Effort Bears Fruit For Idaho Students

Septuagenarian Bob Eachon, a private airplane pilot and an original member of the Gibbs Hole Swim Gang, grew up in Coeur d’Alene, on the banks of the Spokane River. He knows North Idaho’s terrain as well as he knows his wife’s face. But his mind goes blank when he’s asked about his favorite spot for picking huckleberries.

Then, a sly smile emerges and Eachon offers directions that’d amuse anyone who’s ever hunted snipe: “I go huckleberrying up No-Tellum Creek.”

No-Tellum Creek has produced bumper crops of the tasty berry for wife Marilyn’s pies, tarts, jams and ice cream. But it exists only in the minds of native Idahoans like Eachon. To the sweet of tooth, huckleberries are gold. Aficionados would no more reveal the location of a favorite huckleberry patch than a 49er would share his mother lode.

Now, thanks to fourth- and fifth-graders at Southside Elementary School at Careywood, the huckleberry will get its just desserts. On Thursday, in the shadow of Huckleberry Hill, Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne will sign a bill naming the untamed berry as Idaho’s state fruit.

Nothing could be more appropriate. Huckleberries are Idaho - wild, enticing, unique. They can’t be domesticated. They grow in the back country from Bear Lake to Boundary County. And, unlike the ballyhooed potato, they’re native.

With all that going for huckleberries, you’d think it’d be a piece of huckleberry cake to elevate the berry to state-fruit status. But Southside students in instructor Rick Price’s social studies class learned otherwise. They had no problem finding someone to sponsor a huckleberries bill: state Rep. Wayne Meyer, R-Rathdrum. Nor lobbying other Idaho youngsters to write letters supporting it. But they weren’t expecting opposition from state Rep. Jim Clark, R-Hayden, who protested that printing the bill was a waste of money. The Legislature brushed aside his objection and passed the bill overwhelmingly.

Now, the Southside kids have joined two other groups of young activists who made a difference statewide. In 1975, a sixth-grade class from Eagle successfully promoted the Appaloosa as the state horse. In 1992, students from Cole Elementary in Boise introduced the Monarch Butterfly as the state’s official insect. In the process, they learned more about Idaho government than most adults know.

Someday, they’ll proudly point out to their kids and grandkids that they helped make huckleberries the state fruit. But don’t expect them to give you directions to No-Tellum Creek.