Dylan Ray pulled up at Robinson Park on his sister’s bike, towing a sled loaded with trick skis and a snow shovel for building jumps.
“We haven’t had a snow day since seventh grade,” said Ray, a sophomore at East High School, who spent the day practicing 180s in the Hilltop neighborhood park with his friends. “This is a really big deal.”
As snow piled up on Front Range lawns and streets Tuesday evening, the buzz about a potential rare snow day started to build among students.
At 5:59 p.m., a Facebook page called “Snow Day March 24, 2010” launched from Denver, and fans began to gather as fast as the flakes were flying.
By about 9:30 p.m., delirium soared as closings were posted, district by district.
“DPS CLOSED!! NO SPANISH TEST! NO GEOMETRY TEST!” wrote Mark Francis.
“No Socratic Seminar in history! Victory!!!” cheered Mercedes Muldoon.
“No French test for me!” said Khoa Nguyen.
That’s about the time that Romi Hovey, a kindergarten teacher at the William Roberts School in Stapleton, got word about the school closings from her 12-year-old son, who texted her with great excitement from his room downstairs.
She was almost more thrilled than he was.
“All the teachers were praying for a snow day before the snow even started,” Hovey said Wednesday morning as she watched her 10-year-old son sled down the hill, under clear blue skies, in a T-shirt.
“We did the Snow Day dance, and it worked,” she said.
Over at Ruby Hill Park in west Denver, the parking lot was packed.
Kids flew down the hill on inner tubes — or without them, bodysurfing the snow. Some threw snowballs. Others made snow forts and snow angels.
“I was amazed that school was canceled because the roads were not that bad,” said Jacob Hoffius, an AmeriCorps tutor at Adams City Middle School. “It’s warm, my hat’s off and I brought a Frisbee for later.”
Like it was just another day at the beach.
Up at Eldora ski resort — which received 18 inches of snow — conditions were a bit colder, but business was brisk.
“We had a lot of seasonal pass holders, a lot of good skiers from Nederland and Boulder,” said marketing director Rob Linde. “They were all champing at the bit. The maze was full of people when the lift started at 9 a.m.”
Some, undoubtedly, were like Sam Martucci, who admitted on the Snow Day Facebook page that although classes still were in session at Colorado State University, she was “taking a personal snow day” anyway.
At Robinson Park, Tara Ramsden-Wood watched her boys, ages 3 and 5, shoot down the hill on their sleds.
“He was so excited when he found out there was no school today,” she said of her older son. “It reminds me of snow days in Canada, where I grew up. But it was always minus 30 degrees. It was never this warm.”
Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com
