Every state has birds, trees; Ohio has aviation pioneers

About a hundred years ago, Ambrose Bierce defined the word "advice" thus: "The smallest current coin."
In other words, it's generally not worth very much.
The U.S. Mint, which knows a little something about coinage, apparently subscribes to Bierce's definition with great enthusiasm. When the mint embarked on the business of designing a coin that will represent the state of Ohio it said, "Send us your designs."
And then it proceeded to treat the state's advice as if it would worth about a halfpenny, a coin that even Great Britain doesn't make anymore.
OK, so we exaggerate. The mint did pay a bit of attention to what Ohio submitted, but it apparently felt compelled to make changes in the design where changes were not needed.
Taking flight: The most unique offering of the four Ohio submitted was what the mint has now dubbed "Heroes of Aviation."
In the Ohio design, a contrail began in Ohio and swooshed past the Wright Brothers first airplane to John Glenn's space capsule, which hovered over Neil Armstrong standing on the moon beside an American flag. Ohio's designers didn't think it was necessary to label this "Heroes of Aviation," they let the pictures do the talking.
The mint's designers not only added the words, they took away the flag and moonscape so that the spaceman could just as well be spacewalking as moonwalking. The contrail starts at the Wright Brothers plane, passes the spaceman and ends with Glenn's capsule. We think the chronological order has been lost along the way.
Beth Deisher, a member of an Ohio commemorative quarter committee, claims that the Mint shows the plane with boxed wings instead of pointed wings and with too many rods connecting the top and bottom wings. Picky, picky, picky.
Wisely the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts decided to delay its recommendation on an Ohio design. Unwisely, it appears to be leaning toward one of the other offerings, a generic cardinal perched on a buckeye branch in front of an outline of the "Buckeye State."
Been there: Pick up a South Carolina quarter and you'll see that someone has already done the bird and tree thing. The biggest difference: It's "The Palmetto State." Granted North Carolina has already used a Wright Brothers plane, but all N.C. did was provide an airstrip and wind. Ohio provided the brain power.
The average life of a freshly minted quarter is 30 years. This design is going to be around a while and Ohio should go for what makes it unique.
The Fine Arts Commission approved a fiddle, guitar and horn for Tennessee's coin and a riverboat for Louisiana's. Ohio should hold out for its aviation pioneers. Ohioans were the first to fly, the first to orbit the earth and the first to walk on the moon. Those accomplishments should be the first choice in designing Ohio's coin.