Students choose new county logo
Commissioners will make final decision next week
It looks like Mary Gunnels picked a winner.
Back
The 16-year-old sophomore at Greenbrier High School voted on her top choice Friday for Columbia County's new logo.
"I liked it better than the other ones," Mary said about voting for the logo showing just a stylized sailboat and the county's name.
"I'm excited that something I did made a difference in what's going to be representing our county."
The simple sailboat image was the leading contender of the three finalists put before the county's high school students last week.
The winner received more than 63 percent of 2,246 votes cast at voting booths erected by the county's Board of Elections.
Marilyn Heuer, the county's project administrator who has directed the logo-selection process, said she was pleased with the participation at the high schools last week.
"Evans High had 1,300 kids (vote)," she said. "They don't often get to make decisions that have this much impact."
After county commissioners disliked the results of professionally developed logos, they opened the project to the public and asked for solicitations. After whittling the choices down to three, they decided to let high school students vote on it.
Though officials never said the high school vote was binding, the students' choice also has wider support, including with chamber of commerce and business leaders who have advocated for an updated logo to help them with their industrial marketing efforts outside the area.
In an informal poll on The Columbia County News Times' Web site, 86 people, or 55 percent, of the 156 people who voted for a logo, also chose the stylized sailboat. The other two options - one depicting a family and another basically of the current New Horizons logo with slight changes - came in a near tie with 22 and 23 percent respectively.
Heuer said that county commissioners are expected to formally adopt a new logo at their meeting Tuesday.
HOW THEY VOTED:
Here are the results from Columbia County's high school students about what proposed logo they prefer:
Logo 1:1,428 votes, or 63.6 percent
Photo by Jim Blaylock
Logo 2:432, or 19.2 percent
Photo by Jim Blaylock
Logo 3:386, or 17.2 percent
Photo by Jim Blaylock