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By Robert L. Orleck
Today, I received a call from an old friend, George Merkle, former Police Chief for Vergennes, and he told me about Vermont having unveiled its official logo for the state’s upcoming 250th anniversary of our nation. He was not happy and I subscribe totally to his feeling expressed in the comment section after the article in The Vermont Chronicle. The United States Bisesquincentennial is a milestone deserving of grandeur and reverence throughout all the states. Especially true for Vermont, which was the first state to join the original thirteen colonies to form our Constitutional Republic.
The resulting design was met with a quiet, collective shrug. The logo, minimalist to a fault, missed the mark. But more troubling than its lack of inspiration were the unseen hands that shaped it: a list of prohibitions, quietly imposed, which barred the inclusion of the very elements that make Vermont Vermont. Prohibition of church steeples, the red-white-and blue, farms, barns, even the silhouette of her iconic mountains were not simply stylistic choices; they were erasures, and for those of us who have called Vermont home, their absence speaks volumes.
A glance at Place Creative’s summary makes the story clear: after a couple of listening sessions and a modest online survey, a list was drawn as what to embrace, what to avoid. No church steeples, no recognizable mountains, no barns, no farms, no historic or modern Vermonters, and, perhaps most jarringly, none of the beloved red, white, and blue. Instead, embrace abstractions, vague shapes, the outline of Vermont.
To those who know Vermont only by reputation or through fleeting visits, these prohibitions may seem trivial. But to those of us who lived, loved, and found belonging in the Green Mountain State, they are a denial of identity. The elements forbidden from the logo are precisely the ones that define Vermont’s character. Church steeples that pierce the fog on Sunday mornings; barns, weathered and grand, that dot the rolling fields; the red, white, and blue that wave quietly from porches and village greens; and, always, the mountains that stand sentinel all around us. This is Vermont. This is home.
My wife, Barb, and I moved from Maui to Vermont in 1973. We had lived across from the Maui Police Chief and his wife, good neighbors, kind friends, and, as fate would have it, a stack of Vermont Life magazines in his house became our portal to a world we had never seen. The pages were filled with all the things now forbidden from the logo: snowy spires, red barns, sweeping valleys, and communities bound by tradition. We were drawn to Vermont not by abstractions, but by the tangible promise of these places and these people.
When we decided to leave Maui’s paradise, we might have been expected to choose somewhere familiar, perhaps our native Kentucky, but it was Vermont that called. Sight unseen, we made a leap of faith, and for fifty years, we called the Green Mountains home. The things that state leaders now seem eager to erase were the very things that made us fall in love with Vermont.
In those early decades, Vermont was a place where tradition and community flourished. The visual, cultural, and patriotic symbols, so easily dismissed by design committees were woven into daily life. The sense of freedom, the pride in heritage, the unspoken but deeply felt connection to the land and its history, all of these were celebrated openly. I remember the bicentennial, the 200th anniversary, as a time when patriotism filled the air, and Vermonters stood tall in their knowledge of who they were.
But over time, something changed. The very ideals, images, and customs that once made Vermont special began to fade from public life, smothered by a shifting political climate and a narrowing sense of what it means to belong. The prohibitions placed on the anniversary logo are a symptom of this broader malaise, a refusal to acknowledge or honor the full complexity of Vermont’s story. Like many, Barb and I felt the chill of this change, and after half a century, we found ourselves leaving for North Carolina.
It is hard to watch a place you love shrink itself, turn away from the symbols and values that once defined it. The things the logo’s creators chose to avoid are not mere decorations; they are the living emblems of Vermont’s past and present. To prohibit them is to deny newcomers the very vision that inspired our own journey, and to rob lifelong Vermonters of the pride and belonging that these images foster.
In a world obsessed with the new and the unanchored, Vermont’s greatest strength has always been its rootedness, its barns and mountains, its churches and fields, its people, and their stories. When we erase these from our icons and our celebrations, we risk losing not just the images, but the spirit they represent.
Today, as Vermont marks its 250th year, I look back with gratitude for the decades I called it home. I remember, with a bittersweet ache, the celebration of the 200th anniversary, when patriotism and community were on full display, unashamed and unfiltered.
Would I return to Vermont knowing what has been lost and what has been forbidden? With sorrow, I must say no, not to the Vermont that denies its soul. Without those wondrous things of Vermont we experienced from afar, would we have even come? If all there was to see was the 250th year logo, surely we would not have even considered it.
But I will always cherish the Vermont that welcomed us, that inspired us, and that, in its truest sense, will forever be our home. We must put a better face forward than this 250th year logo flag.
Author is former Vermont Assistant Attorney General and Vermont Pharmacist.
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Categories: Commentary
What a wonderful, thoughtful, and deeply heartfelt article. As a newcomer to Vermont, I found it especially moving. The logo is a disgrace and not reflective of my new home state. Thank you, Mr. Orleck.
Thanks Bob, so many of us agree!
Very well written Bob, it seems there is a very large contingent obsessed with obliterating our State and it’s history, not to mention that of our glorious Country to recreate in their own visions and quest for singular powers.
Careful Bob,
If it wasn’t for your politics and religious world views aligning with theirs, the commentators around here would tear you apart knowing you immigrated from Maui.
Would someone out there produce that 250 logo: that logo that includes the history?
Anyone?
Bob!!! Your will always be one of my hero’s.
As I read your commentary I didn’t know whether to be angry or cry. Maybe both were in order. I suspect the majority of Vermonters relish our lake, hills, steeples and barns. Why on earth would anyone who loves Vermont see us as anything else. We need to repeal that lifeless empty logo and put some Vermont on it.
We are not just some bland political lifeless image as is portrayed in the one shoved down our throats. There is a recall petition out there… go find it and sign it. Real Vermonters are lovers of hills, barns, steeples and the red white and blue.
solid and steady; that’s the Bob Orleck I know
As I read this very well done article and being born raised, schooled and protected this state, I have strong roots. As the article mentions, things have changed and we how they have changed. Saddens me also knowing so much of it’s history that I have to leave. Life is too short to be stressed out in the state. There’s one aspect these Liberal crapologists cannot remove / dissociate with is my memories. It’s amazing how a very small group of idiots can manipulate / change Vermont and it’s image. Where’s the mechanism to render them useless? But am I to care—the world’s a huge place and there is still freedom to travel. So let the changers and their backers that allowed this. This is unreal I don’t think anyone in that devious group knows what a tree looks like. I’d hate to live their life of falsehoods.
Vermont was changed due to the interstate arteries and from adjacent states, bringing their mental states with them and didn’t leave that behind. At least I did experience utopia Vermont. Vermont has joined the likeness of MA NY, NJ, CT, RI and swallowed up NH & ME in the process. I’m going to get my fill of Gumbo, Jambalaya, Red Beans and Rice, Crawfish & Shrimp Boil, Alligator (get in Walmart), Hoppin John and friendly people and no property taxes (being over 65 in AL. I’ve experienced it all, or a lot.
The question that the Travel and Tourism people in Montpelier need to ask is just how does this logo inspire anyone to want to participate in the festivities of the 250th anniversary, local or tourist?
Why couldn’t the governor created a contest for aspiring Vermont artist’s to compete for creating something vibrant and inspiring helping to create an interest in the community that all Vermonters could enjoy getting involved in.
Sending off more tax payer money to a bunch of WOKE connected hacks in a Burlington PR firm who don’t realize that the Overton Window has moved on from this Virtue Signaling position demonstrates the reason why Vermont government has become the swamp that it is. No one cares, its just about a paycheck!
Why don’t they get Dylan Mulvaney to model that logo on a tee shirt?
Very well said Robert, we left Vermont for a couple of years to live near our grandchildren in South Carolina. The green mountains beckoned our return home to Vermont in 2012. But that was not because we were happy with how top down governance has change living here.
I recently sent this letter to the Rutland Herald, concerning this very same logo.
Vermont is 250 years old
Apparently, the symbol chosen to commemorate Vermont’s 250 years was created in a vacuum!
For the most part, Vermont was built by the hard work and determination of Family Farmers.
But today these Family Farms are all but extinct. Could it be the last 50 years of central planning, diminished the mood for celebration?
There is a distinction to be made here, a trend that must be pointed out and it began with the advent of top down governance.
This distinction seems to separate the first 200 years, as a time of building & harvest. From the last 50 years, as a period of dismantling control. Is it even possible to celebrate a turning point, that has taken us from self-sufficiency to dependency?
During our first 200 years we celebrated the fruits of our labor with annual agricultural fairs.
Now there is little or no fruit to harvest and even the tradition of celebration is threatened by the likes of an arbitrary 3-acre rule, which could possibly shut down the Vermont State Agricultural Fair in Rutland.
Something changed 50 years ago!
Now we seem confused about what to celebrate?
Mr. Orleck writes eloquently about Vermont, but I can’t help but observe he is rather rootless. I’m curious why he left his home state for Maui, and if he wrote so eloquently about it when he left for Vermont. He mentions how wonderful it was in the “early days” circa 1973. Ah yes, the wonderful decade of the 70’s when Bernie and all the hippy Leftist moved here to establish their communes and the like and, no doubt, the wonders of the 80’s when Hollywood made TV shows about Vermont Bed and Breakfasts and the two yuppies created an ice cream dynasty.
But things gradually deteriorated, and it was time for the extended tourists to move on to greener pastures. People like Mr. Orleck who have no roots here, or possibly anywhere. I wonder how much Mr. Orleck may have contributed to the decline by his voting choices.
I’m not going anywhere. I’m a fourth generation Vermonter and these Leftist, Marxist, carpet bagging bast**ds are going to have to kill me to get rid of me, as I’m sure they would like to. Especially since I’m one of those straight white Christian males of European descent they hate so much.
Vermont’s decline was likely a result of strategy designed to take over governance and install Central Planning. But it is ironic the implementation of this strategy began with Act 250.
https://vermontdailychronicle.com/letters-edmunds-on-surviving-a-system-of-advocacy/
It’s sad and concerning to see how many people think this a celebration for Vermont being 250 years old. It’s not.
Does anyone feel like explaining what we’re actually recognizing and celebrating as a nation? A event that happened almost 250 years ago.
Hint: it took place on July 4th, 1776.