Adding a new template.

I’ve beat my head against a very simple problem for about three hours now. I’m a beginner and am starting from scratch, so as a first step I’m trying to create a blank template for my home page. My goal is to create a blank template which I can then learn to format using HTML/CSS.

I’ve poured over this article: http://codex.wordpress.org/Pages#Examples, particularly the part about creating the simple “snarfer” template.

I copied the code exactly as it is on the page, created a new file and saved it to my theme’s directly. I even copied the existing “archives” file and renamed the template name from “archives” to “snarfer”.

I cannot get my new template “snarfer” to appear in the page template drop down menu on the write->write page admin panel.

I’m probably doing something very simple incorrectly. Can someone stear me in the right direction?

thanks.

Fibnok