Logan • Five more snowplows have joined the ranks of monikered snow-clearing vehicles in Utah.
Logan Public Works recently wrapped up its first-ever “Name a Snowplow” contest, ending in the christening of Scoop Dog, Clearopathra, the Big Leplowski, Plowy McPlowface and Betty Whiteout.
The competition follows what may be the start of a trend across Utah, which began with the naming of snowplows by Salt Lake City residents in 2021.
Paul Lindhardt, Logan’s Public Works director, said the Cache County city was looking for new ways to get the public more involved and bring recognition to his department and city employees. He said participation was much higher than they had anticipated.
“We just advertised it on our website and through our social media channels,” Lindhardt said, “and we had over 600 submissions of names.”
The contest came alongside the launch of a brand-new snowplow tracking website.
“It’s very basic since it’s our first year doing it,” Lindhardt explained. “Right now it shows where those trucks have been in the last eight hours, and it just resets every eight hours.”
Lindhardt said the department hopes to add more real-time data to the tracker such as whether a snowplow is temporarily down. He said Logan is also working on adding more snow-clearing vehicles to the tracker – perhaps with another contest to name more of the city’s snow-removal fleet.
“We hope to do it again in the future,” Lindhardt said. “Maybe we’ll just do it each year. But for the first year, so far, we think it was a success.”
Residents can find the snowplow tracker at https://tinyurl.com/msbatpsr
