MADISON, Wis. — Lead scientists from the University of Wisconsin–Madison have found Wyoming to be ranked 50th amongst states alphabetically, according to an extensive study conducted by the school’s Department of Geography.
“We’ve analyzed all existing data available on the subject — from dictionaries and card catalogs, to atlases and alphabet songs — and cross-referenced the findings with our own experiments. The results are clear: Wyoming ranks dead last when the first letter of all states are compared alphabetically,” said department chair Dr. Jan Knapp, who co-authored the study published in The Geographic Journal. “We thought Wisconsin might be last, but our cold, hard data disproved this notion after months of research.”
Though the academic community has embraced the findings, not everyone agrees with the study’s conclusions.
“Wyoming isn’t last in anything. This is a hoax: a fake news hit job put on by the liberal academic left,” stated Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon. “Next they’re going to tell us we’re the least populous state, or even the setting for 2005’s ‘Brokeback Mountain.’ You can’t believe everything you read these days!”
Despite the Governor’s words and the thousands of Wyoming residents and Parler users who echoed his sentiments, some locals accepted the 50th-place ranking.
“I mean, the ‘W-Y’ in ‘Wyoming’ is farther along in the alphabet than the ‘W-I’ in ‘Wisconsin,’ believe it or not. I only know this because I have a degree in library science, and this sort of thing is a big component of my job,” librarian Cheryl Lynne Brown of the Laramie County Library in Cheyenne, Wyo. said, as she pointed out the Sue Grafton alphabet mystery series. “You see, it goes: ‘T is for Trespass,’ ‘U is for Undertow,’ then comes ‘W is for Wasted.’ Case closed.”
“Now getting all the ‘New’ states in order, that’s up for debate — there are four of them and they all start with different letters,” she added. “I definitely don’t envy those researchers’ jobs.”
A petition to break the state into “North Wyoming” and “South Wyoming,” in an effort to improve the state’s alphabetical ranking, is now circulating on change.org with a total of over 10 signatures.