Elizabeth Smart will speak about her abduction and forgiveness March 8 in Fort Wayne.If you are at all familiar with the drive from Decatur to Berne on U.S. 27, then the sight of it might shock you.
It rises from the flatness like a rocket on a launch pad.
A Swiss rocket, as it turns out – one of the rarer kind.
It’s Berne’s new $3 million clock tower.
At 160 feet, the tower is the tallest thing for miles around.
The clock tower will be dedicated at a splashy event Saturday evening that will include a concert of music about Indiana or by Indiana composers; a short and punchy speech from former Berne resident Keith Reinhard (who also happens to be one of this country’s most successful advertising men); a procession of children carrying lanterns (which is apparently one of the ways they celebrate Independence Day in Switzerland); and a laser light show.
Saturday night is also when the clock’s 6 1/2 -minute glockenspiel show (featuring hand-carved figures re-enacting Berne’s history) will debut.
Everyone is encouraged to attend, but you may want to bring your own seating.
The dedication will more or less be the culmination of Swiss Days, Berne’s annual celebration of its heritage.
It was Berne’s sesquicentennial in 2002 that gave municipal leaders the idea for creating a lasting addition to the city, according to Berne lawyers Jim Beitler and Dave Baumgartner.
Berne’s leaders decided on a clock tower modeled after the one in the city’s Swiss namesake, Bern.
All the money for the project was raised privately, Beitler says. No public funds were used.
The clock features a 1,000-song carillon that has been specially programmed to play all relevant Hoosier school fight songs and Indiana standards.
There is more fundraising to be done for the Muensterberg Plaza surrounding the clock tower, Baumgartner says. This plaza will include walkways, benches, lampposts, a fountain, a canton tree, a splash pad, a gazebo, a stage and a quilt garden.
A stairway and observation deck will eventually be built on the clock tower, Beitler says, but Berne doesn’t really want to tout that too much.
“We want (the clock tower) to be a focal point, not a vantage point,” he says. “Anyway, people are not going to get much of a buzz from going 80 feet up and looking around.”
Berne city leaders hope the clock tower boosts tourism, then business, then interest in starting new businesses, Baumgartner says.
“Even if we see 50 more tourists a day, that’s 18,000 more tourists a year,” Baumgartner says. “It would be a big shot in the arm for retailers downtown.”
The clock tower has already inspired a new restaurant called the Belle Tower Grille, Beitler says.
“I don’t think any of us see the clock tower as a magic pill,” Baumgartner says. “At the same time, we all have very high expectations.”
Beitler says any entrepreneur in town can use the likeness of the clock tower in its advertising free of charge.
Beitler understands that celebrating Swiss heritage might seem like a bewildering concept to some people.
But it is really no different from celebrating Irish heritage.
“On St. Patrick’s Day, everybody drinks green beer and wants to see the Chicago River dyed green,” he says. “On St. Patrick’s Day, everybody’s Irish. Well, during Swiss Days, we’re all Swiss.”
