17 November 2005 - 3:48pm
What's in a name, anyway?
It seems that the good folks of Clark, Texas really want their TV for free.
In a deal unanimously approved Tuesday by the two-member town council, Clark agreed to become DISH permanently, effective immediately. It's part of an advertising campaign for Englewood, Colo.-based EchoStar Communications Corp., which operates the DISH Network satellite TV system.
The company pegged the deal at about $4,500 per home in the rural patch of ranch land, which is about a half hour's drive north of Dallas-Fort Worth.
Beyond the lure of free TV service for the 125 residents, the renaming is a way for the town to attract businesses and residents, said Mayor Bill Merritt, who courted EchoStar to pick the town.
"We really look at this as kind of a rebirth for our community," Merritt said. "We want everybody to come here."
This is a far cry from name-change sentiments in another Texas town:
Residents held on to their heritage Tuesday night and voted against changing their town name to West Settlement, despite proponents' arguments that the name has racial connotations and stunts economic development.
In a record turnout, 2,388 residents voted against the name change and 219 voted for it in unofficial, complete returns.
The city got its name because it was the lone village of white pioneers amid several American Indian encampments in the Fort Worth area in the Texas Republic territory in the 1840s.
Seems like there are good reasons and not-so-good reasons to change the name of a town.
Other brilliant ideas:
In 2003, residents of Biggs, Calif., overwhelmingly rejected a California Milk Processor Board proposal to rename the city of 1,800 Got Milk? in exchange for a milk museum and money for the school.
"People's take on it was, 'This is just an advertising ploy by the milk board.' There was a certain segment of population that wanted to tar and feather the mayor for even suggesting it," city clerk Marlee Mattos said.
In 2000, Halfway, Ore., become Half.com for a year in an agreement that put $100,000 in the town coffer and a new computer lab in the school.
Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
It was 1950 when Hot Springs, N.M., voted 1,294-295 to change its name to Truth or Consequences. Host Ralph Edwards, who died Wednesday at age 92, had promised to broadcast the popular radio show from the town that agreed to the change.
Then, of course, there's the woman who had a corporate name tattooed onto her forehead. She didn't get free TV for it, but she got ten grand for auctioning off her face, which she was using to pay for private school for her son.
Getting the tattoo was painful.
"Will it go numb?" she asked.
"It'll go as numb as your brain," Brouse replied.
"My brain is already numb," she said, laughing.
The couch potatoes of DISH, Texas can relate to that.
media girl also blogs at other places.
Similar entries
store
Buy stuff here.
Comments
Ah.. well its sad to see Clark, Texas go. i did look up its history on the library wall and it has none whatsoever, which is more or less typical for anything north of Dallas, Ft. Worth. So, i suppose we'll not fuss too much about the name change.
I hope this isn't a wave of the future or a sign of progress.
The good news, for Texas that is, is we still have two Clark Texases left in reeeeserve. They're both much more interesting than Dish, Texas. ::::lying::::
There's one out in Van Zant county. Think we should rename that one Free Bird? That Clark Texas was going south as far back as 1904 when it had a local school enrollment of 53. The last news I have of it is in 1987 only a grain elevator remained. No people, just corn kernels or winter wheat. I suppose that's why they haven't sold their naming rights to a corp because they don't even have a two member town council to cut the deal.
The other Clark Texas is 60 miles northwest of Beaumont in Liberty County. It used to be known as Grand Cane after Sam Houston's plantation of the same name. In 1869 it became Ironwood. In 1900 Ironwood was renamed Clark. This area of Texas was then famous for its Cummings logging camp and the Milvid logging road and absolutely nothing else. In 1990 a few scattered buildings and a gravel pit were all that remained.
asleep yet? ::::snore::::
...could be renamed Blue Velvet.
Where is that tar?
David