| | |
 |
|
| 01-25-2005 | Previous edition: 01-24-2005 |
        
     |
Printer-friendly version Students flock to Slayter Hill for winter fun
Campus Editor The fractured remains of winter fun freckle the white slopes of Slayter Hill on Saturday night. Amidst hundreds of discarded and broken sleds sits a dismantled couch. On any other day, the scene might look apocalyptic. The hill, located between Hilltop Apartments and Stadium Avenue, becomes the haven for Purdue students every winter after enough snow has fallen to make even furniture appropriate devices for sledding. Throughout the weekend, a hundred or more students congregated atop the hill with lunch trays, trash barrel tops, dumpster lids, kayaks, car hoods and the occasional sled, and took turns at the chance to see if their new-found sledding implements were snowworthy, or just another bad idea. Brady Ellis and John Fehrenbacher decided to give the ladder for their loft a try. Wrapped with garbage bags, cardboard and empty Propel bottles, the two freshman students used the ladder because neither had any real sleds. Named after the movie "Cool Runnings," the makeshift sled took only 45 minutes for Ellis and Fehrenbacher and two other friends to put together. "We just put our engineering minds together," said John Fehrenbacher, a freshman in the College of Engineering. Luke Wolbrink, a sophomore in the School of Mechanical Engineering, came out for the first time this year to try some snowboarding, but didn’t have much luck. "I’ve got nothing better to do," he said. Although many students laud the improvisation of others who decide to use instruments besides sleds to go down Slayter Hill, Purdue’s administrative officials caution students on the risks involved. Carol Shelby, senior director of environmental health and public safety, said that although Purdue has no policy against sledding down Slayter Hill, the University tries to discourage it because the end of the hill leads into oncoming traffic. Five years ago, the University used signs at the bottom of the hill to warn sledders about the danger; however, administrative officials found that sledders were colliding into the signs. "I’m happy to explore other options," Shelby said. "Students and community members have to use common sense and not put themselves in dangerous situations where they may get hurt." Fire Chief Ken Alling of the Purdue Fire Department said that while the department has not had to respond to instances where sledders collided with motorists, it has had to make three ambulance runs to the hill so far this year for injuries ranging from limbs to heads. While the Purdue Student Health Center doesn’t keep statistics on injuries on Slayter Hill, Mary Lou Clendenning, team leader of urgent care, said the most injuries tend to occur from using cafeteria trays as sleds. Using trays from campus dining courts as sleds is almost as old a tradition as sledding down Slayter Hill. Tom Paczolt, director of residential life, said trays have been stolen from dining courts for sledding since he was a student 25 years ago. Although Paczolt said it’s difficult to enumerate how many trays are stolen each year, a dining court supervisor for Earhart said residential assistants usually recover 50 trays at the end of each year from nearby University Residences. In order to stem the thefts, University Residences once let students borrow trays for sledding until students began to get injured from trays breaking apart as they went down the hill. "They’re not designed to be sleds. They’re designed to hold a couple of pounds of food, not a 150 pound body." Despite the dangers involved, Paczolt said the trays, which cost about $7 each for the University, still go missing each year and must be replaced through higher fees for campus residents. "The only money we get is what we charge the students," he said. But watching students use their imagination to find new ways down Slayter Hill will never get old for Morgan Hanbury, a freshman in the College of Liberal Arts. Quite content in the cold at 11 p.m. on Sunday night, Hanbury said she would stay another hour in spite of a 7:30 a.m. class the next day. "I’m actually having the best time up here that I’ve had all year at Purdue," she said. Printer-friendly version |
|
Front Page | Campus | City | Features | Opinions | Sports | Classifieds Advertising | Archive | Links | About us | Letter Submission Form To report any errors with or to give ideas on how we can improve the online edition of The Exponent contact Online Production |
