Texans have sometimes struggled to celebrate Groundhog Day due to their mild winters.
DALLAS — Though we may know the legend, it is difficult for Texans to truly celebrate or otherwise observe Groundhog Day.
The 138-year-old tradition of a bunch of men in Pennsylvania gathering around a groundhog named Phil for his decree on the winter forecast does not exactly resonate in a state where cold weather might not last six weeks at all.
Still, WFAA reporters in the 1970s tried to mark the occasion the best they could in stories now archived at SMU’s Jones Film Library. Legendary reporter Jerry Park (aka Mr. Peppermint) tried to get the inside scoop from a groundhog named Elwood at the Dallas Zoo but Elwood seemed unwilling to comment.
Another story pushed back on the whole idea of the country’s “Yankee population” and their glorified woodchuck determining the changing season when a longhorn, an animal native to Texas, cast a much larger and easier to spot shadow.
