On Sunday, February 2, 2025, the Lutz Children’s Museum in Manchester held its 47th annual Groundhog Day Prognostication Celebration. Families from all over the area gathered at the crack of dawn to join in on the festivities.
In order to get in, guests must pre-register by calling or emailing the museum. Even at the early time of 6:20am, there was a line stretching out the door for this event.
The Lutz Museum actually has two groundhogs, Chuckles XI and Jolene, though only Chuckles delivers the annual Groundhog Day prognostication. According to Paula, a volunteer at the Lutz Museum, Chuckles and Joleen were brought up together and bonded, which is why the museum took both of them in. They’re “like brother and sister,” Paula said.
Chuckles has always been the name of the groundhog that is shown during the groundhog event, though since it has been going on for 47 years, the Lutz Museum has gone through a few different “Chuckles.” Currently, Chuckles XI is the groundhog that the Lutz Museum has.
Unfortunately, today Chuckles XI was not feeling “camera-ready.” The Lutz Museum listens to their animals and decided not to put him up on stage.
Instead, at about 6:40am, Chuckles called mayor of Manchester Jay Moran on an old landline telephone to tell him the prognostication while he stayed snuggled up in his enclosure with Jolene. Mayor Moran announced Chuckles’ prediction of an early spring to the crowd.
“Part of the tradition is that the mayor of Manchester is the only person who understands Groundhog, the language,” Communications Content Specialist for the Manchester Public School system Paul Ofria said.
This year was Mayor Moran’s tenth Groundhog Day as mayor, so he’s learned quite a bit of Groundhog by now.
The event had a food craft in the main room and plenty of ice cream cake to go around. In the side room, there were presentations from the directors and Animal Curator of the museum about the history of the museum and groundhog day, and the collections that the Lutz Museum has to offer.
The Lutz Museum was founded by an elementary school art teacher named Hazel Lutz who wanted to find a fun way to get kids involved with history.
“She liked to travel the world, so she collected various different artifacts from her travels and kept them in her closet at school,” said Rayna, an employee at the Lutz Museum. “She thought that a lot of those objects would be great subjects for her art classes. And so they [kids] would come in and it kind of slowly started growing and became like a little museum right out of her school and then it eventually grew into this space.”
Throughout the museum there are various exhibits where kids can play, such as a fake schoolhouse, a hollowed out train and, of course, the animal exhibit.
The animal exhibit has over 30 different species of animals – including Chuckles XI – in the back. Most of these animals are surrendered pets.
“We pride ourselves on being a good forever home for animals that people are unable to care for,” Rayna told The Prowl.
The animal exhibit has been around for “pretty much the entire time,” according to Rayna, but was not originally part of Lutz’s idea for the museum.
The event started winding down at about 7:00am, but will be back for its 48th annual celebration next Groundhog Day.
