Virginia Pritchett and How the Cactus Wren Became Arizona’s State Bird
The original concept to have every state adopt a state bird was “hatched” in the mid-1920s by a Florida woman named Katherine Bell Tippetts. She was a bird lover and conservationist and also active in Florida’s Audubon Society. Her national state bird initiative was not some whimsical effort to simply name a state bird; it was a strategic plan to promote bird awareness and conservation throughout the United States.
Tippetts used her leadership position in the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) to promote her idea throughout that organization’s nationwide network of state and local chapters. The chapters were urged to contact civic organizations, churches, clubs and schools to present speakers urging them to name a state bird. Those meetings ended with polls about what birds people preferred.
By 1931, the GFWC was planning to hold their national convention in Phoenix. The problem was that Arizona had not yet officially named a state bird. It would have been awkward to have the convention in Arizona and the state lacking an official bird.
Into to the breach stepped the Arizona state affiliate of the GFWC known as the Arizona Federation of Women’s Clubs (AFWC). Geraldine Craig – the local organization’s Conservation Chairwoman – put in the day-to-day hard work around the state to finally nominate the Cactus Wren as the state bird. Those efforts paid off when a bill was introduced into the state legislature by Representative M.V. Decker and co-sponsored by Representative John J. Phillips to officially adopt the bird. It was passed and sent to governor George W. P. Hunt for his signature just weeks before the GFWC convention opened in Phoenix.
But wait. That’s all a very tidy factual account of what transpired, but it’s not the whole story. That’s where Virginia Pritchett enters the picture. In 1931 before the bill was passed, Virginia Pritchett was a 16-year-old Phoenix Union high school girl with a youthful love for birds and an appreciation for the natural world around her.
During a brief interview for Arizona Highways magazine in 1987, Virginia recounted her memories of 1931. Virginia had heard a speaker at one of the AFWC’s meetings mention that Arizona did not have a state bird. Virginia “ran home and asked her father for help in drafting legislation for a state bird.” Her father suggested that she talk to a neighbor named M. V. Decker who was a state “legislator who kept canaries and was familiar with bird terminology and the proper method of introducing a bill.” She did exactly that.
According to Virginia’s interview 56 years later, she was present in the House gallery on the day the legislation was being considered. She watched impatiently as the legislators read newspapers, idled away their time and generally appeared uninterested in the legislation before them. “I just wanted to shake them,” she recalled. “Finally, the Legislature voted on the bill. It passed, and Virginia and other bird fanciers cheered.”
Some have said the Cactus Wren was chosen because of its feisty character which typifies the patience, persistence and independent qualities of Arizona’s residents. Virginia Pritchett’s largely forgotten role in state history is an important one that shows what even a high school girl can do if she’s motivated and determined – traits that align well with those of the Cactus Wren.
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