The Johnson County Sheriff's office is searching for a nearly century-old school bell missing from a southeast Nebraska farm.

The bell had been kept at the farm south of Sterling while an organization called the Sterling Women of Today worked to construct a bell tower to place the bell inside.

Members of the group had spent two years scraping mortar from bricks taken from a 1917 school building in the area, to be used to build the bell tower in front of the new Sterling school.

But when they went to retrieve the old school's bell last month, it was gone.

Sheriff's Deputy Patrick Kuehler says there have been several reports of theft in the county. His office has made several calls to different salvage yards, with no luck.