Quit complaining about those new Kansas license plates. Here’s what the old ones lacked | Opinion

Sometimes in opinion journalism you have to take a bold, contrarian stand — look readers square in the eye, speak truth to power, and say something people might not want to hear. Folks, this is one of those times.

I like the new design for Kansas license plates.

Apparently I’m quite alone in this. Gov. Laura Kelly revealed the new design in a Thanksgiving Eve press release last week, and it’s fair to say the proposed composition is a stark departure from the whites, off-whites and soft blues that have dominated Sunflower State plates over the last few decades.

There’s a dark midnight blue stripe across the top, with “KANSAS” in striking yellow letters. The rest of the plate is that same shade of “wheat yellow” — with a slogan, “to the stars,” across the bottom.

“The new license plate design promotes the state and our sense of optimism as Kansans travel near and far,” Kelly said in the press release.

The backlash started immediately.

Attorney Kris Kobach used the occasion to poke fun at Kelly’s Empire State lineage. “First our NY born Gov brings NY policies,” he wrote online. “Now NY plates!”

State Rep. Nick Hoheisel, a Wichita Republican, took a more serious approach, questioning the process that produced the design. “The decision to introduce these new plates without prior public input or feedback seems to have overlooked the importance of engaging our citizens in such matters,” Hoheisel said in a letter to the governor.

This apparently isn’t just a partisan thing. “Gov. Laura Kelly, this plate was a bad idea,” my friend Clay Wirestone wrote at The Kansas Reflector.

All nonsense. The new plates are great.

1980s version honored as collectors’ ‘plate of the year’

For most of my life, Kansas license plates have been boring, no personality at all.

Oh, I still have a fondness for the plates of my early 1980s childhood: A deep blue body with three stalks of bright yellow wheat on the left side. That plate told you something about who we were as a state and a people, that we were the breadbasket to the world, and proud of it. Outsiders even took notice — that beautiful blue plate was reputedly honored with a “plate of the year” award from the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association.

Its successors, though, have consistently been nondescript.

The wheat stalks were still there for a few years, only in a muted brown. Eventually they were replaced, first by an image of the state capitol — how arrogant and blinkered it was for the government to decide the state’s defining image should be of a government building — and then, eventually, by a small portion of the state seal with “Ad Astra Per Aspera” intermittently visible behind the embossed tag numbers.

Dull. Lifeless. Almost like they were designed not to be noticed. But also maybe very in keeping with our reserved Midwestern character.

Or maybe (just to take note of Rep. Hoheisel’s point) the designs simply looked like the kind of inoffensive and bland art that usually comes out of a government committee process.

I love Kansas. But honestly, I’ve been jealous of other states and their license plates. Colorado, with its white snow-covered Rocky Mountains on a green background. New Mexico, with its striking turquoise. And yes, New York with its contrasting navy and gold.

Those plates have pizzazz. They have an identity. You never have to squint and try to figure out what state the car ahead of you calls home. It’s obvious.

It won’t be surprising if the pushback means the new Kansas plates are quickly discarded. If that happens — if we get something a little less New York-ish — I hope the replacement design is equally bold and striking.

But mostly I hope Kansas sticks with the new midnight blue and wheat gold design. It’s fun, distinctive and exciting to look at. When was the last time you could say that about our state license plates?

Joel Mathis is a regular opinion correspondent for The Kansas City Star and The Wichita Eagle. He lives in Lawrence with his wife and son. Formerly a writer and editor at Kansas newspapers, he served nine years as a syndicated columnist.