By Anne Burt
Becky Richins, wearing dust-covered blue jeans and a soiled white T-shirt with a wide-brim hat to protect her face from the morning sun, swooped down to pick up a demolished wire flag damaged by one of BYU''s aeration machines.
'What should I do with this,' Richins yelled over her shoulder with a smile to her BYU grounds co-worker Kaylynn Thygerson, wearing dirt-stained overalls and a green T-shirt.
'It''s filled the measure of its creation,' said Thygerson, now a BYU graduate and 10-year employee of the Grounds Department.
Such is the eventual fate of hundreds of bright blue, green, pink, orange and yellow flags which are unlucky enough to meet with a BYU aerating machine in the Grounds Department''s unyielding quest to keep the university''s lawns looking top-notch.
The small, wire flags are used to mark sprinkler locations so on-coming aeration machines, which dig into grass and remove a piece of earth usually the size of an apple core, do not destroy the sprinkler equipment.
Aeration reduces packed-down soil. Creating the holes in grass helps the ground to shift, creating more oxygen for the soil. The result is a healthier lawn.
Placing the scores of flags by the sprinklers takes a couple hours in the gardening areas on campus. Glenl Weir, the landscape specialty supervisor, said the temptation for students to swipe flags is not very common on the main campus. The real problem, Weir said, is in married student housing.
'We were doing Wymount last week,' Weir said, 'and we got a call from the office that said some little kid had gone around and collected all the flags and his mom had turned them in. So, here we go again - they''re just kids!'
Thygerson, originally from Indiana, said the students in the dorms use the flags while playing outside.
'They make their own goal posts if they are playing soccer,' Thygerson said.
Roy Peterman, grounds director, said frozen ground is the only condition that stops the crew from aerating the lawns. Peterman said compacted soil is a main reason BYU grounds crews continuously aerate the lawns.
'Don''t make paths in the grass,' Peterman said. 'Don''t drive on the lawns.'
Weir said any kind of traffic on the grass creates compaction: workers mowing the lawns every week, students studying and resting on the grass or throwing a frisbee with friends.
This kind of compaction is not a real concern for the grounds crew. The problem comes when the lawn is continually being hammered.
'We had a bunch of kids in Helaman Halls playing football,' Weir said. 'We still haven''t got the grass to recover.'
Aerating BYU''s lawns is not as simple as it may appear. Weir said aerating on campus is challenging because the grounds crew needs to start aerating early enough to avoid working around students.
Also, the condition of the soil must be just right for the aerating to do any good.
'The area has to be watered within a couple of days,' Weir said. 'But it can''t be super wet or else we just make a big muddy mess when we aerate.'
Weir also said if the soil is too dry, the aeration does not get the penetration he is looking for.
Richins, 20, a junior from Florida, majoring in English, said working on the grounds crew is better than other jobs she has had - like working as a custodian her freshman year.
Richins said she enjoys her job because she''s always learning. Understanding plants, not just identification but how they need to be treated and where they should be placed, is interesting, she said. But, Richins admitted, the big equipment is fun to operate.
'That''s what counts,' Thygerson said. 'All the cool toys.'