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Student-created content originally broadcast on Hillsdale College's student radio station, WRFH 101.7 FM.
You're listening to State Facts on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host Nate Gallagher, and I'm joined by Hillsdale's resident Coloradan, Jillian Golden. How are you doing today?
Jillian Golden:Good. How are you?
Nate Gallagher:Pretty good. So where are you from in Colorado?
Jillian Golden:From Golden, Colorado. It's the west side of Denver right at the base of the mountains.
Nate Gallagher:Oh, nice. So this question should be easy as, what is the capital of Colorado?
Jillian Golden:Denver, Colorado.
Nate Gallagher:When was Colorado admitted to the union?
Jillian Golden:It was admitted in 1876, sometime in August.
Nate Gallagher:August 1, 1876. Do you know what number it was? 38. How about the population?
Jillian Golden:So the state is a bit under 6,000,000, but that's interesting because Denver is about half of that. The Denver metro area with about 3,000,000.
Nate Gallagher:How about the nickname of the state?
Jillian Golden:It's called either colorful Colorado or the Centennial State because 18/76, 100 years after declaration.
Nate Gallagher:The state animal.
Jillian Golden:I think it's like a bighorn sheep. Is it actually? Yes.
Nate Gallagher:Yes. The bighorn sheep. Got a lot of sheep.
Jillian Golden:You see them running around the mountains a lot. Like, if you drive up the highway, you can see them up on the sides, but not really.
Nate Gallagher:I've never seen a sheep.
Jillian Golden:They're pretty cool.
Nate Gallagher:Alright. Fluffy.
Jillian Golden:Yeah. But they also have big horns. They're kinda scary. They're they're huge. Everything in Colorado is bigger.
Nate Gallagher:Hence the name bighorn. Yeah. I would assume so.
Jillian Golden:Like, the deer too are, like, twice the size.
Nate Gallagher:How about the state bird?
Jillian Golden:Oh, it's it's really lame. It's the lark bunting. It, it's it's this basic little bird that's just brown and black and white, but it's it's kinda cute. But it's very much just a neighborhood bird. You'll see it everywhere.
Nate Gallagher:Does it have, like, a particular song? Because a lark is, like, known for singing, at least the term lark.
Jillian Golden:I have absolutely no idea.
Nate Gallagher:Okay. How about the state flower?
Jillian Golden:It's the columbine. Everybody knows that. Specifically, it's also the blue columbine, I'm pretty sure. But we do have a lot of other colors too.
Nate Gallagher:They're very pretty or no?
Jillian Golden:They're really pretty.
Nate Gallagher:Again, I've never seen one.
Jillian Golden:They'll grow on the sides of ditches everywhere. You'll just see them all the time. It's like it's almost like a wild I think it is a wildflower.
Nate Gallagher:How about the state pet?
Jillian Golden:No idea.
Nate Gallagher:Rescue dogs and cats.
Jillian Golden:I had a rescue dog once. It's my dog.
Nate Gallagher:How about the state insect?
Jillian Golden:Oh, actually, it's a type of butterfly, I think. It's I wanna say it's purple and orange or blue and yellow or something like that, but it's it's something hair string or something. Hair streak?
Nate Gallagher:Yeah. It's the hair streak butterfly.
Jillian Golden:Hey.
Nate Gallagher:And that is the color, at least in the picture that I saw. It was, like, purple and orange. And
Jillian Golden:Yeah. They're like that type of butterfly that has really long bottom wings, and so they kinda trail out when they fly.
Nate Gallagher:How about the state gemstone?
Jillian Golden:Does gold count? We had a lot of gold mines.
Nate Gallagher:No. Okay. Gold is not a gem. Gold is a mineral.
Jillian Golden:Okay. No clue.
Nate Gallagher:Aquamarine.
Jillian Golden:Hey, that's epic.
Nate Gallagher:How about the state tree?
Jillian Golden:It's the blue spruce. We had a blue spruce growing up in our backyard. It's really, really big now, and we have an another baby one right next to it. When they when they start growing, they're, like, 3 feet tall or, like like I mean, obviously. But then they they get huge, but it's funny because they all kind of they grow vertically at the same time as horizontally.
Jillian Golden:So it's not like they get tall. It's more like there's like a cone and then they're a bigger cone. But then when the when the branches go so it's it's like a it's pine needles. Right? But then when they grow, there's like like the new needles are really really soft.
Jillian Golden:It's like a weird almost like paintbrush feeling, and they're super soft, and you can just like grab them, and it doesn't hurt. But then once they're grown up, then it's kind of painful.
Nate Gallagher:How about the state fossil?
Jillian Golden:I have no idea.
Nate Gallagher:The stegosaurus.
Jillian Golden:That's awesome. We have got this right near Golden on the way to, on the way to Morrison, which is up 4:70, if somebody knows. But we have dinosaur Ridge, which is like this huge it's basically this road that goes up the side of a mountain, but the mountain when it formed it like pushed up. And so like it left in a super exposed like streak of just fossils and footprints and stuff. And so there's there's a bunch of them, but there's, like, there's this big old footprint in the side of the mountain that you can see from the highway, like, half a mile away.
Jillian Golden:But then when you go up to it, you can, like, stand inside of it.
Nate Gallagher:That seems so cool.
Jillian Golden:It's pretty cool.
Nate Gallagher:I wish I could go see that. Alright. Well, that's all the time we have today. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Jillian Golden:Absolutely.
Nate Gallagher:I've been Nate Gallagher with State Facts on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. See you next time.