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Dakota County, Nebraska (U.S.)

located by Valentin Poposki, 19 January 2008

Description of the flag

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Description of the flag

Quoting Michele Linck, The Sioux City Journal, 10 January 2008:

"After more than 118 years without one, Dakota County finally has a flag to call its own. It took fifth-generation county native Guy G. Sides IV, better known as Gary Sides, fewer than six weeks to design and produce the first Dakota County flag -- just in time for Commissioner Bill Rohde to take it to the annual convention of the Nebraska Association of Elected Officials, Dec. 12-14, in Lincoln. Rohde decided the county needed a flag when he attended his first NACO convention a year earlier, prior to taking office last January. "I realized Dakota County didn't have a flag," Rohde said. It seemed to him that all 92 other of Nebraska's counties did, including neighboring Dixon and Thurston counties.
[The FOTW website, however, says: "According to Larry Dix, executive director of the Nebraska Association of County Officials, about one-third of the state’s 93 counties have flags. (quoted from the Lincoln Journal Star, 25 March 2006)". The flags of Dixon and Thurston Counties are unknown to FOTW.]
[...]
Sides is a walking history of the county and of practically every family that has settled there over the past 180 years or more, so he could skip the research, saving time on an already tight deadline. Sides was the president of the Dakota County Historical Society for a dozen years and has been a member for more years than he can remember.
[...]
Another time saver: he had already thought about what a Dakota County flag should look like, brainstorming design ideas just for the fun of it on a recent car trip with his parents. In fact, Sides developed several prototypes; Rohde and his wife, Jody, picked the one they liked best, which is part map, part history lesson. The other commissioners approved it. But the design needed some tweaking. "Originally I had the precincts in there," Sides said of the map-like image of the county. But the precinct lines looked like a grid, so out they went. He left the map. "I love the shape of the county," Sides said, "especially where the river makes the big bend." He worked with his sister, Eve Sides, a graphic designer for St. Luke's Regional Medical Center, fine tuning his design and experimenting with color schemes. In fact, the bold yellow of the flag was supposed to be more of a gold color.
[...]
Sides, who declined any compensation for his work, presented the flag to the commissioners on Dec. 3, nine days ahead of deadline. Rohde said the flag will be framed and hung in the courthouse, but more will be made."

The source shows a colour photograph of the flag presented by its designer. The flag is yellow with a map of the country, brown with blue lakes and rivers and several geographical names written on it. There are two black standing silhouettes partially concealing the left part of the map. DAKOTA COUNTY is written in red/brown letters forming an arch above the map. Below the map, a dark brown scroll bears the black writing March 7, 1855.
Ivan Sache, 16 January 2008

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_County,_Nebraska reports that "Dakota County is a county located in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is part of the Sioux City/Iowa/Nebraska/South Dakota Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2000, the population was 20,253. The 2005 census estimate was 20,349. Its county seat is Dakota City."
Valentin Poposki, 19 January 2008