Concord Charlie says winter is over

By TOM BONE

For the Bluefield Daily Telegraph

ATHENS — Put up the snow shovels and break out the sunscreen. Concord Charlie’s report on Thursday morning has foretold that winter is over.

The traditional forecast was passed along at the end of the annual Groundhog Day Breakfast at Concord University.

Since the late 1970s, the president of Concord — or a designee — has delivered the forecast said to come directly from conversations with the mysterious animal that no one else has seen.

On Thursday, the report contended that Charlie did not see his shadow, meaning that spring is near.

Even though temperatures are expected to dip down to 12 degrees or so in Athens this weekend, the highs are predicted to be in the mid-50s by the middle of next week.

That led contrarians in the Pais Fellowship Hall at University Point on campus to observe that no matter what the groundhog supposedly predicted, he’d be considered right.

The agenda at the breakfast included presenting the annual Grand Groundhog Watcher award to Concord alumnus Rusty Sarver, owner of several area businesses and a civic leader in Princeton.