Third Grader Olivia McConnell has spearheaded a fight in the South Carolina legislature to name the Woolly Mammoth as the Palmetto state’s State Fossil.
The eight year old sparked the move by writing a letter to Democratic Representative Robert Ridgeway. Olivia noted the lack of a state fossil for South Carolina and nominated the Woolly Mammoth because it was first discovered on the continent in 1725 when slaves dug up a tooth.
A bill that recently passed the state House to designate the Mammoth as the state fossil stalled in the Senate after Republican Senator Kevin Bryant added two verses from the book of Genesis.
“I just had a notion that we ought to consider acknowledging the creator as we acknowledge one of his creations,” Bryant said.
“Please stop making our state look like backwards hillbillies who believe in fairy tales,” Alex Davis commented on Bryant’s website.
Many States have official fossils. New Jersey has the duck-billed dinosaur. Nevada has the Shonisaurus. South Dakota has dibs on the Triceratops. South Carolina might have to go to rocks, paper, scissors with Alaska who already claims the Woolly Mammoth.
South Carolina has been without a State Fossil since Senator Jesse Helms died in 2008.
