WDBJ7 Archive: Roanoke’s Groundhog Day traditions

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - Monday is Groundhog Day, and once again the national spotlight will fall on Pennsylvania. That’s where Punxsutawney Phil will let us know if we can expect six more weeks of winter.

But did you know that Roanoke has had its own Groundhog Day traditions? What we found in the WDBJ7 Archive, might just surprise you.

For more than 40 years, Roanoke had its own Groundhog Club.

And at its height in the 1920s, the group’s annual meeting brought several thousand card-carrying members to the American Legion Auditorium.

“There is a groundhog club up in Pennsylvania that claims to be the originator of the groundhog club, however, I would challenge them to a national debate on this question any time,” a former member told WDBJ7 in 1976.

The crowd was smaller in 1998, when Mill Mountain Zoo observed Groundhog Day with “Tweeter,” an animal rehabbed by the Wildlife Center of Virginia and brought to the Zoo for the occasion.

Mayor David Bowers donned a top hat to officiate.

“And on the second day of February in the year 1998, Tweeter the groundhog did view her shadow at the hour of 10:43 am, and thus it is assured, regretfully, that the Roanoke region will hereby experience six more weeks of winter weather,” Bowers told the assembled crowd.

And for a few years after Tweeter’s appearance, the zoo turned to a prairie dog named Kylie for the forecast, an upgrade, the zoo’s education curator argued.

“Prairie Dogs don’t hibernate, and therefore, they’re much better weather predictors,” David Jobe said in an interview. “Groundhogs are asleep this time of year. Whoever says they wake up, it’s not true. They’re in hibernation.”

There’s no telling what Monday’s moment will bring, but if past coverage is any indication, we’ll see six more weeks of winter weather.

“The groundhog saw its shadow,” The former Groundhog Club member sang. “That’s what I’ve been told. Well the groundhog saw his shadow and he ran back in the hole.”