Every member of the Hillsdale College grounds crew tunes into The Weather Channel every night of the long Michigan winter. The forecast both predicts and dictates their future — if snow is on the horizon, they are bound to lose a few hours of sleep.
Before many Hillsdale students have gone to sleep, the blaring alarm of Jason Sellers jolts him awake at 3 a.m. Each member of the crew is responsible to wake up and check the weather themselves — an inch or more of snow summons them to campus.
Today, the snow fell, so Sellers suited up and head to work, dressed warmly in hat, gloves and scarf to face the sub-zero temperatures.
But on some days, the weatherman lies and the crew wakes up to discover no snow. Even then, they wake up each following hour to make sure the snow does not begin before their regular 7 a.m. work day commences.
Once Sellers arrives at the Fowler Maintenance Building around 4 a.m., he grabs his keys, and warms up his truck. He heads to the Roche Sports Complex and staff lots for his first stop of the day.
He has a plow truck, but there are a variety of other snow-assaulting weapons on campus.
Some of the crew have smaller Steiners with large brushes on front, used to brush snow off the sidewalks. These same Steiners can be fitted with plows and blowers for heavier snowfall. Andy Jacks has a Bobcat with a brand new brush used for the sidewalks around Central Hall.
Once Sellers gets the plowing done, he fetches his shovel and begins cleaning off steps. Heavy traffic areas, especially stairs, need salt scattered by the grounds crew.
Clay Beilfuss — referred to as the “Head Salt Man” by the crew — salts high traffic sidewalks, especially the brick ones. The truck used for watering in the warmer months is converted into a salt truck to minimize icy danger on the roads.
“We really don’t mind missing out on those extra hours of sleep,” said Grover Campbell, shipping and campus delivery personnel.
“Our first priority is the student’s safety,” Sellers quickly added. “We don’t want anyone to slip or slide.”
Supervisor Mike Wiseley has been keeping campus safe for 15 years. He wakes up and heads to work with the rest of his crew, brushing the sidewalks in the peaceful hours of the morning. He salts, manages the workers, helps the move and set-up crew, moves bleachers, takes care of garbage, work-orders and anything else the grounds crew is called on to do.
Campbell is the college’s package delivery personnel. Sometimes he cannot get out in time to do deliveries because of the weather. During the winters, he puts aside some of his usual duties to help out the crew. Campbell used to be part of the grounds crew and willingly shares in their winter responsibilities.
“The crew backs me up and helps me too. They have my back on a lot of things,” Campbell said.
Sellers wants to get his part of campus cleaned up by about 8 a.m., and then his usual work day commences. Right now, Sellers is working on fixing the water wheel for the softball field.
The crew spends the day completing various work orders, and not a day goes by without an unexpected twist or two. They are always ready and willing to complete their next task.
A call comes in on the radio asking Wiseley to move some tables over to Phillips Auditorium. It takes only a second before one of the crew member’s pipes up: “We got it, Mike.”
Warmly, Mike shoots back, “Thanks, MVP.”
As foreshadowed by the flooding in Grewcock, the Hillsdale College Maintenance Crew also has their hands busy — frozen pipes and broken heaters consume most of their day. Kirk Wright, maintenance employee, happened to be one of the maintenance men who cleaned up the sludge in Simpson Hall two weeks ago on his Sunday afternoon.
Richard Alvarez, grounds keeper and equipment manager, works hard to ready Slayton Arboretum for winter. The preparations begin in the fall when he shuts down the ponds, pulls up the annual flowers, and clears out any pipes with water inside to prevent them from freezing. He also clears pathways to ensure they are safe for students to walk through, said his arboretum co-worker, Jennifer Hammer.
On the whole, winter is a fairly quiet time for the arboretum staff, Hammer said.
For the campus horticulturist Angie Girdham, winter is mostly about preparing for spring. Once the pole planters are taken down in November and the urns around campus filled with evergreens, she began preparing for the 4,200 plants she will grow this winter.
One day, she lugged an entire pallet of soil bags — all frozen solid — from the greenhouse shed to the greenhouse itself in oder to thaw before she began planting the seed in plastic plug trays. Almost all of the soil will be used by spring, Girdham said.
For the industrious, hard-working men like Sellers and Campbell, they end the day clocking in at least 10 hours and sometimes 12. If the week is especially snowy, they might have to put in three, four, even five long days in a row.
But, at the end of the day, the grounds crew is tight-knit, relying on each other to improve the quality of students’ lives at Hillsdale College. They face the challenges of every day, every snowstorm, and every last minute work order as a team. Coming to each other’s aid, they do what needs to get done — even if it is not glamorous or exciting. Their diligence benefits each student in the icy tundra of Hillsdale, Mich.
