As a Texan and a lover of interesting license plates, it’s impossible for me not to comment on a story coming out of Oklahoma involving the governor’s frustrating attempt to redo the state’s official license plate. Being from the superior state, I’ll do my best to limit the number of unnecessary jokes about either OU or the state itself.
The making of an official plate is always an ambitious endeavor, and no one, not even a public servant with the best intentions, can usually achieve a plate that doesn’t make someone mad.
In the case of Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, he seems to be the one who is upset after an open records request indicated that the Governor seemingly ignored input from focus groups that indicated that they were not OK with the plates.
Why? For one, it’s extremely red:
I was expecting it to be the darker, Sooner Red of OU, but perhaps people who went to a superior school like Oral Roberts University or Ok State wouldn’t love that idea. Instead, it’s just red, which isn’t a color I ever associated with my former neighbor to the north. I think of Oklahoma as a light, pinkish beige.
“Using color and intentional symbology, this design pays tribute to Oklahoma’s culture and history, nodding to iconic landmarks, our original flag, state animals, and more. This design celebrates much of what makes Oklahoma unique, and I am excited to see it out on the road,” said Lt. Governor Matt Pinnell at its launch last year.
The 46 in the star is not a nod to President Joe Biden, but instead to the original state flag, which didn’t have 46 stars. Instead, it just had a white star with the number 46 in it, to recognize the average IQ of… sorry. I said I wouldn’t do this. It’s hard. It’s actually 46 because Oklahoma was the 46th state admitted to the Union when Texas cut off the parts it didn’t want.
As far as official license plates go, it’s better than New York’s new “Excelsior” plate, but lacks the appealing and iconic simplicity of California’s official design. Unlike Ohio, there don’t appear to be any planes flying backwards. This is a replacement for the previously released official plate, which features the state bird: A Scissortail Flycatcher. I really like the blue-on-white plate. It looks good.
There was some negative reaction to the plate, according to the Fox affiliate in Oklahoma City, with one commenter pointing out that the single star over the red background “Looks Soviet.” You can’t make everyone happy, and presumably, this is the result of a focus group of average Oklahomans that was gathered once the bars closed.
Well… according to the Fox affiliate, that’s not quite what happened.
Lt. Governor Matt Pinnell said in his statement unveiling the design, “Using feedback from the public, the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department helped select the finalized license plate design.”
But through an Open Records Request, we learned the journey to this design took a detour. It was another design that initially got the green light from Lt. Gov. Pinnell’s office. It was primarily white and featured the Native American statue, the Guardian.
Emails in March 2023 suggest just slight changes to that design, but 3 months later, the team gets word from the Lt. Gov.’s chief of staff that Governor Stitt wants a different plate instead, featuring a red star. The team considered both a white background and a red background, deciding to go with a primarily white plate, with the star in the middle.
To the credit of the reporters here, the request they filed has the receipts. It shows that only after a plate was approved, changed, and then reapproved, did the state’s Tourism and Recreation Department decide to hold a focus group. The results? The original “Guardian” license plate was the most popular, and the red ones were among the least popular.
A reporter confronted the Governor about this, and it doesn’t sound like it went well:
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt gave a defensive and combative response at his recent press availability event when we asked about the process of selecting the state’s new license plates.
“Who told you to ask that?” he asked.
The governor’s office eventually released a statement saying that:
There is no law that says that the results of a focus group dictates (sic) the license plate for the state. If it doesn’t suit your fancy, there are over 100 different other designs to check out. The Governor, Lt. Governor, Department of Tourism and Department of Commerce worked together to decide on a license plate design. Any recommendation from a focus group would aid in informing that decision.
That (sic) correcting the poor grammar of the governor’s office is from Fox 25 and represents a sic burn, if you catch my drift.
Obviously, none of this truly matters. As the Governor points out, there are many alternative options for people wanting to get a license plate in the state. In fact, Oklahoma has some sick plates, and most of them are quite cheap.
Check out this sweet National Weather Center tag:
The Guardian plate looks way better to me than the “Imagine That” tag, but I don’t live in Oklahoma, which means I get neither a vote nor a high chance of acquiring Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.
Special thanks to Jetta in the Discord for the tip!
Top graphic images: Oklahoma.gov; depositphotos.com
This is Oklahoma, I’d be more surprised if they actually listen to public opinion. I mean the governor literally said the quiet part out loud that he didn’t have to listen to the focus groups. Change out “focus groups” to “constituents”. Boom.
Whoa whoa why is Excelsior catching shade? They’re not my favorite – I like the simplicity of Libery, which is the earliest I remember – but I like it better than Empire. Empire Gold looked good on some cars and bad on others, I kind of wish I had one for my current car but it did not work at all for my previous two.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma was happy with their previous plates, set in Eurostile Bold Extended, an absolutely banger typeface for mid-century science fiction but damn puzzling on a plate.
I wish it did look like a Soviet plate. Then it would just be black and white. This thing is seriously hideous
I now know why Texas hates Oklahoma so much.
Ever been to Oklahoma?
Red Guardian approves.
Is that the same National Weather Center that the president wanted to DOGE and only allowed to stay open because of pleas from Governor Kevin Stitt? I wonder if a Democratic governor would have been afforded the same courtesy.
Bring back the old plate with the shield and peace pipe
And the motto, “Oklahoma is OK”….because it is really only ‘okay’. Not great. Not good. Only okay….in some ways.
Under promise, over deliver. The OK way
On the contrary – Oklahoma has slipped down to 49th in education and for years has been following a policy of “let’s look at whatever spite-based governance Texas is doing, and imitate it but dumber.”
Oklahoma is not OK.
A bunch of folks in PA are having to get their plates replaced because the paint peels off. If any state should have plates peeling, you would think it would be Florida.
Same happened in RI. There was a batch of plates that were terrible, the paint completely flaked off within a few years. Meanwhile, the 12-year-old plates on my car looked perfectly fine.
[In the Governor’s office]
“See, this represents the Belafonte. And here’s Pescespada Island. And that circle represents friendship. And the “K” here stands for Klaus. And that’s some wheat that is sort of belt buckle high And those are the largest scissors in the world. And that’s a spare star, because there was only one. Oh, and then those other three stars.
“Where’s your symbol, Lt Gov Matt Pinnell?
“Oh, I didn’t want to impose myself.
“Klaus is right. The flag needs a Lt Gov Matt Pinnel symbol.
“Ah, I suppose we could put some clouds on the side, that an Indian is shooting an arrow at for some reason.
“What’s that stand for over there?
“That’s the Arc de Triomphe.”
https://www.thesocietyofthecrossedkeys.com/cdn/shop/products/ZZZ_Flag.jpg
Well, we all know Biden is a communist, so of course it’s a Soviet-looking plate with a 46 on it. And it’s got a carcinogenic windmill and a dude in the lower right who looks straight off a Cold War Russian propaganda poster! Open your eyes, sheeple!
It’s stunning how much this really does look like Soviet propaganda.
Valid. Our current license plates absolutely suck.
They should offer “Gotham” as an alternate slogan so you can choose DC or Marvel.
I don’t get the hate on these…they’re simple, legible, and have New Yorky stuff on them.
The design has an awkward amount of negative space at the top and is too busy and crowded at the bottom.
The blue and white “Empire State” plates were the same motif but had a more balanced design.
I don’t mind the current plates. They replaced the hideous yellow ones.
And this is how we got where we are. Why on God’s green earth is a freaking governor even spending 5 seconds worrying about what a freaking license plate looks like? Do your job like- maybe improve the lives of the people in your state FFS
I’ll give you one guess as to his party affiliation…that tells you most of what you need to know in today’s age.
It seems like HOA board members are running for and winning higher offices.
Lol, no kidding.
Last time I checked they were in the mid 40’s for public school ranking and even lower for student success. But who cares about kids, or people when you can use your office and position for personal gains.
Actually, we’re currently 49th. At least we’ve got a State Superintendent who is actively and unapologetically defunding what remains of our public school system, in the effort to push everyone (well, all the white kids, anyway) into private Christian schools.
I hate it here.
My cousin lives in Norman. I honestly don’t understand why he stays. Then again, here in the northeast things are stupidly expensive these days. Maybe that’s why he’s still there.
We actually had long-term plans to move to New England (I have extended family in MA/NH/ME), but when it came down to it the cost of living sacrifice was just unworkable. We were able to significantly upgrade home size and neighborhood (~3500sq ft/oversized garage/pool) for less than the cost of essentially a 1500sq ft hovel in the northeast. And there really are a lot of things we love about Tulsa specifically.
We have two kids at home and one at college (in Norman, incidentally), and we ultimately ended up moving into a suburb with one of the top school systems in the state. In practice, the largest portion of school-level personnel are flat-out ignoring the noise from the state dept of education, so it’s staving off the worst of the MAGA foolishness so far.
Sounds like a smart move all around. We’ve got two kids heading to college soon and I have no idea how we stay afloat. One payday at a time I guess.
Meanwhile, in the UK: the entire country uses simple plates designed to be legible, with black letters on a plain white reflective background on the front, and a glare reducing reflective yellow background at the rear.
The plates cost about £10 each and once fitted to a new car can stay on that car forever, for free, regardless of who owns it.
The numbers are twice the size they need to be, and the year identifier is a failed experiment. It never should’ve changed on a fixed calendar date. There are a range of fixes for that ranging from making it always agree with the 10th VIN digit even if that means keeping two “lists” half the year to going all the way to randomly-generated rather than sequential numbers to make it impossible to judge the age of a car by its’ number.
You’re saying the number you have to read on a speeding vehicle is too easy to see? It’s supposed to be legible. Job done.
Also what’s the problem with making the vehicle’s year easy to identify?
As a bonus, with that font size on a motorcycle, it also acts as a combination air-brake & rear mudguard.
Only required on the rear of a motorcycle…….
The only memory I have from Oklahoma was when we couldnt find a gas station for miles and we were running low, we exit the highway and found a small town that looked it was stuck in the 50s or so. Imagine the scene of a minivan with 2 dads, 3 kids, 2 dogs, Michigan plates. Even the sheriff car showed up at some point to refill since it was the only gas station. I never left a town so fast lol
Having spent a lot of time in both these states, I must say this is a good burn. Love/hate.
If I lived in Oklahoma, I’d pay good money for a custom plate featuring a tornado. They should embrace tornado alley.
The number 46 is the state’s ranking in the 2024 Health of Women and Children report. No, wait, that’s not right. Oklahoma’s rank is #47.
I actually like NY’s Excelsior plate. It pays homage to Upstate and isn’t god-awful ugly like the blue on gold plates it replaced. I stuck with the Statue of Liberty plates until the Excelsior plates were released because the blue on gold plates looked terrible on any color car.
Overall, though, I’m partial to the 1913 plate on my Model T. 🙂
Why do politicians turn into such snowflakes when asked questions they don’t like?
I don’t know if I’d go so far to call it Soviet, but that is a Lada red.
I’d say it looks more North Korean, on account of being red, white, and blue, plus having the star and industrial and agricultural symbols.
Soviet would be red and gold, the Bolsheviks quite intentionally ditched the red, white, and blue colors
“Oklahoma! The Juche State!”
Juche with American Characteristics is kind of our thing now
Texans trying to insult some other state remind me of their abhorrent governor: They don’t have a leg to stand on.
LMAO! I nominate this for QOTD.
That plate looks straight outta Soviet propaganda. https://www.1stdibs.com/art/prints-works-on-paper/more-prints-works-on-paper/rayev-original-vintage-soviet-poster-ussr-czechoslovakia-joint-space-mission-soyuz-28/id-a_10005852/
Link is an art site that had the original poster for sale.
For the cops’ sake, I hope the letters and numbers on the NWC are reflective. That would be a hard plate to read at night.
And don’t worry about the 46 on the red plate. Trump will change it to 47 any minute now.
Utah and Colorado both have great designs. Washington state has a nice background with Mr. Rainier/Tahoma.
And I like D.C.’s protest plates.
I’m in Ontario and a few years ago they released plates that were basically unreadable at night. This is even funnier because the premieres family business is making custom labels and stickers.
Their plan to replace them? Let the age out and get replaced. To be honest it is probably a lot smarter than trying any sort of recall/replacement program.
Former Oklahoman here. The plate choosing process pretty much sums up the tiny dick energy of the governer: people like something, you choose something different, everyone hates it, so you triple down.
Give the people the opposite of what they want pretty much sums up Stitt and Oklahoma politics in general.
If only this problem were unique to Oklahoma.