Akron's civic pride was plain to see. It cruised the streets in clear, bold letters.
Thirty years ago, the Beacon Journal sponsored a bumper-sticker contest to celebrate Akron's designation as an All-America City.
The National Municipal League's highly coveted award was welcome news in 1981 as Akron tried to upgrade its image from a depressed economy, closed factories and a Summit County corruption probe.
The newspaper contest received nearly 1,000 entries, but only one slogan stuck:
''FOLLOW ME TO AKRON.''
Tallmadge resident Les Knight, 75, a retiree from the tax department at Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., had to chuckle when an Akron reporter recently asked him about the phrase.
''I haven't thought about it for a long time,'' he said.
Knight submitted the winning slogan, which was printed on 150,000 bumper stickers. The Beacon Journal distributed 135,000 of those stickers in the daily newspaper on June 26, 1981.
Firestone public relations man John Fowler suggested the contest after observing an Ohio-licensed car with a bumper sticker reading ''I New York.''
''Why can't we love, or at least admire, Akron?'' Fowler wondered in a letter to the editor. ''After all, it's an All-America City, which New York ain't.
''Would it be appropriate for the paper to run a bumper-sticker slogan contest? I could start it with my choices: Akron All Ways or Akron Always, or All-American Akron. There will be better suggestions, I am sure.''
The Beacon Journal liked the idea and published a coupon soliciting slogan ideas to ''symbolize the Akron area's pride.''
In a water-cooler conversation, Fowler mentioned the contest to Knight, who worked on the same floor at Firestone's Plant 1.
''For some reason or other, I kind of kicked it around,'' Knight said.
He submitted a few ideas during the two-week competition and encouraged his co-workers to do the same.
''I sent some in and some other guys did, too, and I kind of forgot about it,'' he said.
Unusual suggestions
Contest judges were Don Stephens, executive director of the Akron Regional Development Board; Barbara Hiney, director of Goals for the Greater Akron Area; Paul Poorman, editor of the Beacon Journal; and Chuck Ayers, editorial cartoonist at the Beacon Journal.
Slogan suggestions ran the gamut from serious to silly to sarcastic.
''Akron — No Place to Go But Up,'' one reader suggested.
''Akron — The Tire-Less City,'' another offered.
Some were optimistic (''Akron — Getting Better All the Time,'' ''Akron — The Possibilities Are Endless'').
Some were amusing (''We Ain't Lackin' Here in Akron,'' ''Akron Rubbers Me the Right Way'').
Some were odd (''Akron — My Piece of Cake,'' ''Pride Is a Five-Letter Word: Akron'').
And then there was this head-scratcher: ''Akron — The Great City by the Sea.''
Akron resident Sheila Conner was runner-up with the entry ''Akron — We've Only Just Begun,'' but judges decided that the Carpenters' song was too fresh in people's minds.
Knight received a phone call that he had won.
''It was quite a feeling,'' he said. ''Oh, I was surprised at that.''
He explained that he chose the slogan because he thought an ''action verb'' would command attention on a bumper sticker.
''You imagine yourself in an automobile following somebody ahead of you in a car,'' he said. '' 'Follow' seemed to be a pretty good word.''
A lifelong Christian, Knight also noted that the word ''follow'' appears about 80 times in the New Testament of the Bible.
''That's what Jesus said. He picked his disciples or his apostles and he said, 'Follow me,' Knight said.
The stickers featured blue letters on a white background with a red heart replacing the ''o'' in Akron (like the famous New York sticker). That wasn't Knight's idea, but he thought the design looked nice.
Printing was performed by the Hiney Printing Co., Austin Printing Co., the Crawford Co., all of Akron, and MACtac of Stow.
The manufacturers assured Akron Mayor Roy Ray that the stickers would come off easily from bumpers.
''Although I don't know why you would want to take them off,'' Ray quipped.
Grand prize
Knight won dinner for four and an evening with the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center. He and his wife, Carol, took another couple with them.
The Knights also participated in Akron's All-America City festivities in July 1981 at Cascade Plaza, which featured a giant cake serving 3,000 people.
''We were delighted to participate in the ceremonies,'' Knight said.
Over the next several years, Knight saw his slogan plastered on car bumpers across Summit County. The slogan even inspired other stickers, including ''Follow Me to Copley'' and ''Follow Me to Akron Baptist Temple.''
''The people at Firestone were all tickled about it, and every place I went, I seemed to be reminded of it,'' he recalled.
Akron's All-America City fever culminated in 1981 with the official naming of the All-America Bridge, although most people today call it the ''Y-Bridge.'' Akron also was named an All-America City in 1995 and 2008.
The phrase ''Follow Me to Akron'' still crops up from time to time — and not just on 30-year-old cars.
Akron punk band C.D. Truth recorded a song titled Follow Me to Akron on its 2003 album Chemically Dependent. The video features a copy of the iconic sticker in red, white and blue.
Knight still owns a half-dozen of the originals. He keeps them in a folder in a downstairs filing cabinet, and might be the only man in Summit County who could plaster one on his car tomorrow if he so wished.
''I could,'' he said with a laugh.
Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send email to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
