The Great Mesa Flag Contest

As it turns out, it was fortunate Mesa’s founders never got around to adopting a city flag back in 1878. Because if they had, they likely would have used a newspaper contest to assist.

The problem is that 126 years ago, newspapers didn’t publish in color, so Mesa’s flag could have ended up being tragically blah for all time. Alas, that black-and-white fate was averted.

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Nearly 13 decades later, the timing couldn’t be better for The Great Mesa Flag Contest. The Tribune launched the competition Nov. 3 with the goal of identifying publicly supported ideas for the Mesa City Council to consider approving as the city’s official flag. Everyone with a 37-cent stamp is eligible to vote.

Mesa Mayor Keno Hawker and other members of the council said they’re interested in the results.

In all, readers submitted 131 potential flags. The designers ranged from grade-school students to retirees. Most were from Mesa, but interested people from across the Valley also offered their concepts.

They used crayons, markers, paint, colored paper and computers. Their designs varied, but their enthusiasm was universal.

Bona fide flag experts from the North American Vexillological Association sorted through the entries to select the 24 final designs on this page.

"You have some excellent prospective city flags," said noted flag design expert Ted Kaye of Portland, Ore., who headed a blue-ribbon panel of vexillologists.

"Nearly all of them say it’s a desert city in one way or another. And a lot of them have a mesa on them — and there aren’t a lot of cities that can put an image on their flag that actually represents the name of their city," he said.

In fact, any of the 24 final designs would have placed in the top 20 of a national survey of 150 city flags earlier this year, Kaye said.

The experts chose simple and distinctive concepts for Mesa’s flag. They also tweaked some designs to strengthen their appeal as actual flags.

For instance, they converted a vertical design into a horizontal design, shifted colors on some to add contrast and simplified others. Two finalist designs are composites of two sets of nearly identical ideas submitted by different artists.

The experts also gave the designs a uniform look for the public round of voting. For example, original drawings done in crayon were reproduced with a computer.

Among the themes in the final 24 designs:

• Twenty-three feature motifs that include a sun, star, sunburst or starburst.

• Fourteen incorporate either flat-topped mesas or other sorts of mountains.

• Eight depict saguaros.

• Six include a stylized letter "M."

Kaye offered other observations. About Flag X: "It very much looks like Macedonia’s flag. I just love the pun ‘Mesa-donia.’ "

Oh, those vexillologists are such kidders! S eriously, though, everyone knows that Macedonia’s flag is yellow and red, not yellow and blue. Plus, Macedonia’s sunburst has eight rays, not six.

About Flag D: "It’s very attractive — and it’s got a big M on it or an implied M on it."

True, but Flags E, F, M, P and T also are attractive and have big M’s or implied M’s on them. Heck, Flags E and M have two each, including upside-down M’s.

Kaye and his panel of experts ranked the 24 designs, but the scores are being kept secret until after the public voting so they don’t taint the outcome.

The flags are identified only with letters, rather than with the names and hometowns of their creators, for the same reason. They’re arranged in the order they were submitted.

Voting is easy. Fill out the official ballot and mail it to the address printed on the ballot.

So, yes, it’s possible to buy the election, but it has to be done in 37-cent increments, because only one ballot per envelope is allowed.

The deadline is Jan. 12. The winners will be announced later.