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.