by Timothy Baldi
Staff Writer
Students and visitors who attended spring banquet on Saturday will remember the small, decorative pond located in front of the first floor entrance to Latimer Student Center. The pond symbolized the banquet’s theme “A Night on the Riviera.”
However, four hours after the banquet ended at 7:45 p.m., freshman Aaron Hunt walked through Latimer and discovered the pond had leaked nearly 75 percent of its water onto the Rhea County Room floor and part of the cafeteria floor.
Hunt contacted members of the freshmen SGA who organized 19 volunteers, including 18 students and one visitor, to begin a clean-up effort. Students were assisted by Rita Hayman, the night watch official on duty, who provided them access to two water vacuums and the inside of the gated cafeteria.
The volunteers worked from 2 to 3 a.m. moving tables and chairs, vacuuming the areas with the most water, draining the mops and buckets, emptying the pond, and discovering the cause of the leak.
The leak was caused by a 1.5 inch vertical cut in the lining of the pond. The cut was located near the front of the pool about 10 inches from its top.
According to Hayman, it is unlikely that such an incision could have been made accidentally. Only a knife or some other sharp object could have made such a clean cut because tears form in a more circular pattern and the pond lining was resting against a solid, bumpy wall of rocks.
The pond held water until 9:30 p.m. without leaking, according Freshman Class Treasurer Kelly Findley, but it is unknown what time the leak began after that.
Nothing in the cafeteria or the Rhea County Room was damaged by the leak, according to Diana Buttram, administrative assistant for the Office of Operations.