why rushmore when you can be rushless?

[Note: For whatever reason, I'm looking through the Blogger-saved "drafts" of blog posts from the old days of JFW. I apparently wrote this on 9/1/04, but never actually posted it. I'm not exactly sure why not. Oh well: rather than delete it, and especially given complaints that my last post was too much of a downer, I'll post it now...]

Sources in Nebraska have sent word that The Sower designs are not faring well in the state quarter poll (see past posts here and here). Of the four leading designs, two focus on the fact that many people have passed through Nebraska on their way to other places (perhaps the state should also consider adopting the slogan: "Nebraska: Never anyone's intentional destination") and another persists in celebrating their state capitol (again, seriously, I think several other states also have capitol buildings).

This led me to investigate what other Midwestern states were doing. There was an Onion sidebar headline--which I can't link to because it's in their Premium Archives--that read "South Dakota Considering Maybe Putting Mount Rushmore On State Quarter." The joke being, of course, that what else would South Dakota put on its state quarter. While states like Nebraska struggle to figure out what they think makes them special to the rest of the country, South Dakota would seem to have its quarter set. However, this has apparently proved to easy for the citizens of what is officially nicknamed "The Mount Rushmore State." Instead, they will be having a state quarter poll of their own, with designs based on five different proposals, all of which call for wheat in the design but two of which do not include Mount Rushmore. (I reprint this from their website because its set up with a design that makes it hard to link to individual pages):

The first proposed South Dakota quarter features Mount Rushmore National Memorial with two single heads of wheat framing the famous faces and mountain that South Dakota is most well-known.

The second narrative proposes a coin featuring the American Bison with two single heads of wheat framing the magnificent creature. The quarter would depict the proud spirit of the monarch of the plains.

The third proposal for South Dakota’s quarter prominently features the state bird (The Chinese ring-necked pheasant) with two single heads of wheat framing the bird in-flight.

The fourth proposal for South Dakota’s quarter would combine elements of the first three. Once again using two single heads of wheat for framing purposes, an American Bison would be featured in the foreground and Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the background.

The fifth proposal for South Dakota’s quarter would combine elements of the first three. Once again, using two single heads of wheat for framing purposes, a Chinese ring-necked pheasant would be featured in the foreground and Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the background.

I'm not sure what's going on. I don't if there was some contingency in South Dakota that is having a conversation along the lines of:

"We should show the country there's more to us than just Mount Rushmore!"
"Great idea! Like we also have, um..."
"Sturgis!" (link)
"We can't put bikers on our state quarter."
"But what's more American than Harley-Davidson?"
"Nope. No way."
"Well then, what about, um..."
"Bison?"
"Pheasants?"