Sunset Sam will be back soon, but not on Groundhog Day
Melanie Andrews holds Sunset Sam, a Guinea Pig, while they wait for the sun to go down in Sunset Thursday, February 2, 2006. The legend holds that if Sunset Sam sees a sunset, then there are 6 more days of winter.
Kayla Andrews, 8, holds Rosie the guinea pig while Cady Nichols, 7, pets her at the Sunset Sam's Winterfest in Sunset on Monday, February 2, 2015.
SUNSET — Sunset Sam lives on.
The star guinea pig of the city’s Winter Fest celebration will be trotted out in his rodent glory to headline the community event Saturday, Feb. 6.
The tradition was born in 1994 when the Brent and Susan Andrews family created the seasonal Sunset Sam event. At that time, the guinea pig appeared at sunset on Groundhog Day to make a local approximation of the annual weather prediction by the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania.
A Standard-Examiner story from 2014 said the Andrews family created the tradition in honor of their young son Jeremy, who died in a vehicle accident.
Eventually, the city took over the simple event and turned it into a winter carnival, complete with a chili cook-off and activities for families and children. But with some controversy, Sam’s center-stage role was pared back a few years ago because of the logistics of having him make his prediction at sunset, about 5 p.m., when a lot of people still were at work and could not attend.
Now, he’s a ceremonial figurehead who makes no more predictions.
“The city doesn’t want to keep a guinea pig on hand all the time,” city council member Norm Noyes said Tuesday, Jan. 20. The city depends on volunteers to provide a guinea pig for the festival, he said, which takes pressure off the city.
The city council member in charge of Winter Fest, Trystal Peay, said the event has grown, attracting about 200 people last year. The Sunset Sam tradition has enabled the city to improve upon and expand the event into a festival attractive to families, which includes snow sculpting and sledding.
“Originally when it started on Groundhog Day, in planning that, it was for the time the sun goes down,” she said. That was hard to orchestrate, “so we decided to make it a family event on Saturday.” This year, it’s from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 6 at City Hall, 200 W. 1300 North.
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“The kids are excited to come,” she said.
So, Sunset Sam’s handlers now bring him out at one point in the event, and that’s it.
“We show him; there is no prediction,” Peay said. “It is representative of Sunset Sam.”
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No one’s certain how many Sunset Sams have served over the event’s 21 years.
“We have bought quite a few of them,” Peay said. “We bought a new one last year.”
Whitney Stubbs, who works at Petco in Harrisville, said guinea pigs can live up to eight years. She said with proper care, a guinea pig can grow to 8 to 11 inches.
Stubbs said guinea pigs are easy to care for and are “very, very popular.”
“They can communicate with different noises, little squeaky noises and a kind of popcorn sound, and hop up in the air.”
She said they prefer to have a “hideaway” place for bedding. “They are a little shy.”
They can be bathed with washcloths or baby wipes, Stubbs said.
