After 10 years of sitting quietly outside of the Cardinal Room of the Memorial Union, a grandfather clock chimes again.

The class of 1879 purchased the clock in 1929 — the year the union was opened — as a 50th anniversary gift to Iowa State.

“To count the minutes and hours for all who use the memorial building,” reads the engraving on the clock.

The grandfather clock has not run for years, said Kathy Svec, program coordinator for the Memorial Union.

The union staff has been stumped for years trying to find someone who is knowledgeable enough about older clocks, she said.

She said she was discussing it recently when a maintenance personnel said he knew a little about fixing clocks and had noticed the grandfather clock was not working.

“It just needed a little adjustment,” said David Wiese, Memorial Union facility mechanic.

Wiese said he learned about clocks by taking apart his mother’s cuckoo clocks while growing up, though sometimes he didn’t always put them back together when he was done.

The clock in the union is more than 76 years old, but the only manuals the staff could find to fix grandfather clocks went back only 50 years.

“They previously had called a clock repairman to try to fix the clock, but he was unable to repair it,” Wiese said.

The shaft on the minute hand only needed a little adjustment, he said.

He said his ability to fix the old grandfather clock can be attributed to a little bit of luck.

He said he had hoped that all it needed was an adjustment, because he wasn’t sure where the university could order parts that needed to be replaced on a clock this old.

The grandfather clock chimes four times during the hour and also has a revolving moon cycle dial at the top.

“I think the moon cycle is off, so it’s something I’m going to work with,” Wiese said.

“On the 25th, we’ll have a full moon, and I’ll be able to better adjust it.”

Svec said it is wonderful to be able to walk by and hear the old clock chiming again.

The clock is almost in sync with the Campanile, so sometimes it is even difficult to decipher the difference between the two, she said.