Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 21, 1993 TAG: 9304210157
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And how do so many people, utter strangers working independently, come up with so many of the same ideas in these blasted contests?
When it was license plates, we smothered beneath a mini-avalanche of cardinals and dogwoods (a theme that re-emerged FIVE times in the Design-a-City-Seal Contest).
In Strange Veggies, we got 12,449 two-legged carrots and 8,381 potatoes that allegedly looked like dinosaurs.
This time around, we got 89 entries from would-be designers of a new city seal. Take away the Dominion Tower, airplanes, the Mill Mountain Star, Roanoke Memorial Hospital and choo-choo trains, and there isn't much to this town - or so you'd think from perusing the entries.
They came on expensive artsy-type paper and on the backs of napkins. Some were water-colored; others, ballpoint pen drawings. They came from four states, from jails, from children and seniors, men and women, pros and rank amateurs.
The judges saw more rough sketches of the Dominion Tower than they deserved.
They read commentary:
"I was dismayed to see that the current seal does indeed portray Roanoke as a sort of sludge pit . . . " wrote Jennifer Craft, a Roanoke expatriate now living in Baltimore.
And, "You are right. The present seal is pitiful," from a Virginia Tech instructor who'll be nameless because she added, "P.S. I know I am using university stationery but I figure this falls under the category of public service."
The city seal now in use dates back nearly 90 years, before Superfund sites were identified and when heavy-metal gushing, acid-rain belching factories were prized symbols of progress.
Eighteen years ago, the city solicited ideas for a new seal because then-political-whippersnapper Noel C. Taylor thought that the seal was out of date. Lots of ideas were submitted, none was chosen because the selection process was too democratic.
This contest is purely autocratic, and therefore much more fair.
A city seal is a round thing - I don't know why - emblazoned on squad-car doors, flags and letterheads. It's an artistic capturing of the very soul of the community, thick in symbolism, or at the very least the way the community wants to be known.
A little Latin phraseology, which would be absurd, say, on a birthday invitation, is very becoming on a city seal.
The art part was a big problem for many contestants.
"As you can see," apologized Amand Cochener of Roanoke, "I cannot draw." He drew anyway.
And Eric Lyons of Christiansburg accompanied his rough-hewn sketch with: "Please have a professional artist do this."
But judges were willing to overlook artistically handicapped entries in exchange for wit and cynicism, truth and soul.
Too many cheery, optimistic, cornball entries had to be dismissed because they were hopelessly cheery, optimistic or cornball.
Still, 13 entries were picked as the finest.
The grand-prize winner was submitted by Dave Loeks of Blacksburg, a retired urban planner and a lifelong closet cartoonist.
His entry was round, included Latin ("Per Ardua Ad Astra" means either "Working toward the stars" or "Pardon my Astrodome," depending on the Latin interpreter), and featured Dagwood Bumstead rowing an oak.
Get it?
Best of all, Loeks' entry is wide open to interpretation.
"Is the sun rising or setting?" he wrote. "Is Dagwood heading north? Or south? Does the water represent . . . the Roanoke River during its octennial flood in the year 2045?"
"The selection of Dagwood as personification of the spirit of Roanoke was widely applauded by my design jury as a compliment to both. Consider his conservative nature (the bow tie); the unwillingness to rush to judgment concerning the causes of life's vicissitudes (his relations with Mr. Beasley and Mr. Dithers); his cheerful acceptance of disapprobation from his neighbors (Herb Wolsley); his affection for animals . . . "
Who could understand that, let alone challenge it?
Finally, ensuring the win, Loeks writes in his postscript: "Please send the prize money in a plain brown envelope. I don't want my wife to get wind of this."
Loeks and his court of winners will receive handsome prizes just as soon as I figure out what they'll be.
More importantly, their names and their designs will become part of Roanoke history. Or infamy. Or trivia.
by CNB