Illinois votes on a brand new state flag design — and chooses the present one

SPRINGFIELD, In poor health. (AP) — Flags engender such loyalty and pleasure, they typically turn out to be very private emblems with quirky or quaint nicknames: Previous Glory, Union Jack, Maple Leaf — or SOB.

That may be (state) “Seal on a Bedsheet,” the derisive moniker with which some have burdened the Illinois state flag, a gleaming white banner emblazoned with the state’s bald eagle-themed emblem.

Some forward-looking lawmakers arrange a contest to design a brand new flag and put it to a vote. In a landslide, a winner was chosen.

And it’s the present flag.

The SOB wins in a landslide

Of almost 385,000 votes forged, the prevailing bunting obtained 43% — extra tallies than the following six finalists mixed.

“Some could name it an SOB and the vexillogical neighborhood (flag specialists) could hate it, however individuals overwhelmingly desire our present state flag,” mentioned Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, whose archivist chairs the Illinois Flag Fee. Its members had been chosen by the governor, legislative leaders and state training and museum directors.

Created in 1915, the present emblem is a white subject that includes the state seal adopted in 1868: A bald eagle earlier than a rising solar, a protect in its talons and in its beak, a banner expressing the Prairie State’s twin tenets: “State Sovereignty, Nationwide Union.” In 1970, “Illinois” in block letters was added on the backside.

10 finalists, plus the present and a couple of former flags

Final fall, residents had been invited to submit their imaginative and prescient for a brand new normal. Greater than 4,800 did — most of them critical. The fee whittled it all the way down to 10 finalists, then added the present 1915 flag, and banners created for the state’s 1918 Centennial and 1968 Sesquicentennial.

“What I attempted to convey to individuals was, this isn’t a course of that’s mandating a brand new flag. We’re going to check the waters and see what individuals say, so I respect these outcomes,” mentioned Rep. Kam Buckner, who sponsored the regulation creating the flag inquiry.

However the Chicago Democrat was fast to level out that whereas the prevailing flag obtained almost 166,000 votes, there have been 219,000 votes for brand new colours. “There have been extra individuals who thought that possibly we should always transfer in a brand new route,” mentioned Buckner, who discovered the competition’s runner-up — a star-haloed solar rising above converging inexperienced stripes of prairie — to be “tremendous cool.”

‘Ginning up some pleasure’

It’s not over simply but. The Normal Meeting will get the ultimate say. Nevertheless, Buckner doubts there shall be an urge for food to alter course given the overwhelming vote for the established order.

Whatever the final result, Buckner mentioned the competition, which drew entries from numerous areas of the state and from younger and previous, completed a part of his aim: “Ginning up some pleasure about Illinois.”

“This jogged my memory that folks actually care about the place they dwell, and care about the best way we current ourselves to others,” Buckner mentioned.

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This story has been up to date to appropriate the spelling of Buckner’s identify.