, it’s really simple.”

Verdin said 48 different bells are common for carillon towers because of the intricacies of its music.

The advent of winter weather will not affect the bell’s efficiency.

“The bells are very versatile,” Verdin said. “Basically, the only thing that can destroy a bell is a fire. They won’t rust or anything. Those bells will be there forever.”