Columbians Get Creative With Their License Plates
Pride For Your Ride
Columbians Get Creative With Their License Plates
By Whitney Dreier
Less than 1 percent of the 142,766 sets of license plates registered in Boone County bear the logo of one of Columbia’s three colleges, yet these Mizzou, Stephens and Columbia College-themed plates are often the ones that grab our attention and make us wonder “what does that mean?” while sitting in traffic. “For certain staff, it’s an advertisement in motion,” says Shelley Gabert, director of Marketing and Public Relations at Stephens College. “Education is about freedom of expression.”
Some folks opt not to get the official school logo plates and instead purchase regular Missouri plates with a personalized alpha-numeric message. With six character options, the possibilities for creative slogans are endless (except for anything obscene — don’t even go there).
But plates aren’t only about expression; they’re about revenue. Each college-logo plate costs $25, which goes to scholarship funds at its designated school. That’s in addition to the $15 vanity plate fee that goes to the departments of Revenue and Transportation, as well as other local government agencies. In total, personalized plates generate more than $2.4 million each year.
Last September, Mizzou-themed black and gold plates became available in Texas, and more than 70 have sold since then. Although MU doesn’t reap the same financial benefits, the plates provide a “great opportunity for alumni to show off their Tiger pride to the whole Lone Star State,” says Jayson Meyer, director of Alumni Relations. “Texas is home to one of the largest Mizzou alumni populations outside Missouri, and our Texas-based Tigers are known for being among the proudest and most supportive anywhere.”
Todd McCubbin, director of the Mizzou Alumni Association, agrees: “When Tigers move around, they find a way to show their pride,” he says. “It’s a way for fans, alumni and friends to show their support.”
So whether you’re moving around the country, or just around town, next time you’re on the road, look out for these plates that show some love for Columbia’s higher education institutions:
CLAWKU
Columbians Jill and Ken Gamlin chose these plates in honor of the MU-KU rivalry. “We have to be very careful where we park when we travel to Kansas City,” Jill says. “We have actually had someone try to pry the plates off our car during the rivalry weekend during basketball season.”
ENROLL
Suzanne Sharp, vice president of Innovation and New Initiatives at Stephens College, chose her plates to help increase the school’s local visibility. “We enroll adults and graduate students as well as traditional-aged college women,” she explains. “Of course ‘enroll’ is generic, and can be relevant to our traditional population as well.”
FSN DZN
“There was no question I was getting them for my car,” Yvonne Chamberlain says about her personalized Stephens College plates. “FSN DZN stands for fashion design, which was my undergrad field of study at Stephens.” Chamberlain, who now serves as the school’s director of leadership and diversity, sports her plates with pride, even though most people have to ask what they mean. When she explains, “they think it’s cool that I have the option to have personalize plates from Stephens since it is a small private institution.”
GR8WMN
“My license plate generates comments all the time,” says Dianne Lynch. “I’ll be in the Hy-Vee parking lot and somebody will walk by, see my license plate, look down at my red shoes, and say, ‘Aha! You’re the president of Stephens!’ ” Although personalized plates are often called vanity plates, Lynch argues that they’re more about pride than egotism. “We’re proud of the great women at Stephens,” she says. “I want everybody to think about that — even while they’re idling behind me at a red light!”
IN2MZU
Todd and Debra McCubbin are both Mizzou grads, and they’re raising three Tiger-loving kids. “Mizzou is a big part of our lives,” says Todd, who is the executive director of the Mizzou Alumni Association. “With my job and our interests, we spend a lot of our family time at Mizzou events and activities.”
MEYEZ … ZOEWE
Kenneth and Sue Hammann have two Priuses, one almost-black, and one gold. So it’s only appropriate that combined, their license plates sound out (in a Bugs-Bunny-ish voice) the name of the university where Kenneth is an associate dean. “Our plates were the closest thing we could get to MIZ-ZOU,” he says. “We tried to come up with a clever alternative – not sure how clever they are, but we are often asked what they mean, and it’s fun explaining.”
MUH ZU
“Getting the Mizzou license plate and the message on it are both signs of support for the university,” says Ted Farnen, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1987. “I’ll never have the resources to be a ‘big-time donor’ to the university, so the personalized license plate provides an opportunity to make a small donation to a worthwhile scholarship program and to also show a public display of support for Mizzou.”
TALTGR
Todd McCubbin has another plate that he chose because at 6-foot-8, he is one tall Tiger. “It’s fun to see people’s faces when it hits them — usually when I step out of the car, and they see that I am taller than most.”
TGR2EGL
“Spelled out, it means Tiger to Eagle,” explains Carrie Jo Boyce, a 26-year-old biology Ph.D. student at the University of Southern Mississippi. “I wanted the plate to be a remembrance of being an MU Tiger while becoming a USM Eagle.” Boyce graduated from Mizzou in May 2008 with a B.A. in biological sciences and a minor in natural resources.
Before moving to New Mexico for a gig with Outside magazine, writer Whitney Dreier had ZOU HOO Missouri plates — to celebrate her master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and her history degree from the University of Virginia.
Check out how the possibilities for personalized license plates at dor.mo.gov/motorv/plates.