BEREA, Ohio — Does your car or truck have a name?
Eight of the snowplows working the Ohio Turnpike do.
The Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission announced the winners of its first-ever ‘Name-A-Snowplow' contest this week and five of them come from right here in northwest Ohio.
Nearly 1,000 entries were submitted from Oct. 19 to Nov. 20 of last year.
Out of the 1,000 entries, officials from the turnpike commission selected the top 50 names which were put to a public vote. Nearly 4,000 votes were cast on turnpike’s website.
The big winners...
- Snow Force One
- Darth Blader
- Plowy McPlowface
- Snow More Mr. Ice Guy
- Snowbi-Wan Kenobi
- O-H Snow U Didn’t
- Sir Plows-A-Lot
- Ah, Push It… Push It Real Good!
Each winner received a $100 gift card.
Eight unique names were assigned to each of the eight snowplows in service at eight of the turnpike's maintenance buildings.
- Snow Force One Kunkle Maintenance Building 1 – Milepost 16 – West Unity, Ohio (Williams County) submitted by Jim Bauer (Wauseon, Ohio)
- Sir Plows-A-Lot Swanton Maintenance Building 2 – Milepost 48.9 – Swanton, Ohio (Fulton County) submitted by Tim Towner (Swanton, Ohio)
- Snowbi-Wan Kenobi Elmore Maintenance Building 3 – Milepost 79.9 – Elmore, Ohio (Ottawa County) submitted by Rebekah Chatterjee (Toledo, Ohio)
- Plowy McPlowface Castalia Maintenance Building 4 – Milepost 106.7 – Bellevue, Ohio (Erie County) submitted by Mark Hayden (Toledo, Ohio)
- Darth Blader Amherst Maintenance Building 5 – Milepost 141.0 – Amherst, Ohio (Lorain County) submitted by Cassandra Welch (LaSalle, Mich.)
- Snow More Mr. Ice Guy Boston Maintenance Building 6 – Milepost 173.9 – Richfield, Ohio (Summit County) submitted by Sebastian Calo (Cleveland Hts., Ohio)
- O-H Snow U Didn’t Hiram Maintenance Building MB 7 – Milepost 198.6 – Garrettsville, Ohio (Portage County) submitted by Marc Manuszak (Perrysburg, Ohio)
- Ah, Push It… Push It Real Good! Canfield Maintenance Building 8 – Milepost 228.1 – Canfield, Ohio (Mahoning County) submitted by Cori DeRenzis (Brookfield, Ohio)
The Name-A-Snowplow contest (safety awareness campaign) will run again later this year.
The turnpike commission hopes the contest will be a reminder to drivers to not "Crowd the Plow".
Drivers are advised to allow extra space for snow plows who clearing the road and to not pass plows that are actively plowing.
And as always, if your vehicle breaks down or you are involved in a crash, you should turn on your hazard lights, move your vehicle as far off the roadway as possible, remain in the vehicle, and call #677.
