All that hard work on the part of Wisconsin’s elected officials has finally paid off! Yesterday, 160 plus years after our statehood began in 1848, we finally have a state microbe.

Go ahead and high-five each other.

We are the first state of this great nation to bestow such an official honor upon bacteria. Your state microbe – Lactococcus lactis – is the wonder agent making some of our tastiest cheeses possible. Yep, without it, the world could not have Cheddar, Colby, cottage cheese, cream cheese, Camembert, Roquefort, and Brie, not to mention butter and sour cream.

But how awesome is this, really? As ZDNet.com blogger David Gewirtz points out, “Politicians are a wacky bunch. In a nation struggling under challenging economic, social, and environmental conditions and in a state whose citizens are suffering with an unemployment rate of almost 9%, Wisconsin’s politicians decided to take time out of their busy day to honor a microbe.”

Having state things appears to be our thing. Gewirtz also points out that Wisconsin has an offical state fruit, beverage, fish, fossil, grain, rock, soil (Antigo silt loam), dance, and three categories of state animal. But guess what we don’t have. A state cheese. But thankfully, a group of three senators and eight representatives toiled away to designate cheese as our official state snack.

By the way, Minnesota has an official state muffin. Blueberry. Real original, guys.