A very Oakwood Christmas (in November)

The Oakwood-Slater Hall residents received an unexpected visit from campus safety officer Dawn Moffett on the eve of Thursday November 8^th.

"When she came in she pretty much stated that she saw us getting ready for the Helm Run, which is a tradition every year in Oakwood come first snowfall,” 2^nd floor resident assistant’s roommate and sophomore Pat Tubaugh, stated.

Moffett had said that she’d seen the residents preparing for the annual tradition, which consists of, when the first snow falls, every Oakwood residant stripping down to their undergarments after curfew. Then, they run to and around the Helm fountain and back to Oakwood. “(She said) we should wait until another day that way she wouldn’t get us, have to write it up, and have it be a big thing…she basically was very intent on saying that we should not be doing the helm run on that night,” finished Tubaugh. The other 2^nd floor resident assistant’s roommate and junior Spencer French, as well as Tubaugh, was shocked at Moffett’s warning, and for a very simple reason: They weren’t planning any Oakwood Helm Run that night. So how did the good residents of “The Wood” respond?

“Once she left, we were pretty much taken aback by what was said and laughing at the tone of it,” Tubuagh explained, “And so we pretty much just got the guys together and said, ‘We’re not gonna go do the Helm Run, but we’re gonna go do something else that is within the confines of the covenant and within the confines of curfew. We just got a bunch of guys together and we decided we were gonna have a good time.” Racing out the doors with the Oakwood guys with a Northface coat and pajama pants on, I took a video and a picture (see above) of some of the action from the evening. One of the memos that I didn’t catch was wearing our underwear on the outside of our pants. An obvious nod to the Helm run, but still within the boundaries of the lifestyle covenant. As we walked around campus singing “Silent Night,” Officer Moffett instantly spotted us in her red campus safety vehicle. We watched her wheel around campus in our direction and follow us around campus all the way to the Campus Safety building. She declined to comment on this article as per Campus Safety protocol.

 “Curfew is 12:00,” she told us that night when she pulled up to the Campus Safety building driveway. “Curfew is at 12:30,” French reminded her, “And it’s 12:03.” He then proceeded to read from the book of Luke and tell the story of Christ’s birth as some of us held flashlights up for him to see. Then, we once again began to sing “Silent Night,” and Moffett came out of her vehicle to join the group. At the end of the song, the group (without Moffett) marched on over to Shupe Hall where we sang “The Twelve Days of Christmas” to the girls. If you are an incoming freshman in the class of 2022, or are thinking about attending Bethel College, here’s a prime example of our community life. Tradition and community life are at the forefront of Bethel College’s atmosphere. Even if those traditions aren’t quite what you were expecting.