An area in Florida - Let us Cheer the Lowly Possum

There's a location in Florida that created a twelve-foot-higher monument in the course of town to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would everyone want to accomplish that?
Perfectly, to begin, heroes are hard to analysis using this set in position Florida - the Panhandle town of Wausau, house of much less than 500 folks in the midst of Washington County about 10 miles south of Chipley.
Why don't you the possum, an unlikely hero as you would be expecting? No person else puts the possum about the pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Next, in 1982, Wausau got fed up with being neglected through the Florida lists of entertaining, fairs and festivals. Each individual location in Florida wants a festival. And not one particular devote Florida features a Possum Competition. Why don't you Wausau?
If you have under no circumstances attended Washington County, you most likely will Assume I'm Consequently, building this up. If you have absent to Washington County, you are going to comprehend - and know This may be a true story.
Wausau, it proved, had some fairly strong possum politicians in the course of the early '80s. Here's several things they achieved:


They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the 1st Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led into the setting up With all the monument together State Freeway 77 in Wausau.

They even got America Congress to advertise the possum. Congress joined the fun by check here the money for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau might have a place to carry its annual Fun Day and Possum Pageant. Featuring a queen contest and possum auction, amid other factors, the Pageant attracts tons of people yearly, moreover they discover it irresistible.
Time out for many educating of Northerners right here. The South's possum is similar lowly animal you simply call opossum, (Why use 7 letters when six will accomplish?) It's a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and exhibits its unpleasant system only at nighttime. This is exactly why, when you are within the proper make investments Florida, you'll be able to listen to possum hunters' puppies baying and barking. Treed by canines, the possum 'freezes', so it will be not complicated to capture (or shoot) one particular.
An inscription round the monument all through Wausau cites the possum's function in giving 'both fur and foods' in the entire centuries. It goes to say: 'Their existence listed here has presented a resource of nutritious and flavorful food in normal times and consists of been a big aid to human survival when in distress and significant will need.'
Chuckle If you'd like. The folks of Wausau will snicker as well as you - though downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.