New Logo A Winner, But Department’s Contest Wasn’t

The new Washington Fish and Wildlife Department has a new logo.

The department was born last year after the state Legislature approved a merger of the Fisheries and Wildlife agencies. Shortly afterward, Bob Turner, the agency’s first director, announced a contest for schools and artists to design a new logo. The emblem needed to depict the agency’s new role in managing fish and wildlife from the West Side saltwater to the East Side scablands.

But the winner of the contest was never announced.

“Of the hundred or so entries we received, there apparently weren’t any that management considered good enough,” said Madonna Luers, department spokeswoman in Spokane.

Department staff artist Darrell Pruett finally was assigned to produce the new logo. Pruett, a Montanan who has been with the department for nearly five years, also has created the fish and wildlife art that appears on the agency’s pamphlets.