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SALT LAKE CITY — Sen. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, has seen loads of copies of Utah’s new state flag since his invoice designating the design narrowly cleared the Utah Legislature final yr.
However as he arrived on the Utah Capitol Saturday morning, he felt one thing completely different as he got here throughout a large 60-foot-long and 30-foot-tall model of the flag hoisted within the air in entrance of the constructing by a pair of Salt Lake Metropolis Hearth engines. It introduced again all of the reminiscences that led to this second.
“That was breathtaking,” he stated. “We had so many individuals concerned on this course of all throughout the state and the primary time, this flag was created with public enter. Seeing all that public enter culminating on this, it’s extremely rewarding.”
Saturday is when the brand new design formally turned Utah’s state flag, whereas its earlier design — created greater than a century in the past — turned its historic one. Gov. Spencer Cox, McCay and members of the Utah Symbols Fee celebrated with a particular flag-raising ceremony on the steps of the Utah Capitol.
A crowd of a number of dozen individuals of all ages — many holding miniature Utah flags and a few with full-sized flags wrapped round them — cheered because the flag slowly made it to the highest of the pole and started to sway in a lightweight breeze, flying above all the opposite variations of flags in Utah’s historical past.
It marked the close to finish of a multiyear course of.
“It’ll signify Utah from now to — I hope — eternally,” Cox stated. “I am pleased with what we had been capable of accomplish over the previous few years.”
The brand new flag’s lengthy journey
Utah lawmakers narrowly handed laws to designate the brand new flag design in March final yr; nevertheless, due to an oddity within the state’s flag legal guidelines, it wasn’t official till Saturday. That is as a result of all handed payments cannot go into impact till not less than Could after a session wraps up in March, however since Utah’s Flag Day is March 9, primarily based on when the 1911 flag was codified, the regulation needed to wait greater than a yr to take impact.
However Saturday’s ceremony was additionally fairly a while within the making past that.
Discussions over a brand new flag emerged in 2018. Former Rep. Stephen Useful stated it began when he was approached by residents who satisfied him that Utah’s flag may undergo a revision, so it might be extra simply identifiable. Utah was one in every of about half of the U.S. states with a state seal slapped on a blue background.
Whereas there have been just a few completely different makes an attempt to both change the state flag or recommend a change in 1927, 1930 and 2022, it has remained largely untouched since 1911. The largest adjustment got here within the type of a slight revision in 2011 to appropriate a printing error that emerged within the Nineteen Twenties.
A pair of flag payments did not go the Legislature in 2019 earlier than it handed SB48 — sponsored by McCay and Useful — in 2021. It arrange the State Flag Activity Pressure, which, in 2022, launched its “Extra Than a Flag” marketing campaign. 1000’s of potential designs had been submitted to the state via the competition.
The sphere was in the end whittled down to 1 last design by the tip of the yr earlier than that went via some last tweaks as final yr’s SB31 went via the legislative course of. Seventy individuals cut up a $5,000 reward for developing with not less than a bit of the ultimate design.
The flag’s colours and symbols have many various meanings representing Utah:
- The blue part on the prime represents Utah’s skies and likewise religion. It is positioned above a top level view of white mountains that signify Utah’s mountains and snow, whereas the peaks signify the state’s indigenous individuals. The underside pink part represents perseverance and southern Utah’s pink rock surroundings.
- The beehive represents each Utah’s “trade” motto and when the pioneers arrived within the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. A star positioned under it represents when Utah acquired statehood in 1896. Each symbols are contained inside a hexagon that represents energy.
SB31 additionally designated that the previous design change into the state’s historic flag after it was initially supposed to change into the state governor’s flag when the method started. It basically means the state has two flags.
The identical day Cox signed the invoice, he issued an government order that directs that the historic flag be flown on the Utah Capitol always, in addition to in any respect state buildings throughout state holidays and any “particular events.” It additionally encourages individuals to fly the historic flag above the state flag when they’re on the identical pole.
Along with Saturday’s ceremony, Utah Capitol employees curated a brand new exhibit close to the east entrance of the Capitol that tells the story of the state flag from an preliminary seal idea design within the Eighteen Nineties via the brand new flag course of.
Nonetheless, the saga did not cease with the invoice — and it is not fairly over but.
A gaggle against the invoice filed a referendum that may have put the invoice up for a public vote. That in the end failed, establishing an initiative in search of to overturn the regulation and put any future flag payments on the poll. That additionally did not obtain sufficient signatures to be positioned on the November poll, however organizers are suing Utah over its initiative course of.
The case continues to be enjoying out in U.S. District Court docket.
An emblem for years to return?
State leaders say they’re assured that Utah will win out within the court docket case they usually imagine Utahns will embrace the flag as a brand new type of id. They imagine residents will finally have fun it in the best way different states with simply identifiable flags have.
“I hope (individuals) see Utah’s values: religion, exhausting work, industriousness (and) energy,” McCay stated, standing in entrance of the brand new flag. “This flag is all about Utah, and I hope that is what individuals see once they see it.”
It appears that evidently individuals have already began to do this.
DeVaughn Simper, a vexillologist at Colonial Flag, stated the corporate has by no means skilled the extent of state flag gross sales they’ve seen over the previous yr. Whereas McCay stated the brand new design has outsold the historic one by 4 instances, Simper stated gross sales of the historic flag have by no means been increased.
He believes this reveals that the entire course of has generated state pleasure.
“Individuals are excited to fly the Utah flag, whether or not it is the brand new one or the previous one,” he stated.
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