Time to spring forward

Published 11:01 pm Friday, March 11, 2011

At 2 a.m. Sunday, the clocks will shift into overdrive and the early Sunday morning hours will come a little faster as Daylight Savings Time goes into action.

If people don’t take the proper precautions before hitting the hay, their entire day can be complete chaos.

One of the first places to suffer from ill preparation for the “spring forward” are church services. Dr. Jerry Light, pastor of First Baptist Church of Selma, said he has seen it all too many times.

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“It’s always humorous because you can tell the people who did not make they time correction,” he said. “They look a little more disheveled than some of the others in the congregation. I always regret that they do it on the weekend, but there is really no good time for it I guess.”

The key, Church Street United Methodist Church pastor Rev. Fred Zeigler said, is raising awareness in the weeks leading up to the change.

“We try to do the best we can to advertise it and let people know,” he said. “Our choir director even has a special song they do to remind people. There are always a few who forget, but for the most part people are pretty good about setting their clocks.”

The federal law that established daylight savings time in the United States does not require any area to observe daylight saving time. But if a state chooses to observe daylight savings time, it must follow the starting and ending dates set by the law.

From 1986 to 2006 this was the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October, but starting in 2007, it is observed from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November, adding about a month to daylight saving time.