The other day I brought you the story of the proposed state love song.

This week it is the proposed state pancake, huckleberry to be exact.  Good for the kids for learning about government, but during a session where money is very tight it might not be a great idea to waste money on this kind of crap.

Senate hears bill to designate state pancake

By MIKE DENNISON, IR State Bureau – 02/11/09

If the way to a legislator’s heart is through his stomach, the promoters of a bill to create a state pancake had the edge Wednesday — even if the measure did face some principled opposition.

Sen. Carolyn Squires, D-Missoula, made her pitch to the Senate Agriculture Committee to declare a huckleberry, whole-wheat pancake as the state pancake, an idea hatched by kids from an elementary school in her district.

“People have written me letters telling me (my bill) is frivolous,” she said. “To me, it’s important, because it’s a group of children learning how government works.”

Squires also had hoped to have Marla Hedman of Trout Creek cook up a batch of pancakes right in the committee meeting room at the Capitol, on an electric griddle.

That idea didn’t fly with Senate security, which feared setting off a fire alarm, so Hedman improvised, cooking fresh pancakes in the Capitol’s basement cafeteria and then serving them to committee members — and anyone else — in the meeting room after the hearing Wednesday afternoon.

One group that didn’t stick around for the food was the Ticknor family, which provided the only opposition to Squires’ bill.

Five Ticknors, ages 9 to 17, showed up to testify against Senate Bill 232, saying it’s a waste of time and taxpayer money and should be rejected.

Eli Ticknor, 15, said his family likes huckleberry pancakes and sometimes makes them while camping, but that Montana already has 24 state symbols and doesn’t need any more.

“Just because they’re good to eat doesn’t mean they should be a state symbol,” he said.

The other group of children involved in the SB232 debate wasn’t able to make it to Helena for the hearing, as their principal wouldn’t allow the trip because of liability concerns, Squires said.

But their teacher, Angie Palin of Franklin Elementary School in Missoula, did attend, and explained how her third-grade class last year became interested in state symbols and thought they might come up with a new one.

They settled on the huckleberry, whole-wheat pancake because it represents products from eastern Montana (wheat) and western Montana (huckleberries). They wrote a letter last spring to Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who suggested they contact their legislator, and they wrote to Squires on the next-to-last day of school.

“I know this bill has gotten a lot of publicity as a ‘fluff bill,’ ” Palin said. “But for about 90 third- and fourth-graders in Missoula, Montana, this is huge.”

The children wrote personal letters to members of the Senate Agriculture Committee lobbying for the measure and have learned about the legislative process, she added.

Minkie Medora, a licensed dietitian from Missoula and a board member of the Montana Food Bank Network, also testified for the bill, saying it would promote two types of food that people need to eat more of: whole grains and fruit.

And finally, Pat Keim of Helena came to support the measure simply because he loves huckleberry pancakes. He said his summer houseguests want him to serve huckleberry pancakes every morning, “and I don’t blame them.”

“Wouldn’t it have been nice if we’d had a griddle in here and had the smell of huckleberry pancakes wafting through the room?” he said.