Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
WINONA LAKE - She ran screaming and gasping from the black hole she had plunged into while bystanders merely let her pass.
"She" was Megan King and she had just jumped into the lake channel across the street from the Blue Lion Coffee House at noon on New Year's Day.
King dressed the "warmest" for the second annual Polar Bear Plunge, wearing a couple of shirts and sweat pants. The other brave winter bathers - including coffee house proprietor Dave Taylor, Andy Ulrich, Steve Myers, Kris Stewart, Heidi Yoder and Becky Newcomb - took the icy dip wearing a minimum of Bermuda shorts.
Actually, excepting King, the group jumped twice. because Newcomb arrived as soon as the first group emerged back on the ice.
They didn't want her to go in alone.
"It's colder the second time," one participant said, emerging from the chest-high water.
Taylor swears by the healing powers of the annual dip.
"No one that jumped last year got sick," he said. "Those in the group that watched all got a cold."
If an annual January dip in Winona Lake proves to be a preventive for the common cold and other ailments, the event may grow.
Since most of the participants had spent a few minutes exposing themselves to the cold, the freezing water didn't seem as cold as last year, when the temperatures were just above freezing and the water level was about waist-high.
This is the second year for the plunge and Taylor said he plans to make it an annual tradition.
The Blue Lion event is in its infancy compared to other groups across the country, which use the first day of the year to test their nerve against the cold.
The Coney Island Polar Bears, for example, began gathering at the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in 1903.
