We honestly don\’t know whether this is Scobey soil, but it very well could be.
Close watchers of the legislative process probably knew this already, but I have only just been made aware that Montana now has an official state soil.
Scobey soil, the Bozeman Chronicle informs us, is “a deep clay loam that holds water well” and “was selected because of its importance to the state’s wheat production in the Golden Triangle region of north-central Montana.”
The dirt on this bill is that it was conceived by fourth-grade students at Longfellow Elementary School in Bozeman. Kristin Sigler, one of the Longfellow teachers who helped prepare the legislation and lobby for its passage, said the fight wasn’t easy.
“We had an uphill battle when lawmakers thought this might be a trivial effort,” she said. “Some misinformed individual actually likened this to naming a state bubble gum.”
A misinformed individual in the Montana Legislature? Say it ain’t so, Ms. Sigler!
Anyway, our congratulations to the plucky youngesters at Longfellow Elementary School, and to the good people of Scobey. Though far outside the Golden Triangle itself, Scobey can take pride in knowing that its soil is doing such good work.
The new state soil takes its place alongside the state grass, bluebunch wheatgrass, the state fossil, the duck-billed dinosaur Maiasaura peeblesorum, and the state floral emblem, the Lewisia rediviva (bitterroot).
