Friday, January 27, 2012

Leave the flag alone

I suppose some would say I've lost any say in this matter since I don't live in South Dakota anymore. But I just moved away in November and only because my job took Barb and I here to Tennessee. I am a native of South Dakota and lived most of my life there. I call South Dakota my home and I always will (no matter where I live). And when my job is done here I plan to return to the Midwest. Heck, we still own our house in Hartford so we may retire there in a few years.

All that being said I have an opinion to share, and here it is.
"Don't mess with South Dakota's flag."
At least 80 South Dakota lawmakers are supporting HB 1235 introduced by Bernie Hunhoff of Yankton to change the state's flag. Artist Dick Termes of Spearfish drew the design, which has a Native American medicine wheel surrounded by yellow rays of sunshine on a sky-blue background.
This is not only a bad idea. It calls into question the need to have a yearly legislative session when lawmakers can find nothing more important to spend their time on than tinkering with a flag. And I'm not alone in sharing this opinion. The Rapid City Journal's online poll showed 86% of respondents preferred the state's old flag. A Sioux Falls Argus Leader online poll showed almost identical results with 87% favoring the state's current flag.
Why don't lawmakers take the hint? But then they've wrestled with such weighty issues in the past as naming the state bird (ring-necked pheasant); state flower (American Pasque); state tree (Black Hills Spruce); state nickname (Mount Rushmore State); state motto: "Under God, the People Rule;" state slogan: "Great Faces. Great Places;" state mineral: rose quartz; state insect: honey bee; state animal: coyote; state fish: walleye; state gemstone: fairburn agate; and state song: "Hail, South Dakota!" Oh, and I seem to remember too that the "state desert" is kuchen. I'm thinking we should lobby the legislature to make the state disease the common cold.
But in all fairness, I do see the value in many of these declarations. There is tourism value and state pride here. But changing the state's flag? If you want to tackle that issue take it to South Dakota's voters. Let them have their say. They're having their say in the online social media and most of them are unhappy with the idea. Many of the comments I've read have been blunt and pointed: don't do it, or if you feel the need to do it, start a dialogue that opens the issue for more designs and for citizens to give their input.
I'm sorry if the legislators don't think the state's seal is worthy of representing us any longer. According to the Rapid City Journal, a 2001 survey of flag experts in the North American Vexillological Association ranked our flag among the worst in North America. It was ranked 5th worst behind Georgia, Nebraska, Montana and Kansas. The best included New Mexico, Texas, Quebec, Maryland and Alaska. Well, I didn't think that state flags were part of any beauty contest. I don't care about their rankings. It has meaning and history to me, and that's what's important.
The Journal gave a brief history (courtesy of the South Dakota State Historical Society) of the state's flag, which began twenty years after our statehood in 1889 when Seth Bullock urged State Historical Society employee Ida Anding to design athe flag, which featured a blazing sun on an azure field. The law enacting the flag, SB 208, sponsored by Sen. Ernest May of Deadwood, said that the reverse of the flag should bear the state seal.
More than half a century later, lawmakers decided to abandon the idea of a two-sided flag for "financial and aesthetic reasons," the Journal says. The compromise is what we have today -- the sun on a field of blue with the state seal inside the sun. And around the seal are the words "South Dakota" and the state's unofficial nickname, the "The Sunshine State." According to the Journal, the flag was revised in 1992 to include the new state nickname, "The Mount Rushmore State."
And it was around the time of the state's centennial -- in 1989 -- that Spearfish artist Dick Termes proposed the new flag design. Now it has reached the floor of the state legislature.
Bottom line, if the legislators' goal was to create a dialogue on this issue, then they've achieved that. But if it was to establish a new flag without public input, I hope they get an earful from its residents.
Lawmakers, at the very least, listen to South Dakota's residents, because if you don't listen now, you'll hear them in November.

1 comment:

Irina said...

I'm with you Dave! What a silly thing to focus on. BTW, I am not partial to the new flag design and think it's a little cheesy looking. Just sayin' ;)