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

SPRINGFIELD, In poor health. — Flags engender such loyalty and pleasure, they usually change into very private emblems with quirky or quaint nicknames: Previous Glory, Union Jack, Maple Leaf — or SOB.

That might 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 is the present flag.

Of practically 385,000 votes solid, the prevailing bunting acquired 43% — extra tallies than the subsequent six finalists mixed.

“Some might name it an SOB and the vexillogical group (flag consultants) might hate it, however folks overwhelmingly favor our present state flag,” stated Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, whose archivist chairs the Illinois Flag Fee. Its members have been chosen by the governor, legislative leaders and state training and museum directors.

Created in 1915, the present emblem is a white area 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.

Final fall, residents have been invited to submit their imaginative and prescient for a brand new customary. Greater than 4,800 did — most of them severe. The fee whittled it right 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 folks was, this isn’t a course of that’s mandating a brand new flag. We’re going to check the waters and see what folks say, so I respect these outcomes,” stated 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 acquired practically 166,000 votes, there have been 219,000 votes for brand spanking new colours. “There have been extra individuals who thought that possibly we must always transfer in a brand new route,” stated Buckner, who discovered the competition’s runner-up — a star-haloed solar rising above converging inexperienced stripes of prairie — to be “tremendous cool.”

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

Whatever the end result, Buckner stated the competition, which drew entries from varied areas of the state and from younger and previous, achieved a part of his purpose: “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 stated.

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