BLIZZARD AT ANDOVER IN JANUARY 1966 IMPELS THE SNOW JUMPERS TO LEAP OUT OF THIRD STORY WINDOWS
ROBBY BROWNE AND PA VARSITY SWIMMERS AND DIVERS LEAD THE WAY — Ray Healey Jumps From The Second Floor
By Dr. Ray Healey
With Photos by Joe Seamans
On Sunday, January 23, 1966, it started snowing around noon and continued to snow for two days, with the last snowflakes falling about noon on Tuesday January 25. About 3–4 feet of snow fell on our campus at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass.
Andover was an all-boys prep school in those days, and the more than 800 of us guys in residence at the school were thrilled to read in our campus newspaper, The Philippian, the following headline:
“Classes Canceled Monday in Unprecedented Decision as Snowstorm Buries PA.”
The lead sentence in the story read,
“A long tradition of austerity was broken last Sunday when Dean G. Grenville Benedict succumbed to nature and canceled Sunday chapel and declared the following Monday a school holiday.”
“The motivating force behind the historic move was Sunday’s blizzard, which left the school up to its knees in snow.”
