Politics

We here in Montana have been getting an unusually high amount of politcal attention the last couple weeks.  With that I bring you a love song by the Montana band The Clintons.

More Montana Legislature

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.

Montana’s Legislature is really busy

This story comes from Wednesday’s (1/21/09) Helena Independent Record.  The four kids that spoke in opposition to this bill are awesome.  I’m sure the guy who wrote the song is a good dude, but the legislator that introduced this bill should be ashamed.  (The bill was officially rejected.)

State love song: Kid tested, but disapproved

By JENNIFER McKEE IR State Bureau – 01/21/2009

Jerry McGowan, a 60-year-old Boston transplant now living in Alberton, really loves Montana.

Some 12 years ago, he wrote a song about how much he loves Montana, and now he wants to give that song to the people of this state.

But he has to get past 9-year-old Thomas Ticknor first.

Ticknor, of Helena, and three of his older siblings were the only people to speak against designating McGowan’s song entitled “The Montana Song” as Montana’s official state love song.

Montana already has three official songs, the children testified before the House State Administration Committee Tuesday morning, and that seems just a little bit silly.

“It’s already excessive,” said Hannah Ticknor, 17, who added that lawmakers in 2009 have proposed no fewer than four bills to make the Legislature meet every single year, instead of every two years.

Maybe if lawmakers weren’t spending their time discussing possible state love songs, she suggested, they’d be able to get all their important work done more quickly.

McGowan, however, is undeterred. So, too, is Rep. Bill Nooney, R-Missoula, who sponsored House Bill 184, designating “The Montana Song” the state’s official love song.

As McGowan tells it, the song will make money for the state and it puts into words the powerful and complicated feelings so many Montanans feel for this place.

“If (Montana) doesn’t move you to tears, you’d better open your eyes wider,” he told the committee shortly before sitting down with his guitar and singing the song. “I seek nothing from this except to offer it to the state. This is a gift to Montana and it’s from the heart.”

McGowan met his wife, Beverly, in his native Boston. As a girl, she had traveled to Montana with her father, who was a tire salesman. She fell in love with it, McGowan said, and after they met and married, they talked often of returning.

They did in 1997, taking a week’s vacation and covering as much Montana ground as they could in seven days. Two weeks later, they sold their possessions and moved out here.

“We didn’t know where we’d live and it didn’t matter,” he told the committee.

They settled in Alberton, in far western Montana. McGowan wrote “The Montana Song” soon after.

Initially, the song didn’t mention much east of the Continental Divide. Earlier in the 2009 Legislature, he rewrote one of the verses after good-natured concern arose that the song didn’t encompass all the beauty of Montana, particularly her high, wide and handsome eastern plains.

McGowan envisions the song being used in tourism. He also told the committee he will pay the cost of producing a CD of the song, and proceeds from the sales will go back to the state’s tax coffers.

The committee didn’t make any decisions about the song.