Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
The green, blue and yellow flag created by Palouse farmer Moses Boone.
A Palouse flag may soon fly over Old Glory and possibly others.
Moses Boone, a Palouse resident and farmer, briefed the city council June 11 on flag designs and symbolism, culminating in his proposal for a flag for Palouse.
The design is now in the hands of the city council's policy and administration committee, which will decide whether to recommend it to the full council and mayor for approval.
It all started in 2014, when Boone mowed his lawn one day listening to an episode of the Podcast "99 Percent Invisible." It was about city flags.
He began to research flag designs.
"Most cities in the U.S. have a flag, and most are ignored. No one knows anything about them," Boone said.
He looked into the North American Vexological Association (NAVA), dedicated to the study of flags, which has published a guideline for design, including five rules: fewer than five colors; simple; distinctive; meaningful symbolism; no words or writing.
Boone asked around. No one at city hall could recall Palouse ever having a flag.
"I do not believe Palouse has an existing flag. If they do, I don't care, because it's not working," said Boone. "I've lived here my whole life nearly, and I've never seen it."
Process
Most medium or large cities have a flag, with some of the most used being Chicago; Washington ,. Portland, Ore., St. Louis and Washington D.C.
Boone, after completing his research, started designing two years ago. The pursuit was a hobby. He has also created the logo for his farm, Holland Boone Farm. Boone has a degree in mechanical engineering from WSU and previously worked at Schweitzer Engineering for five years before taking over the family farm in 2012.
Once he had his final Palouse flag design in hand, Boon showed it to mayor Michael Echanove and his wife Paula at their house. Echanove was once Boone's scoutmaster and their son was in Boone's class at school.
Boone's briefing to the city included references to other city flags and how he came to design what he did for Palouse.
On his flag, the gold and yellow figure-8 follow-through and knot represents hard-working, authentic people, the gold symbolizes grain, other agriculture and commerce. The blue is the Palouse River. The background green, the same green color as the Washington state flag, represents the natural surroundings of Palouse.
"It's very interesting; he did a very good job explaining the process," said Mark Wilcomb, city council representative and head of the policy and administration committee.
"His flag, I think looks very promising. Moses is very, very skilled at this."
A tip Boone picked up from NAVA was to not let a committee design a flag, an attribute highlighted by the podcast he heard that day. It featured the story of the Portland, Ore., flag. Its flag was originally designed by a man named Jim Lynch in 1969. The city then voted to add a city seal to an upper corner of his design.
The flag was little used. In the late '90s, Lynch, who was in his-mid-80s at the time, went to a Portland Flag Association meeting and told the story of his wayward design to the vexillogists.
The group then took up the cause and soon the Portland City council adopted Lynch's original design, with slight changes, for its new flag which has been used much more.
For Boone, he sketched his Palouse flag designs in SolidWorks, a CAD engineering modeling software, in one inch by 1.5-inch squares on pieces of printer paper.
"That's about the relative size a flag will appear," said Boone.
He then hired a graphic designer to turn the final design into a vector file.
"I never paid attention to city flags before this," Boone said.
Next steps
He noted some state flags which are well-known, well-used and others which are not. Washington is similar to many state flags, with the round state seal in the middle of a solid color.
"It works to represent the state government," said Boone. "But not everything else."
Palouse has a town logo, which some have suggested using.
"It depends on the logo, but usually that doesn't work," Boone said.
The next step is to take the design and legal description (symbolism, specific Pantone colors) and go before Wilcomb's committee, for recommendation or not.
The committee will meet with Boone in the next two weeks, as indicated by Wilcomb, although no date has been set.
"We are not a design committee," Wilcomb said. "Cities that have design committees have had bad luck."
What have the responses been from people when they learn of Boone's endeavor?
"There's been two responses; that's really cool, and the other is, why?" Boone said. "Palouse is a great place to live. A lot of change for the better in Palouse in recent years. Every great community has its own symbol and Palouse deserves a symbol as well."
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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