A lot can change in a year. In December 2023, the Pope County Tribune featured a story about the Minnewaska Lutheran Home’s iconic Clock Tower in Starbuck. One year later, efforts to bring the historic tower back to life are well underway, with the promise of hearing Christmas carols in the near future.

The December 4, 2023, issue of the Pope County Tribune highlighted the fundraising efforts that began in 2020 to restore the Clock Tower. The project required a complete refabrication of the three-phase clock mechanism to bring it back to working order.

According to Abby Strom, Human Resources and Marketing representative for the Minnewaska Lutheran Home, significant progress has been made since then. “We’ve seen exciting developments with the Clock Tower,” Strom shared. “The electricians have done incredible work. Asmus Electric removed outdated electrical lights and abandoned lines and reinstalled lighting and added photo sensors where needed. They also restored power to the top of the tower and replaced the lights illuminating the clock faces.”

John Thomas, a horologist from Villard, has played a pivotal role in the restoration. “I’m not sure how Thomas found out about the project—whether someone told him or he read about it in the paper—but he contacted us and offered to look at the clock to see if he could repair it,” said Maintenance director Shane Nelson.

“John worked on the clock tower motor and mechanism,” Strom explained. “He replaced gears and other internal components, adjusted and tightened set screws, and synchronized the clock faces to within a minute or two of each other.” This past summer, Thomas successfully repaired the clocks, which have been running since June 2024.  

However, the chimes still remained silent—until now. Nelson states a new carillon system is set to be installed. “We found a local company in Alexandria, Vinco, to install the system,” Nelson said.

The Bravo Carillon system can play 460 melodies, most hymns. “One exciting feature of this system is that we’ll be able to play America the Beautiful on the Fourth of July,” Nelson added.

Nelson anticipates the Carillon system will be up and running a few weeks before Christmas, bringing new life to the Clock Tower and filling the community with music for the holiday season.