Hailey Horob, Lexie Enget and Jake Germundson succeeded Friday where many professional lobbyists have fallen short. The three Williston seventh-graders coaxed a Senate committee to immediately endorse a bill they favored.

It would name the chokecherry as North Dakota's state fruit.

The students took turns praising the chokecherry Friday at a hearing of the Senate Natural Resources Committee.

They described the chokecherry plant's uses as an ornamental plant, a provider of cover for wildlife, a preventer of soil erosion, and as an ingredient in pemmican - a dried mixture of meat, berries and rendered fat prepared by American Indians, explorers and fur traders.

"The fruit was a staple for numerous Indian tribes across the North American continent, especially to tribes who lived on the plains and prairies like ours in North Dakota," Lexie Enget said.

Hailey Horob read an excerpt from the journal of explorer Meriwether Lewis, who wrote on June 12, 1805, that he had boiled chokecherries and bark to fashion a medicinal brew.

"My fever abated, a gentle perspiration was produced, and I had a comfortable and refreshing night's rest," Hailey read.

The youngsters, their classmates and their sixth-grade teacher, Nancy Selby, are continuing a project they began last February in Selby's sixth-grade class at Rickard Elementary School in Williston. North Dakota's lack of a state fruit dovetailed nicely with a class assignment for writing persuasive letters.

After settling on the chokecherry as a worthy candidate, the students wrote Gov. John Hoeven, who said they should take up the issue with their local state legislators.

Sen. Stan Lyson, R-Williston, eventually agreed to be the bill's primary sponsor. Lyson is chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.

"When I first got this letter from the young people asking me to do this, I gave them some real hard homework to do. I thought they'd get rid of it that way," Lyson said Friday. "And here we are today."

Selby said she was pleased with her students' persistence. "Several times I asked these students, 'Are you done with this? Have you had enough? Have you learned enough?' And each time they said, 'No,'" she said.

The project captured the community's imagination, Selby said, adding that she had been overwhelmed with offers of chokecherry jams, jellies and other products to bring to Friday's hearing.

"I would have needed a U-Haul to bring it all in," she said.