A tradition dating back to 1911, each spring the outgoing student body president at Coe College gets to to call Flunk Day. On Flunk Day all classes are canceled. Any papers due or scheduled exams pushed back to the next class. Flunk Day is a massive party and a great time is had by all - students, staff, and faculty.
Thirty-Five years ago I had the honor(?) of calling Flunk Day. As a budding weather geek I was excited by the prospect of calling off classes on a warm spring day. Unfortunately for me the weather didn't cooperate and a high of 59 on a sunny/blustery day is remembered negatively by my fellow Kohawks. It's safe to say the 1991 Flunk Day isn't remembered as the perfect weather Flunk Day I dreamed it would be. Because Iowa weather is unpredictable the 1990 Flunk Day ended with a massive storm spawning tornadoes that took out electricity for most of Cedar Rapids. I remember navigating my way back to campus with no working street lights on First Avenue.
Unquestionably, the best Flunk Day weather was 1993. David Hayes lucked out. 90+ degrees. A porta-potty was tipped over with a guy in it. When he was freed from it, the TKE ran into the pond at Chapman's Fun World to wash off. When he emerged naked nobody cared or noticed because, well, quite a bit of alcohol had been consumed... and in the early 1990's not everyone had a camera on them.
Simpler times.
Another tradition of Flunk Day is the Flunk Day newspaper. For my year I asked former Coe Cosmos editor Denise Stade to write/edit mine. IMHO Denise produced the funniest paper in Flunk Day history.
Flunk Day is an awesome Coe tradition. I am happy I was able to be a part of it. :-)
