Maine's Governor Angus King has signed into law a bill that will place a Chickadee on the next official Maine license plate.

The Maine House of Representatives had voted for a lighthouse design featuring West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, however, the Senate voted for the chickadee.

The lighthouse plate was the project of junior high school students, who literally spend months of time working on the project and carried petitions with thousands of signatures to the law makers in Maine's capitol in support of the lighthouse design.

The town of Lubec's Selectmen sent a formal letter of thank you to the junior high students in the small town of Berwick whose lighthouse design gained state-wide support and national attention. Lubec is the nearest city to the famous red and white striped lighthouse chosen by the students.

It is clear that the voice of the people of Maine was not listened to. The lighthouse design had gained the support of the major TV stations and most of the major newspapers in the state. There was a ground swell of support for the lighthouse design. Yet, the chickadee that was only endorsed by one newspaper, had no ground swell of support, had no signed petitions and is not even a Maine chickadee, won out because of the efforts of one powerful Maine Senator.

Shame on Governor Angus King. He chicken out, or should we say, he flew the coop on this one.

The students design will be introduced again in the state legislature; this time as a specialty plate design.

We will keep you posted.

This story appeared in the September 1997 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.

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