MCCTC students stay the course in McMudder event

CANFIELD — About 150 Mahoning County Career and Technical Center students trudged through mud, plunged into ice water and scaled 5-foot-high bales of hay as an exercise in team-building and camaraderie.

It was the fourth MCCTC McMudder today at the center. The “Mc” is for Mahoning County.

Junior Patrick Byrne of Canfield said the Arctic Plunge — a pool filled with ice water near the beginning of the course — was the most difficult.

“You had to stay under the water to get under the wire,” he said.

Rope strung a few inches above the pool ensured participants got deep enough to get sufficiently cold and wet.

Some teams dressed in costumes or uniforms. Patrick, an engineering student, and his teammates donned red bow ties and white button-down shirts painted with vertical red stripes. They wrote “Baber’s Barbers” across the back for engineering instructor Walter Baber.

“Kids sometimes call him Mr. Barber,” he explained.

The course stretched eight-tenths of a mile behind the center’s rear parking lot.

“It gets bigger every year,” said Matt Putzier, culinary arts instructor and one of the event’s organizers.

For the complete story, read Saturday's Vindicator and Vindy.com