DAVID ALBERS / Daily News

A female gopher tortoise takes a look around after being released at the Naples Preserve on Thursday, April 17, 2008. The tortoises were relocated from Lely Resort.

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The gopher tortoise has crawled onto Florida’s list of state symbols with a big boost from a few Collier County classrooms.

The burrow dwellers’ newfound glory was part of a bill Gov. Charlie Crist signed recently that extended until 2018 the Florida Forever program that sets aside $300 million a year for land preservation.

For Kate McHenry, though, it’s all about the gopher tortoise.

“That’s awesome,” the 10-year-old said. “I wanted that to happen, and I’m really happy.”

McHenry and her fourth-grade classmates at Pelican Marsh Elementary and art students at Golden Gate High School sent letters and artwork to Tallahassee in hopes of giving the gopher tortoise a flipper-like leg up.

Last year, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission increased protections for gopher tortoises by changing their status from a species of special concern to threatened.

The move ended the state’s practice of issuing permits to developers that allowed them to bury the tortoises in their burrows, a fate that befell more than 100,000 gopher tortoises in the past 14 years, according to state figures.

Now, with Crist’s pen stroke, the gopher tortoise joins the zebra longwing (state butterfly), horse conch (state shell) and largemouth bass (state freshwater fish) as a symbol of the Sunshine State.

Credit the state pie, though, for inspiring environmental educator Ricky Pires to start the drive for gopher tortoise symbol status.

“If the key lime pie can make it, why not the gopher tortoise,” said Pires, director of the Wings of Hope program that sends Florida Gulf Coast University students into classrooms to teach students about the endangered Florida panther.

Building on the success of the Panther Posse, as it’s come to be known, she decided to set local students’ sights on the gopher tortoise.

Students wrote letters and designed artwork as part of a contest sponsored by the Collier County Audubon Society _ learning all the while.

For example, did you know that gopher tortoises share their burrows with as many as 300 other creatures?

Fourth-graders at Pelican Marsh Elementary do: “Another reason I think you should vote for the gopher tortoise is because the greatest threat to the survival of the gopher tortoise is habitat destruction, and I know that as a senator of our beautiful state, you don’t want to see that happen,” wrote Tana Noble to state Sen. Burt Saunders.

As it turned out, Saunders, R-Naples, didn’t need convincing.

He introduced the bill to name the gopher tortoise a state symbol and shepherded it through Senate committees. When a sponsor didn’t emerge in the House, Saunders attached the gopher tortoise to the Florida Forever bill, which he also was responsible for carrying to passage.

After all, it’s not every day that fourth-graders, high school art students and state senators join forces.

“It seemed absolutely appropriate to do this,” Saunders said.