Official Symbols of
Kansas
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The Barred Tiger Salamander
(Ambystoma tigrinum mavortium) was
designated as the official state AMPHIBIAN
by the State Legislature in 1994, following a
campaign by Kansas school children. According to
the enabling legislature, the barred tiger
salamander is "a strikingly marked species,
with a robust body, and living in a range from
the humid tallgrass prairie of eastern Kansas to
the arid high plains at the western border ...
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The American
Buffalo (Bison bison) was
designated as the official state ANIMAL
by the State Legislature in 1955. |
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The Western
Meadow Lark (Sturnella neglecta)
was designated as the official state BIRD
by the State Legislature in 1937, following a
vote of Kansas school children. |
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The Kansas
State FLAG, adopted by the
Kansas Legislature as the official state flag on
March 21, 1927, is a rectangle of dark-blue silk
with the state seal at its
center. Above the seal is the state crest, a
sunflower resting on a twisted bar of blue and
gold. The word "Kansas," added in 1961,
is below the seal in gold, block lettering. The flag was first displayed in 1927 at
Fort Riley by Governor Ben Paulen in the presence
of troops from Fort Riley and the Kansas National
Guard.
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The Sunflower
was designated as the official state FLOWER
by the State Legislature in 1903. The enabling
legislation states: "... Kansas has a native
wild flower common throughout her boarders, hardy
and conspicuous, of definite, unvarying and
striking shape, easily sketched, moulded, and
carved, having armorial capacities, ideally
adapted for artistic reproduction, with its
strong, distinct disk and its golden circle of
clear glowing rays a flower that a child can draw
on a slate, a woman can work in silk, or a man
can carve on stone or fashion in clay; and ...
This flower has to all Kansans a historic
symbolism which speaks of frontier days, winding
trails, pathless prairies, and is full of the
life and glory of the past, the pride of the
present, and richly emblematic of the majesty of
a golden future, and is a flower which has given
Kansas the world-wide name, "the sunflower
state" ... ." |
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The Honeybee
was designated as the official state INSECT
by the State Legislature in 1976. |
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The State Legislature
recognizes both The Kansas March
(by Duff E. Middleton) and Here's
Kansas as the official state MARCHES. |
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Home on the Range,
by Brewster
Higley, was adopted as the official state SONG
by the State Legislature in 1947. |
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The Ornate Box Turtle
(Terrapene ornata) was designated as the
official state REPTILE by the
State Legislature in 1986, following a campaign
by Kansas school children. |
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The Great SEAL
of the State of Kansas was established by a joint
resolution adopted by the Kansas Legislature on
May 25, 1861. The seal is described in the
resolution as follows:
"The east is represented by a rising sun,
in the right-hand corner of the seal; to the left
of it, commerce is represented by a river and a
steamboat; in the foreground, agriculture is
represented as the basis of the future prosperity
of the state, by a settler's cabin and a man
plowing with a pair of horses; beyond this is a
train of ox-wagons, going west; in the background
is seen a herd of buffalo, retreating, pursued by
two Indians, on horseback; around the top is the
motto, 'Ad astra per aspera,' and beneath a
cluster of thirty-four stars. The circle is
surrounded by the words, 'Great seal of the state
of Kansas. January 29, 1861.'"
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The Cottonwood
was designated as the official state TREE
by the State Legislature in 1937. |
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