Cougar Logo Still Roars After All These Years
It was every journalist’s nightmare: a bunch of staged hoopla on a hot parking lot.
Balloons and buffoonery. Cookies. Speeches.
Washington State University public relations flacks called me to this patch of sweltering asphalt the other day to - tum ta-dah! - promote the new WSU designer license plates. More on that fascinating offer a bit later.
The point is that even in an inane setting there’s usually a good story lurking about. This time it was Randall Johnson, a lanky Spokane man who turned 80 in March.
Johnson created the famous WSU trademark in 1936.
The proud man drove to this event in his prized 1937 Oldsmobile land yacht and posed for pictures with one of the new plates that features his emblem.
These are genuine Washington license plates stamped with tender care by inmates at the Washington State Penitentiary. None of the PR people could tell me if any felons in the license plate shop were Wazzu alums, but we can always hope for the best.
The logo Johnson created is a crimson cougar head shaped artfully out of the letters “WSU.” It’s a classy and distinctive piece of design.
Astronaut John Fabian, a WSU grad, carried the cougar emblem when he orbited the Earth. Millions of sports fans have seen it on jerseys, banners and athletic gear.
“I’m not very good at concealing my pleasure,” says Johnson, who is continually amazed that his emblem has endured six decades.
Imagine the effort it would take to design a WSU logo today. Animal rights loons would probably sue the school for exploiting a cougar without the animal’s written consent.
There wasn’t much red tape when Johnson was earning a fine arts degree. During the summer of his junior year, Johnson made 25 cents an hour doing odd jobs around the Pullman campus.
Fred Rounds, the college architect, heard Johnson could draw. “What we need is some kind of a trademark,” he told Johnson one day. “Do you think you can come up with something?”
Johnson spent three nights doodling in his room. “Using letters to create a symbol was sort of new back then,” he remembers.
Rounds loved the logo, but the college president was on sabbatical. No problem. A dean took a look and announced, “It’s official. Go ahead and use it.”
When Washington State College became a university, Johnson simply tilted the “C” that made the cougar’s mouth into a “U.”
So for 30 bucks you Cougs can now display the ol’ school rah-rah on the family war wagon. It’s for a worthy cause. All but $2 goes to student scholarships.
University of Washington patrons can buy their own custom plates, too, but that institution’s husky mascot looks like a cheesy cartoon compared to Johnson’s stylish cougar.
It took State Sen. Jim West, R-Spokane, seven years to pass a bill allowing collegiate license plates.
Some lawmakers resisted, contending the highways are already bumper to bumper with silly theme plates.
There are Pearl Harbor Survivor plates. Prisoner of War plates. Purple Heart plates. …
Just about any special interest group can get one.
Even square dancers have their own plates. How do-si-do cornball can you get?
But West eventually prevailed, which makes this about the first meaningful legislation he’s managed to come up with.
Ha, ha. Just kidding, Jim. Thanks to your heroic effort, all of Washington’s four-year state universities or colleges can legally apply for designer license plates.
I’m told my alma mater, Eastern Washington University, will have one soon. The EWU mascot, by the way, is a 36-year-old commuter named Ed who needs one more Econ class before he can finally graduate and move out of his parents’ house.
I can’t wait to get a special Eastern plate for my Buick. Then I’ll be just as cool as a square dancer.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Doug Clark The Spokesman-Review