It's a proposal that's been kicked around for decades in the General Assembly, but now the stars seemed aligned for 2018.
Nope, not Sunday liquor sales.
The flashy firefly is poised, in all its bioluminescence, to become Indiana's first state insect.
The firefly and its supporters have endured years of scorn and disappointment in the Statehouse. That could all change soon.
There's newfound hope for 2018 with GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb throwing his support to the firefly, also known as a lightning bug, in his legislative agenda unveiled recently. Holcomb called it the effort he's most excited about because it will lead students into science.
Like Sunday booze sales, Indiana is among a handful of states without a state insect. Neighboring Illinois has the monarch butterfly, while Ohio claimed the ladybug. According to the Smithsonian Institute, California became the first state to select a state insect, naming the dogface butterfly in 1929.
Since at least 1999, Hoosier school children have cast plenty of support behind Say's firefly, a beetle named after naturalist Thomas Say who identified it in 1824 near New Harmony.
Two bills providing state recognition for the firefly were written last year, including a House bill co-authored by Michael Aylesworth, R-Hebron. Neither bill gained a hearing.
"The firefly spends its whole life cycle here in Indiana," said longtime firefly backer Tom Turpin, a retired Purdue University entomology professor. "It's such an insect people like. They admire them, collect them, and put them in jars. It's one of few things that can send a kid away from screen time."
Turpin has been working with a West Lafayette second grade teacher who's pushing lawmakers to honor the firefly. He said state school chief Jennifer McCormick is supporting the firefly, too.
"State symbols are easy to incorporate into a teaching curriculum," said Turpin and they lend themselves to education opportunities and pride in the state."
The firefly is a worthy insect, as well, Turpin believes. Its very chemistry which produces the light or bioluminescence is being adapted in research to identify cancer cells, he said. Technology has also adopted it in the form of glow sticks.
The flickering light produces by fireflies is a mating ritual, Turpin said.
"Once a female lays eggs, they hatch into glow worms. You can see them on creeks and ponds on frosty nights."
The insects feed on snails and slugs and emerge usually in July as fireflies.
There's been worry in recent years about the firefly habitat being jeopardized. "They tend to live in wet, swampy areas. A lot of those areas have been drained," said Turpin.
More importantly, he said light pollution and increased suburban sprawl have hurt them. Farmers spraying insecticide on their fields have damaged them, as well.
Installing the firefly as the state insect should bring the challenges it faces to the forefront in Hoosier classrooms.
Hoosier politicians have been giving lip service to the firefly for years, but when it came to enshrining it into state law as a state symbol, the measure has always fallen short.
Yet, it's hard to top the wonder of seeing the night light up as fireflies flicker like little solar flares in woods and corn fields.
Hoosier-born poet James Whitcomb Riley memorialized that scene in "Old Fashioned Roses." A century ago, he enthralled the country with his words: "The fireflies, like golden seeds, are sown about the night."