Gray Grisham, his daughter Laura JoAnn Grisham, 8, and father, Lowell Grisham, howl Thursday outside their home on Washington Avenue in Fayetteville. Residents in the Washington-Willow Historic District have a daily howl at 8 p.m., organized by Heather Gray as a way to bond with neighbors during a time of social distancing and to show support for health care workers. More photos at arkansasonline.com/howldistrict45/. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Andy Shupe) ( NWA Democrat-Gazette / Andy Shupe

FAYETTEVILLE -- A great howling commences every night at 8.

It travels across neighborhoods, through hollows and up the spine.

The cacophony ends a few minutes later, as quickly as it started.

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For about a week now, in the historic neighborhoods surrounding downtown Fayetteville, people have gone outside promptly at 8 p.m. to howl at the moon.

They're baying, yapping and yipping. One man sounds like Warren Zevon howling "ah-ooooo" before his dire warning about the "Werewolves of London."

Some dogs join in.

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"It's a lot of fun," said the Rev. Lowell Grisham, former rector at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, who lives on Washington Avenue.

"We've done it for several nights on this street," he said. "It's outside. It's social. It's exuberant and aerobic."

Grisham said he views the howling as a way to say thank you in this time of pandemic.

"As we picked it up on our street, we saw it as a way to express our gratitude to health care providers and essential workers," he said. "At a time when we can't be in close communication with others, it is another way to connect with our neighbors."

The howling has caught on in cities across America.

It all started on March 27 when Shelsea Ochoa and Brice Maiurro, a Denver couple, started a Facebook page called "Go Outside and Howl at 8 p.m."

"What better time to howl than this time of isolation?" according to the Facebook page. "Every night at 8 p.m. in your time zone, take a minute to step outside and let out a cathartic howl! ... Invite your peeps! Let's see how many people the world over we can get to howl in one night!"

But it's gone way past one night. People just keep howling.

The Facebook group had more than 306,000 members as of Saturday.

Ochoa and Maiurro said they were just trying to get some friends in Denver to join in the howling. They had no idea it would spread across the country and the world.

Every night, thousands of people send videos of the howling to the Facebook page.

"As soon as 8 p.m. hits on the East Coast, the page just blows up," said Maiurro.

They even got a video from Geneva of people howling from several buildings.

Maiurro said they got the idea for howling because Ochoa knew people in "a hippie town" in California who howled at night, and he had friends in Boulder who would howl at midnight after poetry readings.

"We wanted to do something that everyone can do," said Ochoa. "There's no wrong way to howl. It doesn't require any training."

"I think something nice about the howling is you can get a call-and-response effect," said Maiurro.

They said people can attach their own personal meaning to the howling -- whether it's to support health care workers, connect with others or to mourn someone who has died of covid-19.

Ochoa and Maiurro said they were happy to hear people in Arkansas have taken up the 8 p.m. howlings.

"We definitely want to give a shout-out to our Arkansas partners," said Ochoa. "That speaks to the fact that it's a community project."

According to the Fayetteville Flyer, Heather Gray got Fayettevillians howling after she posted a message about it on a social-media site for residents of the Washington-Willow Historic District.

"I've been doing it about a week," said Cyd King, who lives in that neighborhood. "I howl until I start coughing, then I stop. My howl sounds like a dying animal. I can get four or five good howls out."

King said she was intimidated at first, but now it's an important evening ritual.

"Everybody steps out of their house," she said. "We're all social distancing. We wave to each other and talk to each other. It's a brief interaction. It's a daily check-in really."

"We've all been howling," said Melissa Werner, who lives on Washington Avenue. "It kind of has this sense of community about it. Everybody comes out. Everybody is mindful about staying apart."

Werner said her son Hayden, 13, and daughter Harper, 8, were hesitant about howling. But the adults were doing it, so they finally joined in. After howling for the first time Thursday night, Harper was doing cartwheels.

"It brings a smile to her face at a time when things aren't real happy," said Werner. "It is very liberating."

Gary Weidner said he started howling after hearing his neighbors do it and his wife Shea suggested they participate.

"I just follow the pack," he said.

Weidner said the howling has been uplifting in a time of uncertainty.

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"It's helped us," he said. "It's nice to have something to look forward to doing every day. We set our little phone alarms so we don't miss it. The best part of it is you see neighbors and their kids and they're all doing something together, if at a distance."

Weidner said a lot of people on his block keep the kids up until they've done their howling. Then they're put to bed.

"It's pretty fun to hear it all up and down our little valley," Charlie Alison, who lives on Sutton Street, said Friday. "It's such a widespread sound."

Alison said he howled publicly for the first time Thursday night.

"It does feel fairly silly," he said.

The howling has spread to other neighborhoods, including the Wilson Park area.

Grisham said his dog Lovie -- named after Mrs. Howell on the television show Gilligan's Island -- joins in when she hears the people howl.

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"Interspecies participation," he said.

Tom Moore, a spokesman for Arkansas State University, said he's heard no howling in Jonesboro. The university's mascot is the Red Wolves.

"We've checked around with a few folks who might know and at this point have found nothing to share about howling, but we're keeping 'ears open' and will let you know if we hear something," he said in an email.

Gray Grisham (from left); his daughter, Laura JoAnn Grisham, 8; and father, Lowell Grisham, howl Thursday alongside neighbors Gary and Shea Weidner outside their homes on Washington Avenue in Fayetteville. Residents in the Washington-Willow Historic District have a nightly howl at 8 p.m., a new tradition organized by Heather Gray as a way to bond with neighbors during their coronavirus sequestration and show support for healthcare workers. More photos at arkansasonline.com/howldistrict45/. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Andy Shupe)

Metro on 04/05/2020