St. Paul, Minnesota — Our neighbors to the north have a new flag.
A ceremony was held on Saturday morning at the State Capitol to retire the old state flag and raise the new one. Secretary of State Steve Simon also recognized members of the State Emblems Redesign Commission and the designers of the flag and seal with an award for their efforts. He used the new state seal for the first time to sign a proclamation at the event. The ceremony was part of Minnesota Statehood Day, celebrating the state’s 166th birthday.
The new flag was unveiled on December 19th, and was designed by someone not too far away from northwest Iowa. Andrew Prekker of Luverne, Minnesota designed the flag, and it won a competition. The design went through several variations that had the right side of the flag split horizontally between two colors — for four colors in total — before the final three-color design — a dark and light blue flag with a white star was selected. The inverse arrow pattern on the left side of the flag looks like a stylized version of the shape of the state of Minnesota.
(Thanks to fellow Community First Broadcasting station KKOJ in Jackson, MN)
