A location in Florida - Let us Cheer the Lowly Possum

There is a put set up Florida that created a 12-foot-high monument for the duration of city to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would anyone wish to accomplish that?
Very well, to get started with, heroes are really hard to analysis In this particular place in Florida - the Panhandle town of Wausau, property of much less than five hundred people in the guts of Washington County about ten miles south of Chipley.
Why don't you the possum, an unlikely hero understandably? Nobody else puts the possum about a pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Next, in 1982, Wausau acquired tired of currently being neglected with the Florida lists of fun, fairs and festivals. Every commit Florida wishes a Competition. And not a person commit Florida has a Possum Pageant. Why don't you Wausau?
If you haven't been to Washington County, you most likely will Feel I am earning this up. When you have attended Washington County, you can expect to fully grasp - and know This is actually the true Tale.
Wausau, it proved, had some pretty effective possum politicians inside the early '80s. Allow me to share a few issues they accomplished:


They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the very first Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led on the building in the monument along Condition Freeway seventy seven in Wausau.

They even bought America Congress in marketing the possum. Congress joined the pleasurable by offering the cash for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau could have a place to keep its once-a-year Pleasurable Working day and Possum Pageant. Showcasing a queen contest and possum auction, among other items, the festival attracts Lots of individuals every year, as well as they obtain it irresistible.
Time out for many educating of Northerners in this article. The South's possum website is similar lowly animal you simply call opossum, (Why use seven letters when 6 will execute?) It is a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and shows its unappealing overall body only in the evening. That is why, when you're Within the ideal place in position Florida, it is possible to listen to possum hunters' dogs baying and barking. Treed by canines, the possum 'freezes', so It'll be not difficult to trap (or shoot) a single.
An inscription for that monument in the center of Wausau cites the possum's role in giving 'equally fur and meals' with the generations. It goes on say: 'Their presence listed here has furnished a resource of nutritious and flavorful meals in typical moments and has been an important aid to human survival when in distress and significant require.'
Giggle if you like. The folks of Wausau will chortle together with you - while downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.