By FINN HARTNETT

Staff writer

Dry but heavy snow blanketed Marion’s Main St. Tuesday, and residents were out quickly to act.

Dressed in beanies, gloves, and puffer jackets, various shovelers cleared sidewalks throughout the day.

Brad Wildin of County Seat Decorating Center said city snowplows often left powder on the sidewalk in front of his store.

He was shoveling the store’s terrace and sidewalk beneath it, trying to clear powder before it turned to ice.

“I’m retired, so it’s not affected me too much,” he said, “semi-retired, at least.”

Having grown up in New York City, Wildin is used to snow.

He expressed surprise at how much Kansas has had the last two winters.

“This is probably the most snow we’ve had in years,” he said. “Last year, we got a 15-inch snow. And we hadn’t seen that for probably 15 years.”

Wildin enjoyed a hot chocolate before coming out, made with ingredients brought back from a trip to Jamaica.

He’d been shoveling for some time, and was planning on staying “only as long as my health allows.”

One block down, a different Brad was shoveling the area in front of Martin’s Barber Shop and Patty Putter Real Estate.

“It’s not so bad,” Brad Putter said. “We need the snow for the moisture, for the crops and the pasture, both.”

He was planning to go back home to his ranch after shoveling and help his wife Patty roll some hay bales out so their cattle would have a dry place to sleep.

He wasn’t worried about the temperature dropping further.

“We do that all from the pickup,” he said.

Martin Bina poked his head out of his barber shop.

“I hate it,” he said of the snow.

Bina had only a couple of customers and was closing up shop soon. A heart condition, he said, prevented him from shoveling himself.

“I try to help him out,” Putter said.

Julie Deines, who works at Edward Jones, was clearing snow off her truck in preparation to drive away from the wintery street.

“I’ll stay at home by the fireplace,” she said.

She and Ryan Edmundson of Marion National Bank shoveled their sidewalk four separate times today, she said.

Deines echoed Bina in her thoughts on the snow.

“I hate it,” she said with a laugh.

High school sophomore Cooper Jirak also was on Main St., armed with his trusty snowblower.

Jirak cleared snow for over twenty businesses after a January snowstorm.

For his first job of the day, he was clearing snow in front of Karstetter & Bina.

After that, Signature Salon would receive the honors.

He would come back the next day to complete his jobs but was getting a headstart Tuesday afternoon.

“I’d rather attack it now and have three inches to deal with tomorrow, instead of three feet of snowdrift,” he said.