The Big SnowThe weather outside was frightful, but in 1969, student's found it (mostly) delightful.

In January 1969, 24 inches of snow fell on Corvallis, finally closing campus on Monday, Jan. 30. There was no Tuesday edition of the Daily Barometer, but the front page of Wednesday’s issue bore the headline “Snow Forces 1st Closure In 50 Years.”

“Students cavorted on the campus much of Monday, engaging in stupendous snowball fights and creating snow sculptures,” the Baro reported. “A minor discordant note occurred when Jefferson Way was temporarily blocked by huge snowballs rolled into the street.”

One student took the opportunity of a fresh layer of white to express their feelings in a big way, writing, “Glynnis Dickey, I love you” in huge letters across the baseball field bleachers.

Thursday’s edition featured a photo of a sculpted snow rabbit under a truly labored pun on “plenty of snow” –– “’Bunny’ Of Snow” –– but then somberly blamed the white stuff and the Monday without classes for an outbreak of broken bones at the Student Health Center, an uptick in on-campus skiing accidents and a rash of vandalism that left at least 50 windows broken by snowballs.

An editorial in the issue pleaded for rain, noting that students were “rapidly tiring of hard falls and harder snowballs.” A letter writer complained that marauding snowballers had scared his children as he drove past campus. He even cited the behavior as proof that 18-year-olds lacked the judgement to be allowed to vote. (As it turned out, the snowball argument was not persuasive enough to keep the nation from ratifying the 26th Amendment to the Constitution in 1971, lowering the voting age to 18.)

By Friday, the snow was a crisis. Campus doctor J.K. Garvey warned of eye injuries caused by ice balls made with slushy snow. “Snows Continues To Menace Campus,” shouted a front-page headline. Under a photo of the MU Quad with no snow, the Baro alliteratively assured students that “the fallen follicles of frozen water and the seemingly forever frozen Fahrenheit will soon be gone in lieu of, that’s right, rain.”

The editorial staff came out firmly in favor of more sand on sidewalks. And in a piece headlined “Birds Have Difficulties,” a writer urged students to have some compassion and perspective:

“So, while you’re making that relatively short (granted, hazardous) walk to class and wishing it would snow some more so they can close school again, count your blessings (i.e., jackets, gloves, knee socks, electric blankets, etc.) and consider those little creatures sitting in the trees with their feathers ruffled against the cold. They have to live in that cold; you just have to walk in it.”