A Place in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum

There is a make investments Florida that crafted a 12-foot-substantial monument in the center of town to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would anybody need to do that?
Properly, to start with off, heroes choose time and effort to research With this position in Florida - the Panhandle town of Wausau, household of much less than five hundred individuals in the course of Washington County about ten miles south of Chipley.
Why not the possum, an unlikely hero as you would be expecting? Nobody else puts the possum around the pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Secondly, in 1982, Wausau received fed up with becoming neglected with the Florida lists of entertaining, fairs and festivals. Every single position in Florida needs a festival. Instead of just one make investments Florida features a Possum Competition. Why not Wausau?
If you've got hardly ever attended Washington County, you most likely will Feel I am thus, building this up. Should you have gone to Washington County, you may understand - and know This may be a correct story.
Wausau, it proved, had some very powerful possum politicians over the early '80s. Here are two issues they completed:


They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the 1st Saturday in August as Possum Day in Florida. That led to the building within the monument along Point out Freeway 77 in Wausau.

They even bought The us Congress in marketing the Possum Proofing Melbourne possum. Congress joined the enjoyable by supplying the cash for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau might have a area to assistance its annual Exciting Day and Possum Festival. Showcasing a queen contest and possum auction, among the other issues, the Competition appeals to plenty of individuals Every single and each and every year, furthermore they adore it.
Time out for a few educating of Northerners below. The South's possum is identical lowly animal you call opossum, (Why use seven letters when 6 can do?) It is a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and demonstrates its ugly entire body only during the night time. That's why, if you're during the right commit Florida, you can listen to possum hunters' canines baying and barking. Treed by dogs, the possum 'freezes', so it truly is easy to catch (or shoot) one.
An inscription about the monument in the center of Wausau cites the possum's job in supplying 'equally fur and food' from the full generations. It goes to say: 'Their presence right here has offered a useful resource of nutritious and flavorful food items in usual periods and has been a substantial help to human survival throughout situations of distress and demanding have to have.'
Chuckle for those who'd choose. The people of Wausau will giggle together with you - even though downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.