They unveiled the new license plate and logo at the state Capitol Tuesday. As of 2 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time, the governor sent word to inmates at the state prison to cease and desist from making any more of the old Ski Utah! and Delicate Arch plates and start stamping "Life Elevated" onto the new ones.
"Life Elevated." I've got to be honest, I'm having a hard time getting my arms around it.
I can see someone entering Utah on I-80 from "The Cowboy State" and still wondering what "Life Elevated" means when they reach "The Silver State."
Many years ago, when Utah adopted "The Greatest Snow on Earth" as a state slogan, we got sued by Barnum and Bailey, who charged us with slogan stealing (the charges didn't stick).
This time, nobody's suing.
Although don't rule out Colorado and Wyoming just yet. At an average elevation of 6,800 feet, Colorado is the highest state in the country, just above Wyoming, at 6,700 feet. From a literal standpoint, life in Colorado and Wyoming is more elevated than it is here.
Utah is the third tallest state at an average of 6,100 feet.
California, at a mean elevation of 2,900, is only half as tall as we are.
So maybe we should add that to the new plates as a post script: "We're Twice as High as California."
One state that definitely won't be suing us is Delaware. At an average elevation of 59 feet, Delaware is the lowest state in the union.
Besides, Delaware has an unstealable license plate slogan: "The First State," due to its being the first colony incorporated into these United States.
That slogan, along with New Hampshire's "Live Free or Die," will no doubt be around at least as long as there are license plates.
Although some people in New Hampshire continue to express concern about prison inmates stamping "Live Free or Die" all day long in the penitentiary plate shop for 10 cents an hour.
Utah's inmates shouldn't have any problems with "Life Elevated," beyond trying, like the rest of us, to figure out what it means.
No matter how you feel about the new slogan, there's nothing abstract about the new skier on the latest "Greatest Snow On Earth" plates. That's an actual skier heading right at you, namely three-time Olympian Heidi Voelker, Deer Valley's ambassador of skiing.
A couple of years ago, Deseret Morning News ski writer Ray Grass was at Deer Valley interviewing Voelker for a story and Morning News photographer Ravell Call shot some photos as she skied down a run called Success.
That photo became the logo on the new license plates that were designed, to further the Morning News connection, by DMN graphic artist John Clark.
Heidi Voelker, according to Gov. Huntsman, is the first living human being in American history to be featured on a license plate.
Heidi was all smiles at the license plate bill-signing ceremony at the Capitol. She said when she called her parents in Massachusetts the night before, her dad's reaction was, "Wow! Really? Wow!"
Life elevated, baby.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.