Patron Saint of Texas

All these years I've lived in Texas and I didn't know we had a patron saint (Of course that's not surprising since I'm not Catholic). I am not sure how a state selects it's patron saint. I mean is it by dictate from the Vatican or does the Legislature vote on it? The patron saint of Texas is Our Lady of Annunciation better known as the Blessed Virgin Mary. I did some research on Mary and it seems she's a pretty busy saint. According to the list i checked, (http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/indexsnt.htm), her patronage includes not only Texas, and the Archdiocese of Austin, but most of the other 50 states, the United States, a lot of other countries, and a whole slew of occupations, diseases and other patronages. That's a lot of prayers to be answering.

Maybe Texas, being such a big state, should have a saint that's a little less busy. Not that Mary isn't a great saint but we could chose a new patron saint that's got more time on their hands and has qualifications related to our own special needs here in Texas. So here are a few of my suggestions for an alternate patron saint for Texas:

Heribert of Cologne, also known as Herbert, the patron saint against draughts. (Actually he is one of many saints against draughts but I figured most Texans could pronounce Herbert, unlike Catald, Godeberta, Solange, Swithun and Trophimus of Arles, the other saints against draughts). We sure could use some help in the rain department here in Texas and it sounds like Herbert might just be the one to pray to for help.

Honorius of Amiens, the patron saint of oil refiners? That might make a lot of people in the oil industry happy.

Brigid of Ireland is the patron saint of cattle, which might sound like a good idea, but knowing how xenophobic some Texans can be when it comes right down to it, a saint from Ireland might not be such a good idea.

Benedict patron saint against nettle rash is another possibility. I am sure that's a big problem here in Texas!

Too bad there's no patron saint of football or we could have had a humdinger of a candidate there.