Subject: state bird
Date: May 4 07:14:09 2000
From: Constance J. Sidles - csidles at mail.isomedia.com


Hey tweets, In answer to Faye's question re how to go about changing the
state bird, I have had a little experience with that myself. Back in 1987 I
worked with a group of students at Cleveland High School in Seattle to get
a state fossil adopted. The kids chose the giant ground sloth.

As I understand it, the state legislature is the body that makes the
official choice on all state mascots. So you have to get a state legislator
(preferably a co-sponsor in the House and one in the Senate) to propose
your choice as a formal bill. Then the bill enters the adoption process,
just like any other bill. The more co-sponsors you can get to sign on, the
better off you are, because there is less chance that your bill will die in
committee before making it to a vote.

In the past, most state mascots were sponsored by recognized charitable
groups. The state flower, for example, was proposed by various garden
clubs. According to Anne Dowden in her book, State Flowers, the 1892
Chicago World's Fair propelled many states to adopt state flowers, so they
could present nice-looking displays in their booths at the fair. In
Washington, (as I wrote in Washington Magazine lo these many years ago),
"many candidates were proposed, among them the dogwood, iris, holly and (of
all things) the Oregon grape. But as the contest heated up, two candidates
began to emerge as frontrunners: the clover, proposed by the state's poet
laureate Ella Higginson and the rhody, backed by Mrs. Alsora Fry."

It was a heated campaign, with charges flowing back and forth. Then Mrs.
Fry had an inspiraton. She arranged for a store window in downtown Seattle
to be decorated with rhododendrons. In the last week of the campaign, she
spread clover on the floor of the window set and dropped in three rabbits.
While the bunnies munched contentedly on the clover, dignified displays of
rhododendrons on the walls accented the contrast. Whenever the rabbits ran
out of food, more clover was dropped in.

The men, realizing they had entered a minefield, let the women of the state
vote on the issue. The rhody won. But the cloverists did not go away. They
managed to get the legislature to avoid voting on a formal bill. The rhody
was not actually adopted by law until the 1950s.

In the case of the giant ground sloth, the kids asked then State
Representative Ken Jacobsen to propose their choice. He did, and the mascot
received a letter of intent (or some such, I can't remember the exact
nomenclature). I seem to recall that many years later, another school group
proposed a different state fossil, which I believe was adopted into law.

The whole process works best when it's a groundswell of popular will,
especially one involving kids. Hope this helps. - Connie Sidles, Seattle
e-mail: csidles at mail.isomedia.com