When one Wisconsin elementary school principal got a call that his school was going to have a snow day, he announced it in the most entertaining way — with a hilarious music video.
Principal Jack Knaack was told on Thursday, Dec. 22 that students and staff at Richmond Elementary School would have to stay home the following day, Friday, Dec. 23, given the extreme temperatures in Appleton, Wisconsin. The city is expected to have a high of 5° and low of 3° on the day before Christmas Eve.
For Knaack, it was the moment he had been waiting for — and that’s because for years he’d been recording clips that he would eventually edit together to make the big snow day announcement.
The result was a parody set to the tune of “Old Town Road” called “Official Richmond Appleton Snow Day 2022.” The video was shown to students in their classrooms on Thursday afternoon.
The video begins with Knaack fueling up his snowplow, turning it on and exiting from his garage onto his snow-covered driveway.
“Yeah, I’m gonna take my plow through my old driveway, I’m gonna snow blow out ‘til the end of the day,” he sings, as it transitions to Knaack in his Wisconsin Badgers pajamas getting a call from his boss with the news.
The video has been years in the making, Knaack tells TODAY.com.
“This is our first snow day, which is strange here in Wisconsin, first time in two years. So I’ve been kind of playing with this one for a while,” he says, adding that creating the song was “actually the short part” and his son was his cameraman throughout the process. “It took only really a couple of days in the scheme of things, but it was a two-year project because (we were) just waiting for the snow to come.”
The video also shows Knaack stepping out of the school in a Green Bay Packers blazer and yellow top hat with a cane as he sings, “We ain’t gonna have no school, ain’t gonna have no school.”
He also thanks Superintendent of Appleton Area School District Mr. Greg Hartjes for “saving us from going in.”
Knaacks reveals that he actually had a finished copy of the parody last year, but had to make some edits after the school district changed superintendents this year.
“I had her name and I had to put his name,” he says. “I had to rerecord some things even at the last second because I kind of saw the storm come in. So I’m like, ‘Hey, maybe we can finally share this.’”
He also didn’t get the call at 5 a.m., he shares, “but everyone got the picture and it was fun.”
Knaack, who has been the principal at Richmond Elementary School for 12 years, loves creating fun content for the students. And when he heard “Old Town Road,” he knew it was the perfect fit.
“When the song came to me, I’m like, ‘Finally the kids will know the song I’m doing,’” he says, noting that he did another video a few years back but his snow day project is “a little more contemporary.”
Knaack, meanwhile, had a blast finally unveiling his work of art with his school.
“I got to share it with the kids this afternoon… so you could imagine the cheer that was going up and down. It was pretty funny,” he says. “I checked in with kids and … that’s what I liked about it, every kid had a different part they loved. ‘Oh, I really liked it when you’re walking backwards with your snow plow.’ It was just really funny things. They were excited.”
Creating videos, he says, will be “a once a year project.” He’s had inspiration for a couple songs but nothing fully fleshed out. During the winter break, he’ll start thinking of new ideas with his two sons.
“My boys always get hooked into whatever I do. If I need to do something funny, they’re my guinea pigs as well as my camera people and pretty much everything,” he says. “Maybe we even start on the next video together.”
With students and staff not attending the Friday before holiday break, Knaack says that “many people see it as a present.” For him, he just likes to make people laugh.
“And try to (go) a little over the top. I think it’s a fun thing to do,” he says. “And being there 12 years, the kids kind of energize you and when they like something — and they like silliness — it helps. (I) try to give a few more smiles and, of course, a few more smiles going into winter break is pretty easy to do anyway, but this was a good extra addition.”
He adds that he’s looking forward to the next song he’ll create and how it will be received by the public. “‘Old Town Road’ is a good one. I don’t know if I can top that one,” Knaack says. “But we’ll see.”
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