Today, President Obama will perform the annual Thanksgiving Day Turkey Pardon- a tradition that dates back to (what some think) with Lincoln. Truman is widely believed to be the first president to pardon the turkeys.
This year, is a little different. The turkey's that the President will pardon today, will take up permanent residence at Virginia Tech. Yesterday, the Hokie Bird provided some great photo opps for the White House Press team.
Future besties alert: @TheHokieBird shows off his best waddle for new BFFs Tater and Tot #TurkeyPardon2016 pic.twitter.com/RWjpQU9Xjf— Virginia Tech (@virginia_tech) November 22, 2016
Full Virginia Tech News Release can be found here.
Following today's ceremony, the turkeys will be taken 4.5 hours through a Bob Ross painting, ending up at the Livestock Judging Pavilion on Virginia Tech's campus.
Our mascot was hanging out with his peeps yesterday at the White House - wonder what Cavman was doing....
Meet the two turkey's below: (Someone in the WhiteHouse.gov marketing department is a Hokie)
Comments
Tater and Tot need to take turns being a real Hokie Mascot at games.
That would be cool if they brought them to the UVA game... I mean, they'll be home then, so why not?
Like this weekend!
Personally I would be embarrassed to have a real live turkey on our sideline but idk that might just be me
It could be worse. We could be South Carolina with a cock running around our sidelines... like Sir Big Spur...
Because it is a turkey
I wouldn't be embarrassed, I think it'd be really cool actually! I personally think turkey's are pretty cool animals, I have no problem with a Tater or Tot or relative strutting their stuff on the sideline.
From Hokiesports.com
Yep. Meade could have him gobble on command. We should bring that back. Also, Meade should be inducted into the Hokie Sports HOF.
Now I'm going to spend a week in existential confusion as I try to determine whether my gobble style is "strong" or "confident".
"thankful it is recognizable as a gobble"
Gobbles existentially
Gobbling existentializes
Relevant
I laughed way too hard at that
I herby propose the names of the turkeys are changed to "Maroon and Orange".
18 weeks old and 40 lbs...my god
Need to test that boy for PEDs.
Especially when you consider that a wild turkey is considered relatively rare and monstrous at 23 lbs. You might find a few that have been corn fed before being shot by the local good ole boys, but most of the adult male mountain birds from the western part of the state top the scales around 20 lbs.
40 lbs. is insane! But after it's slaughtered, butchered, and prepped for the store, a 40 lb live weight probably turns into the 25 lb birds you see in the freezer section. Luckily for Tater and Tot (or Maroon and Orange) they won't need to worry about that.
"The More You Know!"
Coming from somebody with a name of WildTurkey, consider this an expert analysis.
When I see a 25 lb bird in the freezer at the grocery store I think "Damn, that's a big bird!" Then I saw these two tipping the scales at 40 lbs! Monsters.
A little bit of growth hormone in the feed will get after ya. Typing this from the county previously known as the "Turkey Capital of the US" and which has bronze turkey statues on Rt. 11 as you enter the county, Rockingham County, VA.
Valley wut wut
Turkeys are such badass, beautiful, ugly creatures.
The Ringer had an interesting article about this silly tradition:
https://theringer.com/presidential-turkey-pardon-2016-168b5e647e34#.gtp2...
I love everything about this.
They look like thye belong on my dinner table tomorrow...
Since when do we pardon two turkey's?
One gets pardoned, the other is kept on hand to step in for public appearances in case the other one becomes un-presentable. It's the dirty secret of the whole process.
Did you just assume the Turkey's number? *s
Are these pardons really legally binding? All I'm saying is Tater and Tot would make one hell of a delicious sandwich from Hokie Grill.
Awesome work
Not what I was expecting, but I guess that it comes with the territory: an ominous landscape of never ending calamity.
If they can pull that off before Saturday, and then air turkeys on a treadmill for the crowd at the game....
Yeah, that would be awesome
Dammit, I found my new username (provided nobody else steals it).
In the "Not-so-well-known" parts of Virginia Tech... The Turkey Farm is on Glade Road (turn between Kroger and University 2). It's amazing what has been done. Without getting into the whole "PED" discussion - I can tell you that the majority of the bird weight advances are through feed and breed, not growth hormone. You wouldn't believe how much certain birds are insured for, and that the odds are all the Butterballs sold at Kroger are somewhat related. The stronger genetic birds get crossbred to yield bigger turkeys.
In the "Mike Rowe" VT Dirtiest Job, my coworker spent 15+ years on the turkey farm, and one of the things they routinely have to do is "stimulation and expression" as part of that whole genetics and breeding bit. From that point, gentlemen, the jokes write themselves. Turkey Basting 101...
Hah! Saw that episode (Gobbler MasterDeBator). It was hilarious because Mike Rowe was like "you're the ladies man around here."
I managed to catch this live on CNN today. Obama was pretty corny, but in good fun, and it was nice that he mentioned that the destination of Tater and Tot would be Virginia Tech. He then said something like "it seemed Hokie to him".
Oddly, the videos I see posted of the event now for some reason cut out the VT mention...