Video Vault: Rain dance performed to stop 1988 drought

CLYDE, Ohio - The drought of 2012 is mild if compared to the 1988 version, especially if measured by the number of rain dances done in each.

The people of Clyde, Ohio took the drought so seriously in 1988, they hired a Native American to do a rain dance.

According to the story in our video player done by WEWS reporter Elaine Tack and photographer Dave Hatala, the good folks of Clyde paid $2,000 to have the rain dance performed.

When the first rain dance by Leonard Crow Dog yielded no raindrops, another one was performed a few days later on June 22, 1988– this one by an understudy, Windy White.

The Washington Post reported the second try yielded some positive results, .08 inch of rain fell, hardly a gully washer but every little bit helped.

In an odd bit of TV awkwardness, one of the people interviewed in Tack’s story was wearing a Cleveland Indians Chief Wahoo cap.

NewsChannel5 Chief Meteorologist Mark Johnson told me the drought of 1988 waned late in that summer, not on June 23..