These are a few of my favorite (official State) things

APPARENTLY, WE aren’t giving our legislators enough incentive to designate official state things.

You know, things, such as the official State Dance (the shag) — not to be confused with the official State American Folk Dance (square dance) or the official State Waltz (Richardson Waltz) — the official State Beverage (milk) and the official State Hospitality Beverage (tea), the official State Music (the spiritual) and the official State Popular Music (beach music), the official State Stone (blue granite) and the official State Gem Stone (amethyst), the official State Bird (Carolina wren) and the official State Wild Game Bird (S.C. wild turkey).

Oh, we’ve got all those. But where’s the official State Cat? Or the official State Board Game? Who has even proposed an official State Movie, an official State Soil, an official State Appetizer or Entree or Soup or Dessert? No one, that’s who.

For a while there, you could count on legislators proposing several new “officials” every year.

From the time our state was born until I moved here in 1986, lawmakers had seen fit to designate only 14 official state things. They were the ordinary things every state has — a bird, a flower, a tree, a song.

In the 17 years since then, legislators, overcome with creativity, have been on a designation rampage, adding another 21 official things — six of them in 2001 alone (Indian Grass as official State Grass, Beach Music as official State Popular Music, “Porgy and Bess” as official State Opera, Camden Military Academy as official State Military Academy, the Abbeville Opera House as official State Rural Drama Theater and the S.C. Hall of Fame as, you guessed it, official State Hall of Fame).

But then the drought came. In 2002, our only new thing was an official State Tapestry. Last year, lawmakers designated only the official State Wildflower (the Goldenrod, not to be confused with the official State Flower, the Yellow Jessamine).

No other official things were even proposed last year. And this year began in a similar state. Oh, sure, legislators found time to pre-file nearly 120 bills, dealing with everything from prison policy and tax reform. But not one proposed a new thing. Even two weeks into the session, only three have been offered: an official State Endangered Species, an official State Precious Metal and an official State Tobacco Museum.

It’s not like all the ideas have been harvested. My cat idea is not crazy. Maryland has an official one (the calico), as well as an official sport (jousting). As for food, while Texas names chili the official State Dish, Oklahoma goes all-out, with an official State Meal — fried okra, squash, corn bread, barbecue pork, biscuits, sausage and gravy, grits, corn, strawberries, chicken-fried steak, pecan pie and black-eyed peas. (Perhaps this year Oklahoma legislators will designate the coronary as the official State Cause of Death.)

Utah has named the Dutch oven its official State Cooking Pot, Washington state has a state ship (the President Washington), and North Carolina has a state historic boat (the shad boat). In fact, the lawmakers in my native North Carolina have also outdone Palmetto State legislators by thinking up an official vegetable (the sweet potato) and an official toast (the thing you say, not the stuff you eat). Inexplicably, they haven’t designated an official State Cancer-Causing Agent, even though they’re a national leader in its production. But that’s another story.

Fortunately, I’m not the only one who has noticed the embarrassing brain drain that seems to have begun here in Columbia.

Rep. Bubber Snow has filed legislation to require that the sponsors of any legislation “which designates any matter, thing, undertaking, or activity as an official state matter, thing, undertaking, or activity” be given the opportunity to have their sponsorship noted in the Legislative Manual.

Rep. Snow is perhaps best known as the driving force behind making the shag the official State Dance and beach music the official State Popular Music. And yet, there’s nothing in the Legislative Manual (or on the state website, for that matter) to so recognize him — which could explain why there has been no campaign on his part to designate sand the official State Dance Floor or Bass Weejun the official State Dancing Shoe.

We can only hope that his bill will get the attention it deserves, and that our legislators will see fit to correct this glaring oversight, and thus provide themselves with the incentive they need to dream up a new round of official things.

Placing legislators’ names in the Legislative Manual (and come on, let’s add ’em to the Web site — www.scstatehouse.net/studentpage/symbols.htm — too) could serve another beneficial purpose, as well.

Give them this recognition, and it might keep them off the streets — or at least their names. Just think how much simpler, less expensive and less irritating to the public it would be if, instead of naming every highway interchange, overpass and culvert after themselves, legislators would be content to have a simple note in an obscure publication giving them credit for expanding the list of useless trivia that exists about our state. Besides, how is Andre ever supposed to balance the state budget if we keep naming every inch of concrete and asphalt after legislators for free?

Ms. Scoppe can be reached at cscoppe@thestate.com or at (803) 771-8571.