The city’s snow plows have new names, as imagined by local second graders.

In October, city staff visited all 15 elementaries in Great Falls Public Schools with city snow plows and spoke to 711 students about snow plow operations.

Students were given coloring sheets and asked to help name the plows.

Second graders naming city snowplows

Eric Boyd, city streets and traffic division manager, told commissioners during their Dec. 3 meeting that they received many creative names and the coloring sheets are decorating the halls of the public works building.

Each second grade class in GFPS submitted a name suggestion for the snowplows.

A committee decided the best name from each school from among those class submissions and a sticker will be made for each snowplow showing the winning name for each school.

Some of the submissions, according to GFPS, were Blizzo, Han Snowlo, Sleetwood Mac and Clearopathra.

But, the winners for the city’s plows are:

• Snow Smasher
• Snow Hawk
• Plowinator
• Big Blue
• Snow Breaker
• Frostbite
• Meltasaurus (The Electric’s personal favorite)

City crews on 24-hour schedule for snow and ice operations [2017]

Rachel Cutler, the district’s elementary curriculum coordinator, organized the event.

She told The Electric in October that the snowplow event connects to the second grade curriculum, particularly social studies, as the students are learning about how citizens in the school and community take care of each other.

They also learned specifically about how governments provide goods and services for a community.

Those curriculum aspects are addressed in two second-grade standards:

• SS.Economics.2.2: describe examples of goods and services that governments provide
• SS.Civics and Government.2.2: demonstrate ways to show good citizenship in the classroom, school and community

The city receives about 58 inches of snow annually, according to the city.

“It is not possible to remove all the snow simultaneously from all of the city streets, however, it is our goal to provide access to desired destinations such as employment, shopping and community services in a quick, convenient, safe manner,” according to the city.

Some major streets in the city are maintained and plowed by the Montana Department of Transportation.

Thoroughfares in Great Falls are cleared by the following schedule, according to the city:

• Priority One (Red): Emergency Snow Routes. These streets provide a network system throughout the city for emergency services operations. They are marked by road signs throughout the city.
• Priority Two (Black): Major Arterials. Streets interconnecting with high volume streets and completing the major street network with particular attention to schools, hospitals and business areas.
• Priority Three (Green): Selected Collector Streets. These streets include mass transit routes and other collector streets necessary to provide access to major arterials.
• Most residential streets and others not mentioned in the three priority groups. These streets are not normally cleared unless impassable. After clearing of the other priorities, special requests as manpower, equipment, are available.

For more information on city snow and ice control operations, click here.