Today will be remembered as one of the windiest days in UW-Stout’s history, as two students were blown away by the wind. After weeks of frigid weather, we finally had a single day of nice weather. However, Mother Nature must have realized her mistake, and we have been sent right back to our regularly scheduled terrible weather conditions. On the news this morning, a local weatherman was quoted as saying “Holy cow guys, today is gonna be a gusty one.” To everyone’s surprise, he was absolutely correct. Menomonie was subjected to sustained winds of around 15 miles an hour, with gusts reaching 30 miles an hour or more. Residents were advised to secure loose objects and tighten their hats because if they didn’t, they would surely be blown away. While this advice was certainly helpful for most people, two unfortunate Stout students were not so lucky. Their tightened hats would be no match for the hateful fury of this brutal breeze.

These two students, who shall not be named to respect their families’ privacy, were walking to class at Bowman Hall around noon on February 28th, 2025, when a particularly strong burst of wind picked them up and carried them away. Authorities have not told the press where they think these students have gone, although places like Narnia, Hyrule, Wonderland, and the Land of Oz have all been rumored to be potential landing spots for these unfortunate undergrads. Your humble reporter spoke to a student who was walking with these victims when they were blown away, who said “Yeah, I dunno, it was like one minute they were here, and the next minute, they were gone.” When asked why he didn’t fly away too, he responded with a curt “mind your own business,” then waddled away angrily.

We may never know what happened to those two students. Perhaps they were whisked away to a fantasy land, met by a band of adventurers, then sent on a noble quest by a rouge prince to save the land, showing great bravery and valor in the face of danger and despair, ultimately making the heroic choice to sacrifice their opportunity to be a simple college student in order to overthrow the tyrannical dictator and restore peace to the land, becoming the greatest hero the realm has ever known and serving as the inspiration for a series of children’s books. Perhaps they simply suffocated in the upper atmosphere. We may never know. All we can do is pray for their safety and move on with our daily lives, doing our best to eat as much cake as possible so we are too heavy to be blown away by any rouge gusts of wind.