Winter Overload

About 100 Tabor College students and faculty members left their textbooks inside and grabbed snow shovels to help local residents clear their driveways and sidewalks after college classes were canceled Wednesday.Marion County was covered with a blanket of snow last week that ranged from 12.5 inches in the northern part of the county to 9 inches at the southern end.

Single-digit temperatures kept the snow amounts almost intact almost one week later.

The snow began falling Monday night, Feb. 3, and continued through Tuesday.

All six school districts in the Free Press distribution area canceled classes Tues?day and Wednesday; some resumed classes Thursday with a delayed start to the day.

High school basketball games scheduled for Tuesday were postponed across much of Kansas.

Many residents across Marion County and much of Kansas woke up Wednesday morning to see a sundog on the eastern horizon. Becky Steketee of Hillsboro captured this image of the unusual weather phenomenon. According to Wikipedia. a sundog is ?an atmospheric phenom?enon that creates bright spots of light in the sky, often on a luminous ring or halo on either side of the sun.? Sundogs are commonly made by the refraction of light from plate-shaped hexagonal ice crystals in high and cold cirrus clouds or during very cold weather.The snowstorm also led to the cancelation of midweek programs at most churches in the county as well as countless other activities.

Tabor College President Jules Glanzer canceled classes Wednesday for the purpose of giving students the opportunity serve people in the community.

About 100 students, faculty and staff bundled up, braved the cold weather and shoveled snow for Hills?boro residents.

?Our mission is to serve others and help people in need,? Glanzer said. ?The Hillsboro community needed us to shovel snow for them, so that?s exactly what we did today.?

Groups of two or more went door to door from sun up to sun down, shoveling snow on sidewalks, driveways and off of cars for those not able to do it for themselves.

The generosity of the Tabor College volunteers prompted one regional television station to send a camera crew to document the effort.One regional television station in Wichita came out to report the story.

Glanzer initiated a similar event three years ago when the community was blanketed with heavy snow.

?People will remember our students coming out to help them in a time of need,? Glanzer said.

?It?s special because our students get a life lesson on a day when they are not sitting in the classroom.?

The students seemed to enjoy their opportunity to serve others, despite the cold temperatures.

?I just love that we were challenged, as a school, to be able to serve and given the opportunity to go out into the community, rather than sitting in our dorms wasting our day away,? said Beth Nesser, a sophomore from Florence.

About 100 Tabor College students and faculty members left their textbooks inside and grabbed snow shovels to help local residents clear their driveways and sidewalks after college classes were canceled Wednesday.Cather?ine Christie, a freshman from Colorado Springs, Colo., said: ?It was very meaningful. I love serving.

?It was nice to have an opportunity to live out the Tabor values and, being a decidedly Christian school, we need to love our neighbors.?

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