Clock tower puts Beacon in new light

"The term `Beacon Journal clock tower' has just become obsolete,” Bob Dyer writes in a BJ story Sunday which starts on page A-1 and fills the entire throw page (A12) except for a couple of ads. If you are inclined to read everything you every wanted to know about it, just click on the headline above..

Dyer continues:

This time, you're getting a lot more than a clock. This thing is a scoreboard. Or maybe a video game. We're not exactly sure yet.”

We can flash it, blink it or stream it. We can roll it, scroll it or hold it. We can change the colors. We can even give you full-color animation.

Yes, you'll still get the time and temperature, just as you have for the last 66 years. But our new $500,000 tower will also provide news, advertisements, event information and whatever else our mad programmers dream up.

The lower display consists of a four-sided message board, each side 12 feet wide and 3 1/2 feet high. That's where the news and ads will go.

The upper screens, 7 feet by 3 1/2 feet, will alternate between the time and temp, ``Akron Beacon Journal'' and the logo of the newspaper's Internet partner, Ohio.com.

The big party:

The Beacon Journal will hold a coming out party from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday with free food and entertainment including BJ mascot Browser. One lane of High St. and one lane of E. Exchange will be closed to traffic to accommodate the bash.

Even Mike Needs is ecstatic in his column headlined "Bj tower changes, as do does journalism."

“The new tower symbolizes the technological promise for the future,” he concludes.