Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 19, 1992 TAG: 9201190049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
MAKING A SCENE PAYS OFF
It is one thing to fight the good fight and to lose.It is another thing altogether to win.
We won, we won, we won.
How would you, Joe Virginian, like to have a license plate not featuring the skull-crushingly dull blue and white that has for nearly two decades characterized the Old Dominion, but of a scene?
Mountains and seashore? Or would you prefer a cardinal delicately perched on a sprig of dogwood petals?
Mr. License Plate told you he would win for you the opportunity to put something non-putrid on your bumper. You supported him in a campaign that dates back two years but has, in recent months, gone underground into the bowels of the back room, cigar-chomping, tobacco-spitting, Virginia political underworld.
We won, we won, we won.
Soon - this week, maybe - the state Motor Vehicle Department will ask legislators for permission to issue optional new license plates for Virginians.
The state teeters at the brink of fiscal collapse. Nobody's going to challenge new tags.
It's a done deal.
For $10, within months, you'll be able to plaster onto your car a delightfully colorful license plate, catapulting you into the 20th century. No state has clung as long (19 years) to its license plate design as has Virginia.
Meanwhile, all other states promote the wonders of their tourism, boast their topography and their history, their leisure, their history, their wildlife.
Our plates were designed by the same primitive, powdered-wig image consultants who designed the snappy, stencil-print logo on boxes of Cost Cutter doggie biscuits.
Mr. License Plate hammered away, not by stalking legislators but by assembling a coalition of common folk. Our voice boomed from the mountains to the sea: Virginia's tags are the nation's laughingstock.
Donald Williams, of the Motor Vehicle Department, called Mr. License Plate at home at breakfast time. Nearly 180 people proposed license plate designs. Mr. License Plate polled 522 passersby in two Roanoke shopping malls - 91 percent said we need a new license plate designs.
Ohio - OHIO, FOR PETE'S SAKE! - redesigned its tags while Virginia, the Old Inertia, sat smugly, fretting about change, about money, about symbolism, about heritage.
The world passed us by.
Finally, ultimately, the DMV relented, unveiling the two new designs last week.
Natalie Smith of the DMV had the misfortune of picking up the phone when the triumphant Mr. License Plate called to gloat.
"We figured you would call," she said. "The license plate designs have been kicked around DMV for three or four years now. I can't tell you that it would be fair for you to take credit."
Who else has harangued the department? Who else has so galvanized the sentiment of a restless public? Who else?
"We get letters every day from people with opinions on license plates," said Natalie Smith.
Among them, Mr. License Plate stands tall. He will be to Virginia motorists someday what Johnny Appleseed is to fruit baskets.
We won, we won, we won.
Your gratitude is graciously accepted.