By Clint McElroy
HQ 58 | SUMMER 2006
The response to last issue’s column about coming up with a new slogan for the city of Huntington provoked an honest-to-goodness outpouring of responses. I’ve never provoked an outpouring before. It was pretty cool. This proved conclusively that you DO read this column, which complete disproves publisher “Cap’n Jack” Houvouras’ contention that the column only exists to soak up excess ink from the ad on the inside back cover.
In all seriousness, it was remarkable. We received hundreds of e-mails, calls, and letters, coverage on WSAZ-TV News, and a stack of your own suggestions. So Cap’n Jack and I have devised a cunning plan. We will list a bunch of the suggestions on our website www.huntingtonquarterly.com and let you vote online for your favorite. The ones that get the most votes will be officially presented to Mayor David Felinton and Chamber of Commerce President Marc Bugher for their consideration.
Your suggestions have fallen into two distinctions: the serious and the not-so-serious. First up, the not-so-serious …
HUNTINGTON: THE USER FEE CITY!
HUNTINGTON: ALSO KNOWN AS ‘LITTLE DETROIT’
HUNTINGTON: THE BYRD’S NEST
HUNTINGTON: THE CITY OF WIDE STREETS AND NARROW MINDS
And my personal favorite …
HUNTINGTON; HOME OF MARSHALL UNIVERSITY…OH, AND SOME OTHER STUFF.
Marshall figured prominently in a number of the serious suggestions as well …
WE ARE HUNTINGTON. WE ARE MARSHALL.
HUNTINGTON: HAVE YOU ‘HERD’ OF US?
WE ARE HUNTINGTON – THE HOME OF MARSHALL.
The feeling of ‘home’ was featured in some …
HUNTINGTON: YOUR HOME AWAY FROM HOME
COME HOME TO HUNTINGTON
HUNTINGTON: A TOWN YOU CAN COME HOME TO
HUNTINGTON: FEELS LIKE HOME
And some focused on the positive features of the city …
HUNTINGTON: YOUR GATEWAY TO HEAVEN
HUNTINGTON: YOUR GATEWAY TO MOUNTAIN FUN
HUNTINGTON: COME GROW WITH US
HUNTINGTON: GOLDEN YESTERDAYS, GREATER TOMORROWS
And some took an existing concept and spun it a new way …
HUNTINGTON: WE ARE THE JEWEL CITY
Those are a few of what we’ve received. These and more will be on the website, and you can probably send in a suggestion or two of your own, if you like. But please visit the website and let us know what YOU think.
Unless all that excess ink from that ad has covered me up, and you can’t read ANY of this.
