Utahns have until April 30 to submit their suggestions or ideas for a new state flag design.
Launched by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox this year, the “More Than a Flag” initiative seeks to gain Utahns’ input about how the new state flag should look.
“I think the goal all along of the Legislature and the governor and lieutenant governor has been to have a flag that we see ourselves in — that represents symbols of today,” said Jill Love, director of the Utah Department of Cultural & Community Engagement, which manages the initiative.
Love said the prominence of the two-toned, blue and yellow Ukrainian flag during the Russian invasion shows how a symbol can unite individuals. She hopes the new state flag can do just that. Love also added great flags are simple in design, but the current flag is too complicated for children to draw.
Adopted in 1903, Utah’s flag contains a beehive, bald eagle, sego lilies and two U.S. flags on a navy blue background.
State Sen. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, last year sponsored a bill to create a task force to consider the creation of a new state flag. The state task force is made up of the governor, lieutenant governor, three state senators, three state representatives and Love.
A recent survey commissioned by the Utah Department of Cultural & Community Engagement found that 21% of Utah residents strongly supported redesigning the state flag, while 24% strongly opposed it and 29% neither supported it nor opposed it.
“When we surveyed them, a lot of people said that they liked the current flag. They didn’t want to see it go away,” Love said. “But then, when they were asked, ‘Do you see do you see yourself in it?’ ‘Does it represent you or to describe what’s on the flag?’ They couldn’t.”
Love expects the department to receive between 4,000 to 5,000 design submissions by the end of the month. A design review subcommittee — made up of individuals with backgrounds in history, design and education — will be charged with reviewing the submissions and selecting final designs for public comment by this summer. In September, the subcommittee will present three final designs to the task force.
The Utah State Flag Task Force wants to represent the whole state and is encouraging Utahns living in the following counties to submit their ideas: Box Elder, Cache, Carbon, Davis, Duchesne, Garfield, Iron, Juab, Piute, Morgan, Sanpete, San Juan, Sevier, Summit, Tooele, Wayne, Wasatch, Weber, Uintah, Utah, and Washington counties.
Utahns can submit a drawing or idea of the flag by visiting https://flag.utah.gov/submit or mail submissions to 3760 S. Highland Drive Millcreek, Utah 84106.
