Thanks to the creative minds of students at Colrain Central School and Gill Elementary School, two Massachusetts Department of Transportation snowplows will display the names “Master Snowda” and “Thaw Patrol” for the 2025-2026 winter season.
Schools across the state participated in the fourth annual “Name a Snowplow” contest, with the two Franklin County schools selected among the 12 winners.
“MassDOT’s annual Name a Snowplow contest is a fun tradition that gets Massachusetts schools involved in winter safety,” state Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver said in a statement. “It gives students a chance to be creative while learning about the important work our crews do to keep our roads clear and safe.”
Colrain Central School
At Colrain Central School, Tabitha Shearer’s fourth grade class came up with several ideas for snowplow names, but “Master Snowda” is what caught the eye of MassDOT’s judges.
Shearer said the class had reviewed previous winners while brainstorming and came up with plenty of options, but ultimately narrowed it to five that they submitted.
“We went through the previous years’ winners and saw there were a lot of ‘Star Wars’ names,” Shearer said. “I entered five names for the class and several had to do with capybaras.”
Students said they think capybaras are cute and funny, so they came up with several capybara-themed names, as well as other puns. Other names the class considered were Snowzilla and Snowybara. Students came up with Master Snowda, a pun based on Master Yoda of “Star Wars,” after seeing how many other “Star Wars”-themed names had won in the past, and due to their own fondness for the little green guy.
“It was a fun little morning activity that we did, just coming up with all the snow-based puns with things we’re interested in,” Shearer said, noting that the class is excited to see the snowplow when it comes to visit the school in February.
Shearer said students voted on their preferred names, and the top choices were submitted to the contest. They learned that they won just after returning from the holiday break and were excited that MassDOT liked the name they came up with.
“I think Snowybara was the best, but Master Snowda was pretty good, too,” said Arturius Sutton, who is credited with coming up with Master Snowda alongside Rhett Smith.
Gill Elementary School
Sixth graders in Kristin Carey’s class at Gill Elementary School were the other Franklin County winners in the snowplow naming contest, winning with “Thaw Patrol,” a play on the popular children’s cartoon “Paw Patrol.”
Two Gill Elementary teachers, Zoe Neeley and Ramona LaTronica, spearheaded the school’s participation in the contest this year. Each class came up with names, and a favorite name was put forward and submitted to the state for consideration.
“It was very exciting when we got the notification that Gill had won, and especially with the sixth grade, with it being their last year at the school,” Neeley said.
This is the second year the school has participated in the contest and the first time it has won. A MassDOT snowplow bearing the “Thaw Patrol” name is expected to visit Gill Elementary on Feb. 11.
Neeley said students put forward different name concepts based on their age. The older students were able to come up with puns or different plays on words, with one name being “Scoop Dog,” which was also suggested by a sixth grader, whereas some of the younger students were opting to submit their friends’ names for the contest.
Outside of just having the students brainstorm and vote on names, Neeley said the school went all in with related activities. In her role as a science teacher, Neeley had her older students create their own snowplows using craft supplies and attach them to rover toys, and the younger students attach their snowplows to small toy cars.
“They were broken into groups, and each group got a paper towel tube, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners [and] unlimited access to tape,” Neeley said. “They had 15 minutes to build a plow that could attach to the front of the rover, and then we pushed cotton balls to test them out.”
The students also had a physical education class where they pretended to plow snow and collected the cotton balls into baskets, and an arts class where they drew winter cards with snowplow illustrations.
Neeley said it was an opportunity to incorporate education into the contest, knowing how snow and snowplows are a concept they interact with each day, and that the experience could be used to help them further their learning.
“I think, from the science end, planning and testing and building is a basic engineering standard that we cover with kids,” Neeley explained, “and to have a realistic, tied-to-Massachusetts example is helpful.”
A full list of winners is available on the MassDOT website at tinyurl.com/45vjaeb3.