SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Utahns could be looking at a new state flag in the coming year, but is the design on tap really the one that best represents the state? A cute tweet by the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) begs to differ.
“A little disappointed the design committee chose not to include the state flower on the new Utah flag,” stated UDOT’s tweet this morning. “This is what we proposed. Smh.”
Proposed new Utah state flag. Courtesy of Utah State Flag Task Force
The flag, as designed by UDOT, features a traffic cone in place of the traditional beehive. A quick check of UDOT’s current road construction list certainly does raise the question — are there more traffic cones than beehives in Utah?
(For the record, the Salt Lake Tribune reported earlier this year that Utah is the second-worst state in America to actually keep bees. Only Nebraska ranked worse.)
The Utah State Flag Task Force unveiled a new state flag design Thursday, Nov. 10, during a public meeting at the Utah State Capitol. Lawmakers are expected to ask the Utah State Legislature to consider a proposal to adopt the new flag in the 2023 legislative session.
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The new state flag is a hybrid of two of the final five designs that the commission published on Monday, Nov. 7.
The state flag task force, led by Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Diedre Henderson, received over 7,000 flag designs before narrowing it down to 20 semifinalists in September. The nine-member task force was established during the 2020 legislative session through the introduction of H.B.250 with Rep. Stephen Handy as the chief sponsor.
“The exercise of thinking about the flag has created conversations about Utah’s history,” said Sen. Luz Escamilla. “This became an educational process, and it engaged everyone. It was very inclusive.”
The idea of changing the state flag has not been universally accepted. A Facebook poll conducted by ABC4 earlier this month showed a lot of Utahns confused as to why the state flag should change.