Barner now needs extensive treatment for burns across his body. Hurst is trying to fly Barner back home to the United States, where he can be treated at the Shriner's hospital in Cincinnati. As the final entering class of the 20th century arrived on The College of Wooster campus Wednesday to prepare for the academic year ahead, the vast differences between it and the freshman class of a century ago were glaringly apparent. In the 1890s, the comparatively small number of students attending the college were overwhelmingly male, Anglo-Saxon, and most came by horse and buggy or wagon from the immediate surrounding geographic area, bringing with them only scant personal possessions. Students were unremittingly conservative, in keeping with the strict standards of the Presbyterian Church-affiliated institution.
Photographs show they habitually dressed in somewhat formal attire and their demeanor was studious.
The students who moved onto The College of Wooster campus a century ago were, in short, a far cry from the T-shirt and blue jean clad group that worked boisterously in a steady rain Wednesday to unload CD players, VCRs, TVs, walkmen, mircowave ovens, refrigerators, futons, sofas, laptops, personal computers and tons of clothing from burdened minivans, sport pickups, rental trucks and family sedans that overflowed parking lots onto grassy areas between dormitories. Wooster Community Hospital experienced its second consecutive slow month in admissions and average patient length of stay, and that has some of the members of the board of governors worrying that it might be a trend. For July, the hospital admitted only 306 patients, with an average length of stay of 3.3 days. The hospital had budgeted for 422 admissions with an average stay of 3.8 days. In July 1998, the hospital admitted 428 patients, whose average stay was 3.6 days.