51st Woollybear Festival is Sunday

VERMILION — There is no other place in the state that will celebrate a caterpillar like this town will come Sunday. This year marks the 51st Woollybear Festival when the "biggest one-day festival in Ohio" will draw nearly ten times the town's population of 10,000 or so people to celebrate all things related to the lowly black-and-orange crawler Oct. 8. The one-day festival packs in a parade, a costume contest in which animals, and kids, dress up to see which ones look most like — you guessed it, woollybears — and the famous Woollybear 500. That's the action-packed, white-knuckling annual tradition of kids racing their hand-picked woollybears for the championship title. There are a few insider tips Sandra Coe has learned from being "trackside" at so many races over the years: the weather matters, for one. Coe is the executive director of the Vermilion Chamber of Commerce that sponsors the festival, but her mom helped start it back in 1972 up the road in Birmingham. Back then it was just a small affair, something the local parent-teacher group held as a fundraiser with Cleveland television weatherman Dick Goddard, who wanted to create an event celebrating the woollybears' place in folklore as a predictor of weather forecasts. The caterpillar, which is actually the larvae stage of the Isabella tiger moth, is considered by some to foretell the coming winter by the width of its colored bands: the wider the middle orange or rust-colored band, the milder the winter; the wider the black bands, the longer and harsher the winter. But when Coe says the weather affects the race, she means heat. "If it's too warm, they will all just want to hang out there and not move," she said, thinking of some of the tricks of trades she's learned over the years. Sunday's forecast is calling for sun and a crisp 55 degrees, perfect for woollybear racing. Lots of people have been sending her photos of woollybears spotted in the wild. Tis the season. Coe is careful to explain that there is a similar caterpillar that is full-on black, but if seen people should not panic and assume a terrible winter is on the way — it is just a different type of caterpillar. "Those ones are not real woollybears, though. Those are imposters. You cannot race them. We've had a few people try, yes. But they are imposters. They're fast, too and they're chunky," she said, recounting the years she has overseen the festival. Would-be racers should be kept outside, not inside. Indoor air quality is not their habitat, she said. Feed them fresh leaves and watermelon to keep them happy and spritz the inside of their cage. One tip race officials learned years ago was to add a little sand to the paint of the racetrack, a slanted board with the lanes painted on it. "We learned back in the early days in Birmingham, if there was no sand in the paint, they just slid right down. You got to put a little sand in the paint," she said. "You never know what you're going to get, though. Sometimes those tiny ones, the babies? They can be really fast." This will be the third festival since Goddard, a renowned animal rights advocate and advocate, died but his daughter Kim Goddard will be at the festival as well as his former co-workers, WJW Fox 8 personalities. The Public Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) Ohio is this year's parade grand marshal, and the group's Executive Director Amy Beichler will attend. "She is just as passionate as Mr. Goddard was about protecting animals," Coe said. Also attending with Beichler will be two former state senators, Kenny Yuko and Lenny Obhof, who supported Goddard's Law, which criminalized the abuse of companion animals. "Every year when we look at the Woollybear, we look at ways to keep Mr. Goddard's legacy going and ways to keep this a free family event and the focus on keeping everybody kind to animals," she said. And of course, even celebrity animals will be there — Moondog, the Cleveland Cavaliers' mascot will make an appearance, and Pete the Cat will show up, and naturally Wolfert the Woollybear is expected. There are more than 40 food booths, more than 100 vendors in the marketplace and live musical acts. The parade starts at 1:30 and lasts from two to three hours. The weather prediction is given from the main stage at 5 p.m. For information, visit vermilionohio.com. Contact Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.