Blogging at www.BlufftonForever.com, Fred Steiner reminds us that March weather is unpredictable. In this post, he takes us back to a snowy school day in the early 1980s.

By Fred Steiner

Thursday, March 8, 1984, was not a typical school day for students in the Bluffton school system. Students on that day experienced something never before or since has taken place.

Students arrived safely at school in the morning, but the morning’s snow storm made it a risk to take students home.

Superintendent Larry Brunswick said in a news story published in the March 15, 1984, Bluffton News, that school officials chose to wait out the storm rather than immediately call off school.

Brunswick received a mid-morning call from Dale Huber, chair of the Richland Township trustees. Huber offered the school the services of the township snowplows to lead the buses on their homeward trips.

Brunswick said that both township and county plows assisted in the bus trips. Two busses left the elementary building with students at 2 p.m. Upon those bus returns other buses left with students led by snow plows.

All the students were taken home by about 6 p.m. with the exception of one bus, which finished its run at about 7:15 p.m. A bus, which was not led by a snowplow was stuck for a time on Bixel Road.

Brunswick said that about 500 of Bluffton’s 1,000 students went home Thursday on a bus. Many parents picked up their children at school during the day. We only let students go if parents came to the school to get them, he said.

In all nine buses made trips on Thurday.

https://www.blufftonforever.com/post/38-winters-ago-last-week