There is a place set up Florida that created a twelve-foot-higher monument in the middle of town to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would any one have to do that?
Properly, to start with, heroes are challenging to get on this devote Florida - the Panhandle town of Wausau, home of under 500 folks in the guts of Washington County about ten miles south of Chipley.
Why not the possum, an unlikely hero to state the the very least? No one else places the possum within the pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Secondly, very last 1982, Wausau got Uninterested in currently being ignored in the Florida lists of enjoyable, fairs and festivals. Every single set in position Florida requires a Competition. Rather than one particular set in position Florida features a Possum Competition. Why not Wausau?
If you have never frequented Washington County, you probably will think I'm Consequently, producing this up. If you have been to Washington County, you can expect to recognize - and know this is a genuine Tale.
Wausau, it turned out, experienced some very powerful possum politicians inside the early '80s. Here are a pair of matters they achieved:


They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the quite 1st Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led on the constructing from the monument along Condition Freeway 77 in Wausau.

They even obtained the United States Congress to advertise the possum. Congress joined the enjoyment by the resources for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau might have a location to help its yearly Pleasurable Working day and Possum Pageant. Featuring a queen contest and possum auction, amongst other items, the Pageant appeals to heaps of folks every year, as well as they adore it.
Trip for some educating of Northerners here. The South's possum is identical lowly animal you call opossum, (Why use 7 letters when 6 can perform?) It is a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and reveals its unpleasant entire body only during the night. That's why, after you find yourself while in the proper commit Florida, you could hear possum hunters' pet dogs baying and barking. Treed by puppies, the possum 'freezes', so it can be not so hard read more to hook (or shoot) just one.
An inscription with the monument in the course of Wausau cites the possum's job in delivering 'the two fur and food' throughout the generations. It goes on to say: 'Their existence listed here has furnished a supply of nutritious and flavorful foodstuff in typical times and it has been a vital support to human survival considerably more distress and important need.'
Snicker if you love. The individuals of Wausau will snicker along - while downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.