COLOMBIA – The Senate of SC could choose between two options for a redesigned state flag, choosing proposals that lawmakers hope will appeal to critics who criticized an earlier concept for its poor-quality presentation of the iconic palm tree.
A Senate subcommittee, which held the initial hearing on March 16 on giving the state flag a standard design for the first time in 80 years, wanted to offer lawmakers options after the reaction to a proposed bill with a palm tree that was ridiculed on the networks social because it looks like a bathroom brush among other colorful descriptions.
A panel of experts, who worked for two years on a project, suggested two options with more substantial trees, which should reach the full Senate. After the senators choose one, the new flag design will go to the House.
“It has become not only the symbol of the state, but everything to do with the state, so that is why there is so much passion about it,” said State Sen. Josh Kimbrell, R-Boiling Springs, during the hearing.
Lawmakers are drawing up guidelines for the images in it that generations of residents have come to love: namely, choosing a particular shade of indigo and selecting an exact version of the quintessential heart of palm tree in its center and growing in the upper left corner.
“The fight will not be because of the color or the crescent, but because of the appearance of the tree,” Senator Thomas McElveen, D-Sumter, said during the hearing, before mentioning the much-maligned first proposal. “That tree was hit by an ugly stick. there is no doubt about it. “
Creating regulations for future banner designs is big business because, over the decades, manufacturers have produced inconsistent versions of them. The flags will be palmettes with different looks and a range of shades of blue, which is bad for marketing, but also ignores the nuances of history embedded in their images.
The flag’s indigo, for example, matches a shade of the uniforms worn by Colonel William Moultrie’s second regiment in South Carolina during the Revolutionary War. The indigo dye was also grown from that homonymous plant in Lowcountry during Moultrie’s lifetime, and indigo became the state’s official color in 2008.
It was not until 1910 when the well-known palm tree, growing and deep indigo, was adopted by the General Assembly. Clemson University was tasked with producing and selling them at cost until they lost these exclusive rights, for unknown reasons, in 1940.
Here’s the thing about palm trees: they grow in unpredictable ways.
Some have smaller trunks or uneven leaves. Others are endowed with majestic canopies and bark patterns. The hearts of palm occupy a much vaunted place in the tradition of the state. The trees absorbed cannonballs to prevent the British invasion of Charleston and strengthened the walls of Fort Sullivan.
The legislator’s challenge is to stick to a flag that respects the history of the state, but also pleases aesthetically. California officials went through similar pains before deciding on the brown bear that has been circling its flag since 1911.
“You will not find a palm that is symmetrical. As soon as we approve of this, we will have people raising sand. Regardless of what we decide, you are likely to upset 25 or 40% of people upset, ”said state senator Ronnie Cromer, a Republican of Prosperity who is the main sponsor of the flag standardization project.
A 17-page committee report explaining the flag’s iconography acknowledged that the most difficult element for officials to decide was how that palm should be portrayed.
“We knew this was what would cause the most distress, and it did,” said Eric Emerson, director of the state’s Department of Archives and History, during the hearing.
The versions of the current flag are largely produced by two manufacturers: Annin, based in New Jersey, and Valley Forge Flag Company, which operates a factory in the city of Olanta, in Florence County.
Follow Adam Benson on Twitter @ AdamNewshound12.