FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017

Media Contact: John Guilfoil
Phone: 617-993-0003
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Spaulding High School Restores Clock Tower With Help of Rochester Resident

Paul Dumont First Repaired the Clock in 1999

ROCHESTER — When the power came back on at Spaulding High School following the completion of sprinkler work over the summer, the clock tower remained still.

Once Facilities Director David Totty noticed, he worked to install a digital timer that would keep accurate time to within one-1,000th of a second. But it didn’t work, and so Totty, in a moment of desperation, called the number written on the side of the clock tower’s failed timing mechanism.

Paul Dumont — a retired county commissioner and Gonic resident who installed the homemade system nearly 20 years ago — answered.

“You should have seen him light up when I started talking to him about the clock,” Totty said as he recalled their discussion about the clock tower that first came to life when Spaulding High opened in 1939.

Dumont, who worked with the class of 1999 to restore the clock after it had been frozen for approximately a dozen years, returned to the high school and got to work on an updated timing mechanism that could do what Totty’s digital timer could not — appropriately distribute power to the clock, giving its hands the power they needed to circle the 78-year-old dial.

“I enjoyed working on it, and I enjoyed it for a simple reason,” said Dumont, who continues to tinker with and fix items in an alcove in his home. “It’s a great clock. It’s old, but it’s a very well designed clock.”

The tower, which Totty said is believed to be one of only two like it in existence, came back to life last last month after Dumont completed his work. He also left behind a detailed set of instructions that will allow future generations to maintain the clock tower and help it maintain its place a source of pride for the city.

“The first time I climbed up in that tower I fell in love with the clock,” Totty said. “As the director of facilities, I’m very proud of it and I’m happy to see it running again.”

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