The Ohio Turnpike has put eight name-the-plow contest winners out on the road, and yes, Plowy McPlowface is one of them.
That name, which alludes to the snarky most-popular name that emerged from an online contest six years ago to name a British research ship, now belongs to an Ohio Turnpike & Infrastructure Commission truck assigned to the garage in Castalia, while Snowbi-Wan Kenobi resides at the Elmore garage, Sir Plows-A-Lot is stationed in Swanton, and Snow Force One is based at the Kunkle garage in Williams County.
Those and four other names given to plows assigned to the toll road’s eastern half were the most popular in an online vote after the turnpike closed entries Dec. 1.
Pop culture references abound, of course. The Star Wars movie canon is referenced not only with Snowbi-Wan Kenobi but also with Darth Blader, and rocker Alice Cooper and dance group Salt-n-Pepa get tributes with the respective Snow More Mr. Nice Guy and Ah, Push it... Push it Real Good.
Also hitting the turnpike now: O-H Snow You Didn’t. Snow Force One got the most votes, followed by Darth Blader and Plowy McPlowface, according to the turnpike commission, which did not have vote counts available Thursday.
All who nominated a winning plow name received a $100 gift card. Six of the eight were from the Toledo area, including Jim Bauer of Wauseon, who suggested Snow Force One; Tim Towner, of Swanton, with Sir Plows-A-Lot; Rebecca Chatterjee, of Toledo, with Snowbi-Wan Kenobi; Mark Hayden, of Toledo, with Plowy McPlowface; Mark Manuszak, of Perrysburg, with O-H Snow You Didn’t, and Cassandra Welch, of LaSalle, Mich, with Darth Blader.
The contest was set up as a public-involvement and awareness endeavor, said Charles Cyrill, a turnpike spokesman.
’For our customers the Name-A-Snowplow contest is a reminder to ‘Don’t Crowd the Plow,’ and to always drive safely on the Ohio Turnpike during the winter snow and ice season,” he said. “When the turnpike’s snow and ice removal crew and fleet are in action during the winter driving season, motorists should take every precaution to avoid passing snowplows and allow extra space for the plow drivers to clear the road. It’s important to keep in mind that the safest place to be on the road is behind a snowplow.”
The contest also provides an occasion to salute the turnpike staff who work around the clock during winter weather “ensuring that our customers have a safe driving experience on the turnpike,” Mr. Cyrill said.
Overall the turnpike commission received nearly 1,000 entries during a nomination period from Oct. 29 to Nov. 20, after which turnpike officials posted a list of 50 finalists on the toll road’s website. Nearly 4,000 votes were cast during the ensuing 10-day period, Mr. Cyrill said.
Unsurprisingly the turnpike’s name-the-plow contest is neither the first of its kind nor the first in which Plowy McPlowface or some of the others came out on top.
Plowy McPlowface has also turned up in the snow-fighting fleets of Bar Harbor, Maine, and the Minnesota Department of Transportation, for starters, and last year’s Minnesota contest also had Snowbi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Blader among its eight winners. Darth Blader also appears on a plow in North Dakota.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation, which acknowledges its plow-contest idea was cribbed from Scotland, is currently conducting voting from among 50 nominations for a new round of plow names. MnDOT’s current fleet also includes The Truck Formerly Known as Plow, a reference to the late singer Prince’s celebrated nonname change.
Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council opted not to give the Internet-darling Boaty McBoatface name to its new polar-research vessel, which was launched in 2019 following the name-the-ship contest three years prior. But the agency did give the contest a nod by assigning that name to an autonomous submersible launched in 2017 and assigned to the new research ship, RRS Sir David Attenborough, after its subsequent launch.
Since then numerous other public contests have produced analogous names for a variety of things, including a bookmobile, a racehorse, a bus, a train, a bus, a ferry, a skate park, and, briefly in Tennessee, a bridge that was named Bridgey McBridgeface for a day.
The Ohio Turnpike plans to hold another plow-naming contest next fall with a similar nomination and voting schedule.
First Published January 20, 2022, 11:45 p.m.
