In Eisenhauer 016, two students had already come up with a plan.
"Let’s pull down the blinds. Dayton will think it’s darker than it really is, and cancel class," said Cherry. She and the Sexy Communist Spy went to work.
Professor Dayton walked in just as they finished up, and he did not give a fuck. "If you think you’re getting out of class because of a little power outage, you’ve got the wrong guy," he said. He rolled up the blinds, tugged his podium over to the window and started the afternoon’s lesson.
The power had gone out on campus 20 minutes prior. It affected buildings on the main campus; the Stuni but not the library, the classrooms and lecture halls but not the dorms, administrative buildings but not Lafene. It was a bright day, a sunny day; the mindset of “let’s just call it a day and head back home” had not set in, except among slackers.
"If there’s anything that K-State’s students are, it’s flexible and accommodating," said Pat Bosco, dean of student life. "They have great common sense about them, and they respond to these natural phenomena with ease." Sunlight streamed in through windows on two sides of his office.
"For me, I’m a little different. I can’t stand being without my phone," he said.
Due to the power failure, Bosco had to cancel a 1:30 lecture he was to deliver in the Little Theater on boscology — "the art of climbing through broken glass."
A lady in the finance office, having been in contact with K-State Facilities, said two squirrels got into a transformer at the Westar power station by St. Isadore’s Church, repeating an incident that had happened years ago. She didn’t want her name printed in the paper.
Another man in the office overheard her. "So we’ve got barbequed squirrel?"
"Fried squirrel," she corrected him.
At the power station by St. Isadore’s, nine guys in white hard hats stood around the transformers, fenced in by barbed wire. Insert your own Stormtroopers joke here. Two of them fiddled around with a tower of machinery that did not, in any way, resemble the Death Star II. They weren’t interested in talking to the press.
"If I were a new teacher, I’d be in trouble," said Robin Mosher, instructor in the English department editing her lesson plan in pen and ink that afternoon. Mosher has taught at K-State for 28 years.
"If the power isn’t on tomorrow, it won’t affect class at all because we have plenty of windows," she said. Technology would help her classes (sometimes she uses PowerPoint slides), but everything can also be done the old-fashioned way, she said.
Terri Engnoth, another English instructor, took her freshman expository writing class outside and handed out papers.
"It was exciting. It felt like a snow day," she said. "All of my students showed up. I couldn’t believe it."
The power came back on after several hours. Westar would not give out any information about the outtage. The Collegian would not print any information without a named source. Thanks a lot, Finance office. Everyone is hamstrung by red tape! Except the Kansas City Star, who, without naming any specific University official, scooped the K-State Collegian with this AP report late in the evening (link provided via Facebook by Princess Glitter Bunny):
MANHATTAN, Kan. | A couple of squirrels put Kansas State University in the dark for a few hours.
The Manhattan campus was without electricity for more than three hours Monday. The university says power was cut when two squirrels got into a Westar Energy transformer.
Electricity was restored around 4:30 p.m., allowing evening classes and activities to proceed.
