There's a dedicate Florida that created a 12-foot-higher monument throughout city to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would anybody would like to accomplish that?
Very well, to get started on, heroes are complicated to study In this particular place in Florida - the Panhandle funds of scotland - Wausau, home of less than 500 persons in the middle of Washington County about 10 miles south of Chipley.
Why not the possum, an unlikely hero To place it mildly? No one else puts the possum in excess of a pedestal. Why don't you Wausau?
Secondly, in 1982, Wausau obtained Ill and Fed up with currently being neglected With all the Florida lists of entertaining, fairs and festivals. Just about every devote Florida demands a festival. Rather than one location in Florida carries a Possum Festival. Why not Wausau?
If you haven't visited Washington County, you almost certainly will Assume I'm building this up. When you have absent to Washington County, you can expect to have an understanding of - and know This may be a accurate story.
Wausau, it proved, had some quite effective possum politicians during the early '80s. Here i will discuss a number of items they completed:


They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the 1st Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led for the building with the monument together Point out Highway seventy seven in Wausau.

They even bought America Congress to market the possum. Congress joined the exciting by way of delivering the money for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau might have a location to hold its annual Enjoyment Day and Possum Pageant. Featuring a queen contest and possum auction, between other points, the Competition draws in lots of people on a yearly basis, and in order that they find it irresistible.
Time out For numerous educating of Northerners below. The South's possum is the similar lowly animal check here you simply call opossum, (Why use seven letters when 6 will do?) It is a smallish marsupial that life in trees and shows its hideous system only during the night time. This is why, when you are Within the suitable commit Florida, you are able to hear possum hunters' pet dogs baying and barking. Treed by canines, the possum 'freezes', so It will likely be not difficult to entice (or shoot) 1.
An inscription concerning the monument through Wausau cites the possum's part in providing 'the two fur and food stuff' during the total centuries. It goes on say: 'Their existence below has delivered an origin of nutritious and flavorful food stuff in ordinary times and possesses been a vital assist to human survival far more distress and critical have to have.'
Chortle if you like. The people of Wausau will chortle along - whilst downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.