Park Ridge announces 14 winners of snow plow naming contest: Taylor Drift, Clearopathra, more
The people have spoken and the votes have been counted. A month into the city of Park Ridge’s snow plow naming contest, the winners were announced on Wednesday.
Contestants submitted a flurry of proposed names for Park Ridge’s 14 snow plows. .
Park Ridge received 190 total submissions of names, but 21 were duplicates, which left 169 unique names, said Brigid Madden, the city’s deputy clerk.
Mayor Marty Maloney, City Manager Joe Gilmore, Public Works Director Sarah Mitchell and Madden narrowed the list to 30, and invited the public to cast online votes for their favorites.
Madden noted that, “1,075 people voted to get us to the top 14 names. We are printing magnets for each of the 14 snow plows now and plan to have photographs with the winners in the coming weeks.”
She added that some of her favorites were submitted by the Park Ridge Public Library. They referenced books and authors, and, although they did not make it to the top, they are: Clifford the Big Red Plow, Edgar Allan Snow and J.R.R. Snowlkien.
The winners and their authors are as follows:
“The Salt Shakers” by Elias Zapata
“Get in Loser We’re Going Plowing” by Vinnie Colletti
“Sir Plows a Lot” by Michelle Calafiore
“Plowy McPlow Face” by Sergey Sandler
“Snow-Be-Gone Kenobi” by Bea Conroy
“Taylor Drift” by Dan Foley
“pARCTIC Ridge” by Michelle Nye
“Plowdy with a Chance of Meatballs” by Kate Svachula
“Han Snowlo” by Stephanie Kaplan
“We’re Off to See the Blizzard” by Dena Martinez
“The Fast and the Flurry-less” by Erica Green
“Clearopathra” by Gary Landess
“Brickton Bomber” by Chris Varco
“Rocky Plowboa” by Walt Cohen
According to the city of Park Ridge’s website, the Public Works Department has 10 smaller snow plow trucks that are mostly used to clear residential streets. The city uses a dome near the Oakton Ice Arena and a storage barn near the Public Works Service Center to store the 1,600 tons of salt the city uses.
