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COLUMBIA (WACH, AP) -- Collard greens are now South Carolina's official state vegetable.

Gov. Nikki Haley signed the bill Thursday elevating the status of the green, leafy vegetable.

The bill signing took place at Rocky Creek Elementary in Lexington where third-grader Mary Grace Wingard had proposed the designation.

The 9-year-old says she was inspired by a class field trip to the State House in March. She says Haley told her class to get excited and get involved in government, so she decided she would.

"She is doing what we sometimes can't get a lot of adults to do," Haley says. "Which she is taking the time to care and she's taking the time to get involved in our government."

Republican Sen. Jake Knotts of West Columbia introduced her proposal April 14, and it quickly moved ahead.

Mary Grace sent a letter to legislators saying her classmates were studying South Carolina history and watching the bill's progress.

The bill sparked minor controversy from critics that lawmakers had time to pass a law on collard greens but haven't gotten to other more pressing items. 

Thursday morning Gov. Haley responded to those critics by saying, "This was a pressing item to her, this was a pressing item to her class and it is not fair for the entire state to judge what someone finds important.  I think that what they should look at is the fact that this is a little girl that did something about it."

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)