The heavy snow that started to fall shortly after 8 a.m. Tuesday reminded me of a daytime blizzard that occurred more than 45 years ago when I was a student at Miami Trace High School, the countywide school outside of Washington Court House, Ohio. It is an indication of the difficult decisions school administrators must make during inclement weather.
The approximately 950 students in grades nine through 12 then attending the high school, which serves all of Fayette County outside of Washington Court House, were all safely at school and attending classes before the first snowflakes fell on that particular day. But soon after the school day began, the snow began to fall from the sky — and fall and fall some more. By 10 a.m., the full-scale blizzard was taking place outside our classrooms.
That’s when the decision was made to cancel school for the remainder of the day and send the students home. It was for our safety, we were told.
Safety! We were much safer watching the blizzard though the windows while inside the warm environs of the high school than traveling the treacherous roads in a school bus.
Nevertheless, board the buses we did, and nervous bus drivers left the school parking lot at a time when visibility was about 10 feet and plows had yet to clear the roads of the snow. Not that it would have done much good, mind you. Using a snowplow in the midst of a blizzard would have been like using a towel to dry off a wet surface during a torrential downpour.
In those days, we high school kids road a bus to our elementary schools where we joined the younger kids on another bus that would take us home. I was one of the last people to be left off the bus, and on a typical day, it took about two hours from the time I boarded the bus at the high school to the time I was dropped off at the end of my driveway.
But that was when the roads were clear. On this particular day, the blizzard was so intense that the bus driver slowed the vehicle to about 20 mph or maybe even less. Thus, the two-hour bus trip home took more than four hours that day.
Although I was only 15 at the time, I knew enough then to recognize that it was a mistake to call off school and send the buses out at the height of a blizzard. If school officials had waited until the end of the normal school day, the blizzard would have been past its peak, visibility would have been much greater and snowplows would have at least gotten to the main roads.
To me, that would have been the sensible thing to do — for our own safety, of course. But then school officials are always being second guessed by parents, teachers, students and just about everyone else when it comes to decisions regarding the weather.
I’m not sure whether any area schools sent students home early because of Tuesday’s heavy snow, but if they did, it was a mistake. The roads were much safer later in the day. But I will never question school administrators who err on the side of safety.
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Like most of Ashland, I am saddened by the death of 7-year-old Raymond Jones who was struck by a car when he apparently darted into the street while waiting for a bus in Ashland.
However, my heart is particularly heavy for those children who witnessed this tragedy. I know something about how they must be feeling.
On Christmas Day 1958, I watched with my mother, father, grandfather and one sister as my grandmother was struck and killed as she walked into the path of a speeding vehicle.
Although that accident occurred more than 51 years ago, I remember it like it was 10 minutes ago. In my mind, I can still see the moment of impact and hear the screams of my mother and grandfather.
The kids who saw little Raymond get hit will never forget that moment. They may try, but they won’t be able to. It is one of those horrible moments that will be forever etched into their memories.
I did not know Raymond. My wife, a reading teacher at Hatcher Elementary School, did. I don’t know the children who witnessed the accident, but I am praying for them and so should you. I pray they will find comfort and the peace that surpasses all understanding. Although I wasn’t there, I know what they are going through.
JOHN CANNON can be reached at jcannon@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2649.
