COMMENTARY: Winter Weather Benefits Students As They Visit Historic Sites

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail will keep them from their appointed rounds.

In this case, the rounds are a 10-day trip on the East Coast. Fifty-two eighth-graders from Springdale left Friday in a charter bus, bound for Williamsburg, Va., and the “Colonial Experience.” The trip — which focuses on the founding era of the United States — is provided free for these students by several family trusts based in Missouri. Students submit essays on history to be chosen for the trip.

Naturally, parents were concerned about the trip, with students leaving in the middle of a winter storm here with weather reports predicting more bad weather on the East Coast. The group is using a subscription text service for parents to receive updates on the trip.

“You’re always nervous as a parent when you send your child off on a trip,” said Regina Stewman, the mother of Cassidy Stewman, an eighth-grader at Lakeside Junior High. “Yet (her older daughter) had been on the trip, and I trusted those planning it. They know this trip well.”

“We’ve been doing this trip for 19 years,” said Dean Alexander, a teacher retired from Southwest Junior High who has headed up the Springdale end of the trip for each of those years. “I guaranteed them that, if they could get a bus to Springdale, we would go. We loaded up the bus in 6 inches of snow.” The buses arrived in Williamsburg just a few hours after their expected time.

“The worst part of the trip was from the Southwest Junior High parking lot to the Missouri state line,” said Thomas Pittman, a Central Junior High teacher who has also helped organize the trip from the beginning.

He gave a weather report: In Illinois and Indiana, the roads were “not too good.” But there was no snow and ice in West Virginia — or in Virginia, although it rained lightly for the three days the group was in Williamsburg. A little snow was on the ground in Washington, D.C., Tuesday night, but he didn’t expect any more bad weather as the group headed to Baltimore and Philadelphia.

“(Lisa) Spears (a Southwest teacher) made us wear Walmart sacks inside our shoes so our feet would stay dry,” Pittman said. And part of the all-expenses-paid trip is a weather-proof winter coat and a sweatshirt given to each student.

The group did miss the tour of Monticello, home of the nation’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, because the historic site closed Tuesday for the expected bad weather. “I think they jumped the gun a bit,” Alexander said.

But the professional tour guides rallied. Instead, the group visited the Naval Station at Norfolk, Va., the largest naval base in the world, and toured the USS Wisconsin, a battleship, now retired, that served in every war from World War II to Operation Desert Storm.

The group also detoured to Richmond, Va., Pittman said. They toured St. John’s church, where, in 1775, patriot Patrick Henry gave the famous speech: “Give me liberty, or give me death.”

“And I just got back from the best (Washington) monument tour I’ve ever been on,” Pittman said. “There was no one on the roads for the first time since 9/11. There’s no snow, no ice and no people.” (Many government offices closed Tuesday ahead of the expected inclement weather but were open Wednesday for the group’s scheduled tours.)

“Actually the weather has helped us,” Pittman said. In fact, these students won’t have the usual makeup work for missed classes. Springdale schools have been closed since the students left, thus there were no missed assignments, he said.

Cassidy Stewman talked about her experiences via phone Tuesday night. “We got to see colonial living in Williamsburg,” she said. “We got to see how people got to live. It took us back in time, and it really felt like it.” One aspect that stuck with Cassidy was the use of chamber pots instead of toilets. She noted that, in the morning, one would open up a window and throw the contents out into the street.

On the Wisconsin, the tight living quarters “underdeck” led her to consider life on the sea. “No, thanks. I think I’ll pass,” she said.

She also enjoyed the fireworks of the Grand Illumination at Colonial Williamsburg. “They shot off fireworks in three places,” Cassidy said. “There was never a dull moment with new fireworks popping up everywhere.”

This morning the group travels to Baltimore to tour Fort McHenry, above which the flag flew in 1814, inspiring Frances Scott Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner.” They will tour Valley Forge, where Gen. George Washington’s troops spent the winter in 1777-1778 and trained to become an army, the historic area in Philadelphia and Gettysburg Battlefield.

LAURINDA JOENKS IS A FEATURES REPORTER AT THE MORNING NEWS AND HAS LIVED IN SPRINGDALE SINCE 1990.