In a split vote, the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday evening finally decided on a design for an official Leelanau County flag.

The board voted 5-2, with District No. 3 commissioner Richard A. Schmuckal and District No. 6 commissioner David G. Marshall opposed, to approve a design submitted by a lifelong seasonal Leland resident from Indiana who currently works as an illustrator in Boston.
THIS IS the design for the official Leelanau County flag. It was created by a seasonal county resident who works as an illustrator in Boston.
The flag’s designer, Matthew Shoaff, is 25 and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree last year at the Savannah College of Art & Design in Georgia. His family has summered in Leland for more than a century.

Shoaff is one of 14 people who submitted 26 entries in a flag design contest launched by a committee of the county board earlier this year. The board narrowed down its preferences to four designs last month, but this month decided to select a modified version of Shoaff’s original design. Acting county adminstrator Georgia Robertson contacted Shoaff and asked him to resubmit a modified range of designs based on his original design.

His original design included a Latin phrase that translates as, “If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look around you.” The same Latin phrase appears on the State of Michigan’s official flag.

At the request of county officials for a resubmission of options, Shoaff substituted “Est. 1863” for the Latin phrase in some versions, included only the words “Leelanau County” in other versions, and changed type faces and colors in still other versions.
Schmuckal said he preferred the version with red type instead of blue type. Marshall said he preferred the version with only the words Leelanau County.
MATTHEW SHOAFF
District No. 7 commissioner Melinda Lautner said she still preferred a version eliminated earlier this month by the board – the one with the single word “Leelanau” emblazoned across the entire flag on a field of blue. But Lautner voted with the majority of the board to accept Shoaff’s design after a “straw vote” narrowed down options from the eight Shoaff had prepared.

County board chairman and District No. 4 commissioner Mary Tonneberger said a legal opinion would be sought on issues related to potential copyrights of the design, including a legal agreement with Shoaff, awarding him a nominal “prize” for his design. She said that a local flagmaking company would likely be contracted to make the first, official Leelanau County flag.

The county flag will be flown on a third, currently empty flagpole in front of the Government Center where the U.S. and Michigan flags already fly.