Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 4, 1990 TAG: 9006040064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A couple of weeks ago we agreed that Virginia's existing plate is boring enough to cause spontaneous skull collapse, and we began a new-design contest.
With luck we will devise for Virginia a license plate that doesn't tell the world how dull we are, but subtly advertises one of our many attributes.
Perhaps we will rediscover color.
Submit your entry on 6-inch by 12-inch paper, in living color, to me at P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, Va., 24010. The deadline is Friday, June 22.
A panel of experts will select the best designs, and I will take them to Richmond to lobby for a new tag. You could be famous.
So far, entries have proven that there are an awful lot of creative people out there when it comes to belittling their local columnist. That's not the idea, friends. Promote Virginia. Leave the columnist alone, please.
Amazingly, not everyone agrees that Virginia's lack of color, motto, art and verve is a miserable failure to use a potent advertising tool.
Some people like Virginia's 17-year-old license plate design. These people are wrong.
Our plate hasn't been changed for all these years (no other state boasts such license-plate longevity) because confrontational public debate is avoided at all costs in the Old Dominion.
"Design changes are very controversial," says Jeanne Chenault of the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
From afar, state officials have listened to debates in other states and decided they don't want to endure the indignities of listening to public comments. And so, while the world has changed around us, we have held fast to our head-imploding tag design. Vintage Virginia.
"Virginia has the most readable plate. Law enforcement people have told us that. Besides, we have 100 plates for people to choose from," says Chenault.
Sure, if you want to boast alma mater, wartime heroics, Lions Club, the state seal or your own inane message: IM-PRONE-TO-BLACKOUTS-WHILE-DRVING.
Honorable topics all, but hardly the stuff to make tourists cement their vacation plans.
"When a Wyoming plate goes by, you say you've got to go there. It's got that bucking cowboy. When a Virginia plate goes by, you say, `Gee, that's boring,'" says Gary Kincade. "It doesn't cut the mustard."
Kincade is the secretary of the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association. He lives in Weston, W.Va., and he owns thousands of license plates.
"I wouldn't say Virginia's the worst plate," says Kincade. "It's well made. Oh, it's ugly, no doubt about it. But it's well made."
Pat those boys and girls behind bars at Powhatan Correctional Facility on the back. They make a nice plate.
But Kincade ranks Virginia's license plate design 44th among the 50 states.
"It would be tough to pick out 6 that are worse," he admitted.
Iowa. Michigan. Missouri. Ohio, which "seems to have some sort of squashed bug on it."
Virginia is down there, right at the bottom, dull as slate.
Be bold. Use your crayons. Use your ruler. Use your noodle.
Virginia needs you.
by CNB