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

There's a set in place Florida that built a 12-foot-significant monument in the middle of town to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would anyone have to do that?
Perfectly, to begin with, heroes take effort and time to uncover With this dedicate Florida - the Panhandle city of Wausau, house of below five hundred people in the guts of Washington County about 10 miles south of Chipley.
Why don't you the possum, an unlikely hero as you should count on? No one else puts the possum that has a pedestal. Why don't you Wausau?
Secondly, back in 1982, Wausau received sick and Uninterested in staying left out during the Florida lists of enjoyment, fairs and festivals. Each and every dedicate Florida requires a festival. Rather than a single set set up Florida provides a Possum Competition. Why don't you Wausau?
If you've under no circumstances absent to Washington County, you most likely will think I'm As a result, making this up. Should you have been to Washington County, you can expect to comprehend - and know this can be a correct story.
Wausau, it ended up, experienced some very impressive possum politicians during the early '80s. Listed below are certain things they accomplished:


They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the first Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led towards the developing of your monument together Point out Highway 77 in Wausau.

They even bought The us Congress to advertise the possum. Congress joined the pleasurable by offering the resources for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau might need a site to help keep its yearly Exciting Day and Possum Pageant. Featuring a queen contest and possum auction, amid other factors, the Pageant attracts a lot of men and women every year, and they adore it.
Day out for many educating of Northerners here. The South's possum is equivalent lowly animal you simply call opossum, (Why use 7 letters when 6 will perform?) It's a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and displays its ugly human body only during the night. This is exactly why, if you're throughout the ideal invest Florida, you are able to hear possum hunters' pet dogs baying and barking. Treed by pet dogs, the possum 'freezes', so It'll be not hard to trap (or shoot) one particular.
An inscription about the monument in the center check here of Wausau cites the possum's job in delivering 'both fur and foodstuff' through the total generations. It goes on say: 'Their presence right here has presented a resource of nutritious and flavorful food in regular moments and possesses been a very important enable to human survival during times of distress and critical need.'
Snicker if you like. The folks of Wausau will chuckle along with you - although downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.