The City of Calgary is looking to children in the city to help name its snowplows.
“We just encourage people to be creative,” city spokesperson Chris McGeachy said Wednesday.
“Have a discussion with your teacher, your classmates, your parents about winter safety in Calgary and then help us name the snowplows.”
Contest entries and colouring sheets can be found on Calgary.ca/plow, which also features info about the city’s snow-clearing plan and fleet.
The best names will be used to name some of the city’s 18 trucks with front-mounted plows and 74 mid-mounted plows.
“We have 30 plows that we can name and we encourage people to submit as many names as they’d like,” McGeachy said. “We’ll go through the names and pick the best of the lot.”
The contest is open to children from kindergarten to Grade 9 and closes on Nov. 30.
Plows will get decals on their doors with their names and the city’s road conditions map online will show where in the city those plows will be during snow clearing efforts. The plows will wear those names for the upcoming winter.
McGeachy said the idea came from other jurisdictions, including Scotland’s Ministry of Transportation and the Department of Transportation in Minnesota.
“It always seemed like a fun thing and we think it’s gonna be a good way to get some positive messaging out about our snow program.”