PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (EYT) – While most people are not sure if Punxsutawney Phil will see his shadow on Groundhog Day 2018 on Friday, February 2, they can all be sure that they will see Randy Rupert, owner of the Wizard’s Workshop in Punxsutawney and Limestone.

“I’ve been part of Groundhog Day for 19 years now,” Rupert said.

He was first an ice-carving instructor at the IUP College of Culinary Arts in Punxsutawney for a brief time.

“Even before I lived here, I traveled from my shop in Clarion and camped out for the weekend selling carved groundhogs.  It’s a big deal for me now; it’s a lot of fun and a lot of hard work, but I really enjoy it.”

He expects to have at least 200 carvings for sale on Groundhog Day.

“I’m also going to probably have 10 visiting carvers shacked up with me at the shop here for four days or so,” Rupert continued.

“Since it’s on Friday this year and Saturday next year, we’ll be a little bit busier. I like to entertain people, and these guys coming to carve with me will also be at the park, and we put on a little show. We’re down at the park pretty much all day and half of the night on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  My shop’s open at the other end of town at 549 E. Mahoning Street. And, a lot of people walk by going to Gobbler’s Knob.”

The Wizard describes it as a lot of work for three days, but he looks forward to it every year.

“Every year I start right after Christmas.  As soon as my Christmas orders are done, every log in front of me becomes a groundhog with a top hat.  These other guys that come—I’m sure they’ll make their own version of groundhogs doing different things.  We just entertain people, and it keeps them hanging around.  I take pretty much the whole shop down to the park and display it down there.”

Following the end of Groundhog Days, he spends the next couple of weeks shipping the carvings that some people have purchased but didn’t want to carry them with them as they flew back home. It’s also back to the drawing board post-Phil and his jobs can be nearly anything from busts of wolves to carvings of presidents.

One project from last year stood out to those who traveled on Route 66 by his Limestone workshop.  A bigger than life Bigfoot or Sasquatch evolved as time went by on the site.

“It got a lot of attention.  All of the people in Limestone were pretty disappointed because the day after I had it finished, it was on its way to its new owner. We had to load with a big excavator on a flatbed trailer off to West Virginia where they had a grand opening for the new business, the Adventure Grill.”

The Wizard also has tales about a connection with the movie Groundhog Day.

(Photo courtesy wanderlustandlipstick.com.)

“I would do a lot of ice sculptures for Groundhog Day, and students were always involved, and we had the national ice carving competitions. That’s what got me involved with the Groundhog Day movie with Bill Murray. All of the ice work you see in the movie was all me.” 

“When they were scouting for the movie, I was unloading some ice with students, and there was Bill Murray with a baseball cap on and a trench coat trying to be incognito.  I talked to him a little bit, and then he disappeared. Murray and Harold Ramis were scouting around town for things to put in the movie and ice carving was a part of the celebration, and they wanted to incorporate it into the movie. That’s the only part that got cut from the movie because they ran out of time and ended up on the cutting room floor.”