MANHATTAN --- Time teaches all things, as students at Manhattan Christian College will soon discover. An antique clock auction a week ago brought in $53,000 to the school's scholarship fund.

The antique timepieces --- numbering nearly 400 --- were donated to the school earlier this fall by Manhattan residents Harry and Charlotte Means, who spent 50 years building the collection.

An additional 300 clocks that remain in the collection --- which has taken up nearly every square inch of living space in the Means home --- will go on the auction block in early 2004 to benefit the college.

As the final sale approaches, 80-year-old Charlotte Means says she isn't likely to experience bouts of separation anxiety, although the couple's retirement home has taken on a less lived-in look as auctioneers removed the collection, one clock at a time, she said.

"I've had no anxiety," she said. "They're all going for a good cause, and although I miss them, they were hanging on every wall. Now it looks like we just moved in."

The liquidation of the couple's collection has been handled by Manhattan's Purple Wave Auction Co., whose staff spent a week moving the first batch of clocks to the site of the marathon, eight-hour sale on Nov. 8.

"I think we averaged selling a clock a minute," said Jolene Rupe, MCC's director of public relations. "The Meanses' gift was a very unique gift, and it is our hope that others would consider the types of things they have around the house. Things that they might not think are very important could be valuable to a nonprofit, like stamps and coins."

Auction company owner Aaron McKee says the second auction will dispose of the couple's novelty timepieces, including Coca-Cola and Mickey Mouse clocks.

"Most people sell collections of valuables at an auction for their personal gain," McKee said. "But with the Meanses, they were donating to a good cause. So we have been very honored to handle it. It's been a prestigious auction for us."

The Meanses' clock-collection donation will be designated in perpetuity as the Harry and Charlotte Means Scholarship Fund and is to be earmarked for MCC students who plan to enter the ministry.

An additional --- and unusual --- stipulation added by the Meanses requires the college to award the scholarship to hard- working MCC students who maintain less than straight-A grades.

In fact, straight-A students need not apply, says Charlotte Means, a former president's office secretary at the school.

"Our scholarship will be for B and C students with a heart for the ministry," she said. "When I worked at the college it was always the A students who got the scholarships. Some of these others should have a chance, boost them up for a year and see if they have what it takes for the ministry."

Harry Means, 82, is a retired Union Pacific Railroad ticket agent, whose 40-year career began as a UP telegraph operator in western Kansas.

The Meanses began collecting clocks as a hobby while taking vacation trips, gradually advancing to occasional cross-country motor home jaunts to attend estate sales on both coasts.

"We'll probably keep collecting, if we're traveling somewhere and we see something we like," Charlotte Means said. "Once it gets in your blood, you don't very well just quit. Any clock person will tell you that."

MCC, which is adjacent to Kansas State University on Manhattan's Anderson Avenue, has a fall semester enrollment of about 335 students, officials reported.

Matt Moline is a freelance writer in Manhattan. He can be reached at moline@networksplus.net.