State quarter design still under wraps

BOISE – It’s one of the state’s most closely guarded secrets: Does Gov. Dirk Kempthorne favor Idaho’s scenery, wildlife or industry to be featured as tails on the state’s commemorative quarter, or will he opt for those famous potatoes?

Kempthorne plans to send his top choices for the state quarter design to the U.S. Treasury by Friday. His spokesman, Mike Journee, wouldn’t say Monday which ideas were among the 10 semifinalists sent to the governor by the Idaho Commission on the Arts.

The Treasury will send back artists’ renderings of Kempthorne’s five favorite ideas, which are being submitted as written descriptions, not drawings. The governor will choose which one will adorn the Idaho quarter. The process is expected to be finished by the end of the year.

“We are looking for something that’s at least as timeless as 30 years,” said Cort Conley, an author who is director of literary services at the Idaho Commission on the Arts. Conley, who served on the panel that examined 1,200 design proposals that poured in from all over Idaho after Kempthorne invited submissions in July, also declined to say which designs were recommended.

Idaho’s commemorative quarter will be released next year as part of the U.S. Mint’s 50 State Quarter Program, which has been producing coins for each state in the order they joined the Union. Idaho is the 43rd state; its quarter will be released after those from Washington and Montana and just before those from Wyoming and Utah.

To potential designers, the U.S. Mint offered some guidelines, suggesting state landmarks, landscapes, historically significant buildings, official state flora and fauna, and outlines of the state. The Mint discouraged portraits, state seals, flags and controversial symbols, and said designs shall “maintain a dignity befitting the Nation’s coinage.”

That might rule out the potato, which adorns many Idaho license plates but which has provoked some discouraging correspondence from would-be quarter designers. Conley said the arts commission received as many letters asking it to rule out the tater as it did letters promoting it.

Among other things, Idahoans suggested elk, bald eagles, rivers, fish, fishermen, television sets – because Philo Farnsworth, inventor of the cathode ray tube, lived in Rigby as a teenager – white pine trees, and Appaloosa horses – the official state horse. Others suggested bluebirds, the state bird, or the syringa, the state flower. Then there were other suggestions, too numerous to list, including wilderness, canoes, farming, and row crops, Conley said.

The Mint asked for symbols that will be relevant 30 years from now, the commercial life span of the coin.

Kempthorne will be looking for a design that is simple and uncrowded.

“If you look at the quarters that have come out, the most striking ones are the ones that have very few elements,” Journee said. “Something simple that catches the spirit and the heritage and the pride that Idahoans feel in their state.”

Frank Muir, president and chief executive officer of the Idaho Potato Commission, understandably is proud of the potato. He sent in his vote for his favorite vegetable early on.

“There will always be critics of the potato because it is lowly and humble,” Muir said. “But it still represents $2 billion of revenue a year in the state of Idaho – and thousands of jobs.”