A chance meeting at a party in the late 1970s produced a friendship between two local teachers that has spilled over into their classrooms for nearly three decades.

Back then, Pattie Sutton and Gay Moss both were first-grade teachers -- Sutton at Chesterfield County's Falling Creek Elementary, Moss at Henrico County's Tuckahoe Elementary.

After becoming friends, they started a pen-pal system in 1980 between their classes, writing letters back and forth across county lines. Then other first-grade classes joined in.

A few years later, they had an even better idea.

"Twenty-two years ago, we decided to meet," Sutton said. The first meeting between the first-graders was at Maymont, and it was a hit. Every year since, Sutton and Moss and the first-grade classes visit their pen pals at each other's schools.

Yesterday was the day to host for Sutton's students at Evergreen Elementary, where she's worked since it opened in 1987. By 10 a.m., her class was abuzz as the students waited to hear that the Tuckahoe students' buses were on their way.

One of the youngsters who hardly could wait was Madison McCallum, who proudly said she had two pen pals. Each student is paired with one or two from the other school. They write and send little gifts to each other through the year.

"You get to learn all about them, and they're just fun to write to," she said.

The Evergreen first-graders greeted their new friends on the bus loop with a huge welcome sign and soon were meeting face-to-face for the first time and trading goodie bags.

On the way back to the classroom, Evergreen students guided their visitors through the halls. Some pointed out all the important parts of their school.

"This is our art room," one Evergreen boy pointed out. "And this is our bathroom."

"Another bathroom," he said a minute later. "And this is our library."

Others were having a conversation at the back of the line about NFL quarterback Peyton Manning.

Two students discussed their shoe sizes.

Tuckahoe parent Julie Flournoy came along with her daughter, Maggie.

Last night, "she could not sleep, she could not eat," Flournoy said. "She was so over-the-top excited. They'd been communicating all year long, [and] they tell each other really sweet things."

Back in Sutton's room, the students interviewed each other and caught up on stories they'd told in their letters. They decorated visors to wear and passed around autograph books. They finished the day with lunch and sundaes.

While Moss and Sutton's friendship will continue, their Chesterfield-Henrico classroom relationship will not.

Moss is retiring this year after 32 years. Sutton said she's looking for another Chesterfield school to continue the tradition next year.

"I'm very sad she's leaving," Sutton said, her arm around her friend.

She talked about how the students, by the end of the day, "are sobbing when they say goodbye."

She could say the same about the end of something special between her and Moss.

"It's heartwrenching."

Contact Holly Prestidge at (804) 649-6945 or hprestidge@timesdispatch.com.