FHU rings bell for start of school year
HENDERSON, Tenn. – A bell ringing in Lloyd Auditorium means one thing for students at Freed-Hardeman University: the start of classes.
The tolling of the bell signifies the beginning of the 154th school year for the university.
This year’s Masters of the Bell was FHU alumni Dr. and Mrs. Chikezie O. Madu. FHU alumnus Luke Guard issued the challenge to new and returning students.
They rang the bell 15 times, once for each decade of the school’s existence.
The Madus are the parents of Elechi, who passed away earlier this year when she became critically ill during her recovery from a bone marrow transplant. She was registered to begin at FHU this fall.
“And her mother is also an alumna of Freed-Hardeman, undergraduate and graduate; her father is an alumnus of Freed-Hardeman graduate, and even her grandfather was an alumnus of Freed-Hardeman. And so we love and appreciate this family, and we’re glad that we also could just bring memory to, honor to the memory of a great young lady,” said David Shannon, the president of FHU.
The bell was first tolled by A.G. Freed, the namesake for Freed-Hardeman, in the late 1800s at a school he attended in Essary Springs.
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