Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 23, 1990 TAG: 9005230080
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Virginia has the most boring license plates in the country. Be honest. Agree with me.
These blue-on-white snoozers' sole message: Virginia is dull enough to cause mass fish-kills.
License plates are no longer just identification numbers for police. They have evolved into subliminal, traveling little billboards that help promote states' images overseas in places like Kentucky and Missouri.
While other states - even South Dakota - are pushing tourism with license plates, catatonic Old Dominion sits anguishing on the veranda, wondering how to lure out-of-state wallets.
How much money can we spend? Where to spend it? How?
Meanwhile, thousands of potent advertisements roll out of garages every day and fan out over millions of miles of American roads. Each one bears a pair of Virginia license plates, messengers void of a message.
Blue on white. No motto. No picture, though some motorists actually pay money for a golf ball-sized state seal on their plates. The gold emblem depicts an Amazon woman standing triumphantly with her foot on the throat of a horizontal dead man.
Friendly place this Virginia.
You want a smile? Something to see? North Carolina has the Wright brothers' airplane. West Virginia, that wildly wonderfully corrupt state, prints a handy map on its license plate; South Carolina has a buzzard, or a wren or some bird; Georgia has a peach; Louisiana is Sportsman's Paradise; New Mexico is Land of Enchantment; Oklahoma is OK. For Pete's sake, there's a lobster on Maine's plate!
Here in the Old Indecision? Plates designed by experts at the School of Generic Packaging Art.
It's time for us Western Virginians to roll up our sleeves and to shove under the noses of our leaders the obvious solution.
\ WARNING: Contest ahead.
Let's design a new license plate for Virginia to boost our self-esteem, to lure tourists and to prove that we are no box of generic dog biscuits.
I invite you to submit a design for a new Virginia license plate. All entries will be evaluated by a blue-ribbon panel, appointed by me, and a dozen or so finalist designs will be delivered by hand to the movers and shakers who will carry the crusade to a successful conclusion.
Here are the ground rules:
Synchronize our watches. Contest begins rrrrrrrright NOW! Anyone can enter.
All entries must be on 12-inch by 6-inch paper (that's the size of a license plate). "Virginia" ought to appear on it somewhere.
Use any medium - crayon, colored pencil, paint, crushed berries, etc.
License plates should be designed to accommodate up to seven letters or numbers (just like real life). They may include a motto, a picture, both or neither.
Submit entries, with name and address, to me at P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, Va., 24010, or drop them off at our front desk in Roanoke at 2nd Street and Campbell Avenue.
Deadline for entries will be Friday, June 22, or thereabouts. Finalists will be announced, and will be awarded a prize, a couple of weeks later.
My entry: Virginia. Not Boring.
by CNB