The western meadowlark is one of the birds featured in the Draper Natural History Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody.

The story of how it became Wyoming’s official state bird started in an 8th grade classroom in Thermopolis, said Chloe Winkler, who works for the Draper’s Raptor Experience.

“ One of her students, Lewis Freudenthal, in his essay, he said that he liked hearing the meadowlark's beautiful call as he rode his horse to school,” she said.

Winkler adds, “He wrote that in such a captivating essay that the teacher passed it along and the Thermopolis newspaper picked it up and then it got moved all the way down to Wyoming legislation.”

Wyoming was the first state to make the meadowlark its state bird in 1927. Five other states followed.