When students arrived on the snow-covered campus at 7:50 on Nov. 27, director of maintenance Mr. Carl Grill and his crew had already been here for three hours and 50 minutes. They salted and shoveled the snow off the walkways until 7 a.m. and then proceeded to their next item on the endless checklist of things to do.

They do this every day there is bad winter weather.

While it may be a lot of work to keep the campus ice-free, Grill said, “The safety of students is really important. If someone falls and gets hurt, they can file a suit against the school and we don’t want that.”

Even though Grill and the maintenance staff are official school employees, their company, Executive Management Services, is affiliated with the school and they work to make sure the campus is safe especially with the winter weather.

When students may take for granted the ice and snow-free sidewalks all around school grounds, Grill said, “People don’t see half of it.” No one is at school at 4 a.m. to see the aching back and arms from nearly four hours of salting and shoveling.

With the large size of the campus, there are many different stairs, sidewalks and strips that need to be salted and shoveled before students start to arrive.

So the next time you walk on salted, ice-free sidewalks, think about the three hours and 50 minutes Grill and the rest of the maintenance team took out of their early morning to make such conditions possible.