Winter break may have been quiet for many students, but it was exciting for sophomore biology major Danura Wayantha.

He saw snow for the first time.

Wayantha thought it was raining at first when sitting in Stella Russell Hall on Jan. 6. When he figured out that it was snowing, his eyes lit up as he ran outside to explore the freezing weather.

“In my country, we don’t see snow because it’s closer to the equator,” said Wayantha, who is from Sri Lanka. “We have a tropical climate throughout the year so we don’t get seasons. We don’t see snow. There’s like rain and sunshine and that’s it.”

Wayantha went outside to hang out and took selfies in the snow for 90 minutes with his friend, senior criminal justice major Katie Matthews.

“I felt cold but I liked it,” Wayantha said. “It was really fun. Everything was getting covered in snow, even my glasses.”

With basketball season still going, power outages occurring, the football team announcing its new schedule and releasing a promotional video, the first snow day of the semester, and Theatre Wesleyan getting invited to perform at an upcoming festival, Wesleyan in general had an eventful winter break.

Backpedaling to the New Year’s Day, the Office of Marketing & Communications released a football video on social media and TV to get fans pumped for the upcoming season.

“Texas Wesleyan football is a big deal and we’re really excited about it, a lot of people across campus are excited about it, and alumni are very excited about it,” said Darren White, associate vice president of Marketing & Communications. “We wanted to start building the Ram Nation. The best place to reach that (audience) is through a commercial which gets people excited and lets them see the passion of these players.”

White was excited to work on the video with Shelly Jackman, Wesleyan’s art director, and Chuck Greeson, Wesleyan’s videographer.

“I think one of the main reasons that it was exciting was because of the four players featured in it,” White said. “We got the chance to get to know the players a little bit and their energy, passion, determination, and hard work that they’re putting into the sport. It’s just evident in their faces.”

White was also happy the video was well received by both external and internal audiences.

“I’ve just heard recently that coach Joe Prud’homme has been getting calls from people interested in playing for the team as a result of seeing it on TV,” White said. “We’ve been hearing great things on social media, too.”

According to White, this video is the first in a series that will lead up to the first home game on Sept. 9, when the Rams take on Millsaps College as part of an 11-game season.

“We’re looking at doing three more,” White said. “I don’t anticipate that we will do the other ones on TV at this time. We might but right now what we’re really focused on is getting that out on the web so that people can share them. Each one is going to be a little bit different. We’ll be hyping people up and getting people excited about other aspects of the program and other aspects of the preparation leading up to the first game.”

Looking back to Dec. 9, an unplanned power outage occurred on when a failure occurred between two points of connection, according to Facilities Director Jimmie Gresham.

“We can never plan for those but it could have happened at a better time possibly because of the graduation robing,” Gresham said. “We got it back on an hour before robing ceremonies started.”

While facilities fixed the outage, security called the fire department to help with a trapped student in the elevator in Stella Russell Hall, Gresham said. The elevators are shut off in advance when a planned outage occurs.

 “We didn’t like it at all, but I mean that’s why we’re here,” Gresham said. “We’re here so we can take care of problems and issues having to do with the facilities.”