Before Groundhog Day, Punxsutawney locals get hyped for the hoopla

The thousands of people expected at Gobbler’s Knob on Thursday for Groundhog Day will have a tough time matching the bedlam to be found Tuesday at the Punxsutawney Area High School gymnasium.

More than 800 students in grades 7 through 12 interspersed with the Groundhog Club’s Inner Circle as Phil himself was lifted into the air to a cheering audience that named seniors Jake Henretta and Sydney Hoffman as the 68th annual Groundhog King and Queen.

“We all kind of get hyped for it,” Hoffman said. “Not everyone goes down to the Knob, (on Feb. 2) but we definitely all get hyped for it, and everybody kind of brings in their school spirit.”

Students are off the rest of this week so school buses can be used to shuttle visitors to the annual event at which the Inner Circle declares whether there will be six more weeks of winter. The otherwise quiet community of 6,000 in rural Jefferson County works nearly year-round in preparation for the celebration that comes to life at the high school.

“I often hear (the students) think it is the most fun assembly of the year,” said Groundhog Club Inner Circle member Jason “Big Chill” Grusky, who is also a math teacher at the school. “It’s very lighthearted, there’s singing and dancing, and this year, we’re going to have a dodgeball tournament.”

Though it was mostly filmed outside Punxsutawney itself, the advent of the 1993 movie “Groundhog Day” starring Bill Murray exploded fascination for the celebration, which traces its origins back to the German tradition of Candlemas Day.

“The movie did definitely boost the interest, but we’re not about the movie here,” said Jen Soliday, director of Punxsutawney Memorial Library. “We’re about Phil.”

Phil and Phyllis at home

About a mile from the high school in the quiet of a community library on a Tuesday morning, Soliday said in the weeks before Feb. 2, she starts to see an influx of visitors who aren’t really there for the books.

Tourist visits climb toward 400 a month. They walk in, sometimes pause with a question or two at the desk, and make a beeline for the back of the children’s section and the year-round home of Punxsutawney Phil, the famed weather-predicting groundhog, and Phyllis, his partner in prognosticating.

Kids and adults alike can sit in the children’s section and take a look at Phil and Phyllis through a glass window in the wall.

“When they built the library (in the ‘70s), they built the enclosure for Phil, and decided to put the window in so that little ones could see him,” Soliday said. “(Phil) used to come for my storytimes, which was great. I would be reading a book, and the little kids would be here, and he’d usually get up on the glass. One time, I looked at him, and I went, ‘You’ve heard this story last hour!’ And he got down and walked away!”

The groundhogs live at the library full time, taken care of by licensed members of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, a 501c3 nonprofit, and tourists visit year-round.

“You start planning a year in advance at least,” Soliday said. “The vast majority of it probably happens six months before Groundhog Day, but the planning and prep takes a while to put it all together.”

Though some residents of Punxsutawney get out of town during the peak Groundhog Day season, she said, a lot of the town is a big fan of Phil and the holiday.

“Everybody puts their heart and soul into Groundhog Day. It is so important to this town,” she said. “It is what puts us on the map. … Those of us who are here, we love Phil. He’s pretty awesome.”

Flurry of preparations

For members of the Groundhog Club, which is responsible for the organizing and production of the holiday celebrations in town, year-round events like the Groundhog Picnic in September and field trips from schools keep things busy long past Feb. 2.

“We take off a month, and we give ourselves a few weeks of breather time,” Marcy Galando, executive director of the Groundhog Club, said from among boxes of souvenirs at Gobbler’s Knob, the staging ground for the celebrations. “Starting in March, we have our first board meeting, and we come back to it with ideas and the positives and the negatives.”

The shop and visitors’ center is open all year, and the event room is typically rented out every weekend.

“Every week (after September) we’re having small meetings here and there, with different committees, and the wheels start turning,” she said.

There are 15 active members of the Groundhog Club Inner Circle, who wear the top hats and tuxedos on Groundhog Day and lead the festivities while also serving as the organization’s executive board. Beyond those 15, emeritus members and volunteers also chip in.

“It really takes a village, it really does,” Galando said. “It takes the whole town. We have a lot of volunteers that help, which is what we greatly appreciate.”

One Inner Circle member, Butch “Iceman” Philliber, has been part of the organization since 1988. He’s one of only a few who have been members since before the movie came out.

The town’s celebrations have grown greatly since then, as has the Gobbler’s Knob site, he said. The stump itself was renovated around the time of the movie, the visitor center has expanded, and the Groundhog Club now owns the site around the staging grounds.

Last year, numbers were smaller — around 9,000 attendees — Galando said. The Inner Circle anticipates more people will attend this year.

“Everything we do is perpetuating the legend, and Phil, and Punxsutawney,” Philliber said. “That’s what the guys are that are in the Inner Circle. Basically, their job is to keep Phil front and center.”

Even after so many years, Philliber is still impressed by the “phenomenon” of Groundhog Day.

“If you’ve never been there, you have to do the experience. The reason I say that is the enthusiasm of the crowd is like an adult Christmas,” Philliber said. “This is people standing shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the winter, for hours, waiting for a groundhog to come out of a hole, and they are so freaking excited that they did it that they’re jumping up and down. Go figure!”

For Soliday, back at the library, the occasional “naysayer” turning up their nose at Phil’s legend doesn’t break the town’s momentum.

“If you’re taking it that seriously, you’re entirely missing the point,” she said. “It’s midwinter, it’s something fun and festive. It’s something to get you out of the doldrums and the greyness, and the dreariness of winter.”