Lending a new name to the former Fighting Sioux

Imagine the clever signs this fan could create for the North Dakota Sugar Beets. (ZUMAPRESS.com) Following a statewide vote Tuesday, North Dakota will be

Imagine the clever signs this fan could create for the North Dakota Sugar Beets. (ZUMAPRESS.com)

Following a statewide vote Tuesday, North Dakota will be allowed to swap out the NCAA-restricted "Fighting Sioux" nickname for what will likely be some decidedly unevocative cat or bird. (Yes, allowed to swap. Read more; it's complicated.) We have lived for years with regret that Arkansas State, when in a similar situation, rebuffed our suggestion to become the Arkansas State Vine-Ripe Pink Tomatoes or the Arkansas State Manmade Lakes Of Massive Proportion. Thus, we hastened to compile a state-appropriate list of new mascots for UND:

• The North Dakota Roughriders

• The North Dakota Western Meadowlarks

• The North Dakota Badlands

• The North Dakota Flax Seeds

• The North Dakota Sugar Beets

• The North Dakota Fur Traders

• The North Dakota Fighting Welks

• The North Dakota Chuck Klostermans (Klostermen?)

• The North Dakota Flickrtails (sponsored by Yahoo!)

• The North Dakota Geographic Centers of the North American Continent

• The North Dakota Convergent Lady Beetles (for women's teams; alternatively: The Shale Marys)

• The North Dakota Sharks (because cartilaginous fish are woefully underrepresented in college athletics)

Big ups to the North Dakota government's "State Facts" page, which guided these choices and also informed us that the state beverage is milk.