Senate Revives Students’ Mammoth Legislation

Windsor Elementary School students thought their bill had sunk like a mammoth in a tar pit.

But the Cheney kids’ three-year effort to make the woolly mammoth the official state fossil paid off Wednesday when the Senate voted unanimously to recognize the 10,000-year-old beast. The bill had already passed the House.

“We’re darn excited,” said Windsor Principal Kaye Aucutt. “We thought it was dead in the water. The students have just been heartsick.”

Students were already out of school Wednesday afternoon when Aucutt got the call from the office of Sen. Bob McCaslin, R-Spokane.

“The students are in for a big surprise tomorrow,” said Aucutt. “Now, we’ll just have to sit on it till tomorrow. That’s the hard part.”

Fifth-grader Chris Pineo dreamed up the fossil idea three years ago when he discovered Washington - like 20 other states - had no official fossil.

Chris and his classmates in Sara Aebly’s second-grade class did their homework and convinced Rep. Larry Sheahan, R-Rosalia, to introduce the bill last year.

Chris even traveled to Olympia to testify in support of the measure.

But the bill bogged down between the House and the Senate, and had to be reintroduced this session. It became endangered again when McCaslin said he believed the bill was in the wrong committee.

“I’m really happy,” said Chris, whose dad called him from work to tell him the news.

“It’s been a long time. Passing a bill in government takes a lot of hard work and it doesn’t always pay off. But it did in our case.”

Aucutt spent the afternoon making a victory sign to be placed outside the school.

She also had another mammoth mission: finding 400 dinosaur-shaped cookies to greet her students with today.

“I hope a store someplace has some,” she said.

, DataTimes