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The Day It Snowed at USF

By Mary Hsu

On January 19, 1977, USF had its own "winter wonderland," as students, faculty and staff experienced a once-in-a-lifetime occasion, Snow Day at USF. A thin blanket of snow covered the ground as the campus was beginning its day. Students, clad in t-shirts and Levi's, left their dorms to play in the thin snow.
"Some students tried to make a snowman that was more gray than white," remembers Liz Karl.

But the discolored snow didn't diminish the excitement of the Snow Day. USF St. Petersburg decided to form a Campus Snow Ski Club and requested that those who were interested in joining report to the Activities Office, preferably with skis in hand!

Morning classes were cancelled at the Tampa campus, and some lucky faculty and staff were able to join the students' snowball fights and festivities.

However, the day it snowed at USF also brought out a number of safety concerns and transportation problems. John Husfield, an undergraduate student, found it difficult to bicycle to campus because the puddles were frozen over, and his bike was sliding over them.

Many of the streets, sidewalks and ramps on campus were very slick and slippery, making it difficult and dangerous to get around. "It took me two tries to get my cart up the icy ramp to the west of Social and Behavioral Sciences," recalls Greg Gard, then a student who filled vending machines. "The pedestrian ramp on the south side of the Student Services Building was very slippery," said Jim Haskins, supervisor of the Audio Visual Department of Educational Resources at the time. "Anyone wanting to test its slipperiness had to hold its railing with both hands."

Around town, the slippery streets presented an even bigger traffic hazard, leaving detours and slowdowns all over Tampa.
"Normally I got to work in about 15-20 minutes, but that morning, it took me over two hours," remembers Char Robinson, who worked as a secretary in the Art Department of the College of Fine Arts. "By the time I got to campus, my hands were hurting from gripping the steering wheel." Robinson, a Tampa native, was faced with the task of crossing a bridge in order to get to campus.
"They were letting us go across the bridge one car at a time and had sprinkled salt or something on the bridge," she said. " Now, you know I was scared!" But once she got to the office, the Snow Day had become "such an ordeal for most of us that we really didn't get a lot done at work that morning."

By noon, the excitement was still high, but so was the Florida sun. The snow began to melt away, and the black edges of shingles began to come through the thin skin of snow that had blanketed the rooftops. However, for the few hours that it did last, USF's Snow Day was quite memorable!