Sunny Saturday makes KC’s Polar Plunge almost ‘bearable’ — almost

Adam Wright admits he’d been pulling up weather forecasts constantly for the past two weeks.

Wright, the development manager for Special Olympics Missouri, kept hoping for temperatures Saturday to be way north of freezing with just a little — or no — wind. Maybe a little sun, too, if Mother Nature could pull it off during the last week of January in the Midwest.

Let’s just say Saturday’s temperature near 50 at noon, with a hearty sun beating down on Longview Lake, made everyone at the 14th annual Polar Plunge Kansas City pretty happy. Especially the roughly 800 plungers, many in costume, who braved crazy cold water to raise money for Special Olympics.

Heck, in some years, organizers have had to contend with wind and snow, rain and temperatures so frigid that crews with chainsaws had to break away ice on the lake.

“This is great,” Wright said of Saturday’s weather. “I don’t think you could get any better.”

Yet veterans of the Polar Plunge know it’s not just the air you have to worry about. The water can be colder. Especially in a brutally frigid winter like we’ve already had.

Saturday’s water? Just 34 degrees.

Many worried about just how cold the water would be at plunging time. That’s why a good 30 minutes before the first person hit the water a group of Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority sisters from Rockhurst University sat pondering their options.

Would they go all the way in? Or take a quick dip and skedaddle?

Leah Koziacki, 18, wasn’t so sure which one she’d opt for. But sorority sister Meg Dionisi, 19, was a plunger last year. And she knew that even the best-laid plans to dive right in can be scrapped at the last second.

“You go in with that mindset, but then you feel it and it’s hard to make yourself do it,” Dionisi said.

At 12:22 p.m., organizers alerted the crowd of hundreds that time had come to face the water. The first group stepped up. Then another and another.

A few people stumbled once they were in the water, inadvertently doing the whole-body soak. Others slowly walked in, seemingly not bothered by the close-to-freezing temperatures. Most made it in waist deep, slapped the hand of one of the rescue team members already in the water, and quickly made their way back to land.

This was the second year in a row that Jimmy and Jenn Brummett participated in the fund-raiser. The couple go by the name Team Shirley Sue in honor of Jimmy’s late mother, who taught special education for the Lee’s Summit school district for 28 years.

The pair were covered this year in green garb looking like two plunging Lebrechauns. Jimmy even wore an Irish kilt.

“I was going to wear a wedding dress, but I couldn’t find one,” he said, smiling. “What’s a guy to do?”

So he went to a party store and came out with everything Irish.

Who knows what next year’s costume will bring? But the husband and wife know for sure they’ll want to take the plunge. Again, in honor of Shirley Sue.

This story was originally published January 27, 2018 at 4:18 PM with the headline "Sunny Saturday makes KC’s Polar Plunge almost ‘bearable’ — almost."