Print edition: 
David Owings came prepared to jump into the 36-degree lake at O.J. Watson Park on Saturday.
A veteran of Special Olympics Kansas' Polar Plunge fundraiser, Owings donned a woodland camouflage hunter's face mask, waterproof hooded sweatshirt, fishing vest and swim trunks pulled over a pair of rubber fishing waders.
In his left hand he held a fishing pole and in his right he held a 10-ounce bottle of hot sauce that he was drinking from.
"I'm an extremist from the fishing colony," he joked a few minutes before joining about 49 other people who jumped in the lake to raise money for Special Olympics.
Organizers expected to raise about $10,000 from the plunge, a Polar Strut 1-mile walk and fun run, and a silent auction.
The plunge, Special Olympics' biggest fundraiser, has been held statewide for the past 11 years and two years consecutively in Wichita.
More than 100 people attended the nearly three-hour event.
Walt Kuykendall, a volunteer organizer, said participants came from as far as Clearwater to run down a boat ramp and into the waist-deep water.
A rescue diver from the Wichita Fire Department stood in the lake in his dry suit, just in case.
"It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be," said one swimmer, who was one of about a dozen women representing Sedgwick County 911 dispatch who took the plunge.
Organizers had two heated, 16-foot-high tents set up for swimmers to change into dry clothes. Swimmers also were served hot chili, coffee and cocoa.
Some of the swimmers, like Owings, ran full force down the ramp and dived in.
Others were a little more tentative, opting to get their bodies wet only from the waist down.
Costumes were as much a part of the plunge as the plunge itself.
Two men wearing only swim trunks, tennis shoes and bowties unsuccessfully tried to ride their unicycles into the water. Another man dived in wearing a Hawaiian-print shirt and grass skirt.
Don Tompkins of Wichita, stocky and 6 feet tall, painted himself fluorescent green from head to toe and wore Incredible Hulk toy fists as he ran into the water.
"It's just something out of the ordinary," Tompkins said of the plunge. "Plus it's a great cause."
Last year, Wichita police Officer David Nienstedt took the plunge in his uniform.
"That won't be happening this year because it was about 70 degrees last year," Nienstedt said.
He was wearing his uniform this year but did not plunge. Instead, he was working the event as a volunteer.
Jana Fornelli, Special Olympics vice president for development, said organizers have had to chip through 12 inches of ice to expose a lake for Polar Plunge swimmers.
"It was sleeting after we got done" three years ago in Emporia, Tompkins said. "This is a heat wave compared to that."
