Restoring a Ramona Elementary tradition

When 21-year-old Katie Cobian learned that her mother, Melissa “Missy” Cobian, was Ramona Elementary’s new principal, she asked her to “please make sure that the kids get to do the Birthday Bell.”

And so, for the first time in about a decade, students celebrating birthdays last week lined up in the school office Friday afternoon to pull the rope that rings the Birthday Bell. Helping them was fifth-grade teacher Diane Dechaine, whose birthday was Sept. 4.

The bell, which sits atop the school building at 415 Eighth St., is not the original. Someone stole that bell in 1994. The Calvin Tinker family, hearing the story, replaced it with a bell they paid to refurbish and, in January 1995, dedicated the replacement bell “to the past, present and future students of Ramona as a symbol of excellence in education.”

The tradition of ringing what became the Birthday Bell continued for 10 years before officials deemed the structure surrounding the bell unsafe. Repairs were made last year, and younger students rang the bell when they achieved goals in Reading Counts.

Cobian agreed with her daughter, who attended Ramona Elementary, that it was time to restore the Birthday Bell tradition.

“If it’s your birthday week, you get to ring the bell,” she said.