I get what you’re saying. But, it’s also easy to point out KY didn’t create fried chicken. Original bragging rights have been determined by popularity historically. This is no different. Snowboarding was obviously started here in Tampa. Lol

RI: ok sure yes we get it you like yachts there, you put them on everything. so is that really ‘innovation’? I guess not much else got innovated there then.

VT: fine, although not invented in vermont, snowboarding was perhaps popularized and refined there, so this one can get a pass.

KY: is bluegrass music really an innovation? yeah sure it is creative and all that, but to me ‘innovation’ seems to imply an industrial or commercial improvement of some sort, not a primarily artistic thing. seems like fried chicken is a more apropos innovation for the state (KFC being globally recognized).

TN: this one the strangest – it celebrates the ‘innovation’ of a 1930s new deal government agency that was not even invented in the state, but in DC by politicians trying to help the area modernize during the depression, hence power lines. of course it helped the state immensely but the state wasn’t really the driver for it, just the place where it was tried out. But the TVA did power the Oak Ridge facility in WWII for uranium enrichment and that is definitely a real important innovation, but I guess gas diffusion doesn’t work out well as a coin design (maybe put a microgram of depleted uranium in the dollar blanks, that’d be fun).

compared to the other states, these 4 seem relatively weak from an innovation standpoint to me. but maybe there just wasn’t much to work with, and they wanted to not repeat the state quarter designs (except RI, who apparently can’t think of anything other than yachts)