March 26, 2001

Children Want Mustang Honored -
Students Crusade for new (Nevada) state animal.

Staff Reporters
Nevada Appeal

Carson City, NV — The big horn sheep may get company as Nevada’s official state animal. A group of about one hundred 4th Graders from Henderson (NV) is pushing for the addition of the mustang to Nevada’s law designating it as an official state animal. Members of the Assembly Government Affairs Committee head some of the Aggie Roberts Elementary School students testify on Tuesday morning. Under the bill introduced by Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, and backed by a majority of legislators in both the Assembly and the Senate, the big horn sheep would have to scoot over and make room for its equine equivalent. Aggie Roberts Elementary School teacher, Penny Bichsel, escorted her students north to Carson City to testify before the Legislature. A half-dozen students, including 9-year-old Jordan Dowell (photo not shown), testified before the committee.

The students approached Buckley after deciding the mustang would make a good symbol for the state. They gathered 1000 signatures in Las Vegas and brought them to the Legislature where about 30 of them attended the first hearing.

May 21, 2001

AB219 (sponsored by Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas) passed the Nevada Senate Committee Governmental Affairs with a vote of 6 for and 1 against. Senator Bill Raggio, R-Washoe County, District No.3, was the only committed member to vote against AB219 and is on its way for a vote by the Nevada Senate floor.

June 3, 2001

Horse Bill Goes Through Paces

The return of the bill (AB 219) seeking to make the mustang Nevada’s (2nd) state animal occasioned more than a little horsing around in the Senate on Saturday (6-2-2001). The bill was amended (No. 1001) by Senate Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, turning it into a resolution asking the federal government to do a better job of managing wild horses in Nevada but the Assembly refused to concur. When the bill returned, Senate Ann O’Connell’s’ Government Affairs Committee agreed to the (original) Assembly version. She said five members of that committee have students from the school (Aggie Roberts elementary), which proposed the bill as a class project in their districts.

Senate Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said one state animal, the bighorn sheep, is enough and that, if more are added, “pretty soon we’ll have a state zoo.” Senate Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, said he supports the original version making the mustang Nevada’s second state animal along with the bighorn sheep. “I have a difficult time relating to a bighorn sheep as a state animal although those here who are a little bit hard-headed can,” he said. “I can relate to the mustang,” he also said. A few minutes later, Raggio said he had figured out why Neal can relate better to the mustang. Reading from the description of the mustang enclosed with the legislation, he said, “It identifies the mustang as hard to control, difficult to train and runs loose.”

In the end, Rhoads won out and the Senate refused to convert Assembly bill 219 back into a bill designating the mustang Nevada’s second state animal. You might say the “neighs” had it. But Senate Bill O’Donnell, R-Las Vegas, served notice the battle would continue in the conference committee.