Paige Alana Bowermaster gave Pennsylvania’s 200-year-old state symbol, the keystone, a face. Then came arms, legs, and a bowtie.
Standing next to her creation on the steps of the Capitol Rotunda recently, the 23-year-old art school grad felt validated, maybe even vindicated.
“Growing up, the arts was a really risky thing to go into, and everyone always advised against it,” she explained. “They're like, ‘Well, you want to earn a living, don't you?’ And I was always like, ‘Yes, I do want to earn a living, but I wanna earn one doing what I love.”
Bowermaster was paid for this assignment, a high-profile one at that. The mascot, dubbed the "Keystone Kid,” is representing Pennsylvania for America’s 250th birthday celebration in 2026.
With state symbols, opinions are strong and not always friendly. And when the Keystone Kid debuted last month, some likened it to a "post-bong rip Chinese takeout box with an evil aura.”
Bowermaster wasn’t shaken.
“I almost personally feel like that's a point where you've kind of made it when people have opinions good and bad — that means they're paying attention to your work,” Bowermaster said.
They certainly are. Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Stephanie Farr, in a column about The Kid, noted that while “nearly every state” has a promotional organization focused on the 2026 semiquincentennial, so far “Pennsylvania is the only one with a fully fledged mascot.”
The group behind Pennsylvania’s hoopla planning is America250PA, an affiliate of the national America250 entity, which bills itself as “a nonpartisan initiative working to engage every American in commemorating the 250th anniversary of our country.”
Bowermaster interned for America250PA while a sophomore at the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design in Lancaster. In 2022, America250PA’s executive director, Cassandra Coleman, was working on a related educational program when her seven-year-old gave her an idea.
“I asked him ‘What would you like as part of the 250th?’ He said he would love a coloring book,” Coleman told PA Local. Bowermaster volunteered to design it and the Keystone Kid was born.
The smiling rock with gentle eyes was a hit with the kids, leading Bowermaster to take it one step further.
“Paige said, ‘How cool would it be if we had the keystone come to life?’” Coleman recalled. More than two hundred years after the symbol was formally adopted by Pennsylvania, it did with a name first proposed by a Montgomery County second-grader.
Where the keystone state nickname came from has been the subject of some dispute since its formal adoption around the year 1800.
A compilation of writings on the subject published in 1874 contains several versions. One (seemingly contested by the compiler) involves a bridge project near Washington, D.C. in which the architect "saw proper to place on the central block of its arch the abbreviation 'PA.'" Another says the designation owes to Pennsylvania Congressman John Morton's vote securing unanimous adoption of the Declaration of Independence in July of 1776. Yet another version, possibly intertwined with the last, was cited by U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson (R., Pa.) on the floor of the U.S. House last year with a reference to President Thomas Jefferson calling Pennsylvania a keystone of the federal union.
The symbol is likely more ubiquitous than ever today, featuring prominently on cans of beer, a proposed state flag redesign, and, as Farr noted, human skin.
Then there's the mascot.
You will be seeing more of Keystone Kid in the future — with years of semiquincentennial events planned — and likely more of Bowermaster too: “Seeing the mascot alive just inspires me to do what I do.” | 
