Cedar City’s brand-new flag was spearheaded by local youth leaders
CEDAR CITY, Utah (ABC4) — Cedar City has a brand-new flag after youth leaders were unimpressed with their city’s flag design.
It all started in August after the Cedar City Youth Council attended a presentation on the new Utah flag and returned to the city chambers looking for the city’s flag.
The youth leaders felt the existing flag — a red background with yellow fringe along the edges, featuring a shield emblazoned with “The Festival City” — did not adequately represent the community. In addition, there was little to no information available on the flag’s history.
On Saturday, Cedar City announced that, after a six-month process, its newly designed flag had been approved and placed in the city council chambers and the regional airport on Valentine’s Day.
The process of picking a new flag design was inspired by the state flag’s design process and included a committee, contest and open vote, with guidelines in place to keep the city’s colors and design elements in mind.
Kenten Pope’s design — which featured three yellow flags and a white star on a blue and yellow background — easily won the vote.
“I’ve lived in Cedar City for 10 years now, and I’ve loved the community and have loved my experience here in southern Utah, and I thought it was a great way to give back to the community that has given so much to me,” Pope said.
Pope explained several elements of the new design, starting with the flags, saying they are representative of the city’s motto “Festival City USA.”
“There’s not a weekend in Cedar City that you can’t find a festival going on,” Pope said. He said the new flag pays tribute to the Flagship Festival and the Utah Shakespeare Festival among others.
The flags themselves were designed to look like lightning bolts, as a nod to the Southern Utah University Thunderbirds.
“This city really built the university and now the university is giving back so much to this city,” he said.
Finally, he said the five-point star symbolizes the “five bands of the Southern Paiute people, which were the original stewards of the land.”
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Sadie Hinck, the youth city council mayor, led the efforts to redesign the flag. She said young people don’t usually participate in their local governments, making this a special opportunity.
“For me, I feel really passionate about it. I feel like it’s such a cool thing that I can do something like that as a 17-year-old in my community,” Hinck said.
The first Cedar City flag flew for about 25 years, Pope said, but he is hoping this flag has a longer run.
“It’s just a symbol of the city, and I hope that the citizens and the future citizens of Cedar City look at it as that and appreciate the work that went into it and celebrate everything that is Festival City USA,” Pope said.
For more information on the flag redesign, click here.
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