On this day over 30 years ago, the first Adopt-A-Sign ever was constructed on Texas’s Highway 69 and its adopter, the Tyler Civitan Club made its promise to keeping its patch of highway trash-free. The program was first imagined by a concerned citizen named James Evans, who’d witness garbage flying out of the back of pickup trucks in Tyler, Texas. Evans was an engineer for the Texas Department of Transportation and grew worried about government cost to keep highways cleaned and took the matter to Billy Black, a public information officer in the Tyler District. In some states the program is known as the Sponsor-a-Highway initiative and is widely popular among schools, churches and businesses. Fun Fact: Did you know that the Texas slogan “Don’t mess with Texas” is a litter campaign, with no relevance to its Lone Star state ideology? A bit amusing, no?
And here are a few more tidbits to impress your friends with about Texas:
- There are more cows in Texas than people
- Texans live in the early 90s, due to its team last appearance in the Super Bowl
- Austin, Texas, is the live music capital of the world — but has no relation to the rest of the state
- It’s Shiner Bock or nothing at all, well, or any other craft beer brewed from home
- Dr. Pepper is its Coke
- Texans remind people they could and will secede from the U.S…..
- The state mammal is an armadillo
- And finally, when Big Tex burnt down at the state fair it was tragic.
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