From Duluth Mayor Don Ness' Facebook page:

Greg Benson (Loll Designs) and I have designed the new Key to the City of Duluth using richlite (the material Epicurean uses for their cutting boards). Unlike the previous keys, these can be personalized to the recipient and they have this neat connection to a successful Duluth company doing business all over the world.

As you might have heard, the first recipients of the new design was the members of Low for their 20 years. In the design process, we were using "Low" as our template and it worked great. But obviously, most recipients would have names longer than 3 letters, so we had to check to see if this design would work for someone with a much longer name.

The first long name that popped into my head was Harold Carmichael - who was a wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles in the late 70s and early 80s. I have absolutely no idea why that name came to mind first. I was a fan when I was a kid, but hadn't thought of him in many many years. But for whatever reason that's the name that immediately jumped to mind, we used it and this is the end result.

As it turns out, Harold turns 65 in September, so we used that date on the key and I plan to send it to him. Could you imagine how weird that will be for him? Having a personalized key to the city from Duluth Minnesota show up in your mail box? I laugh every time I try to imagine that scenario. Hopefully he'll appreciate it as well.

I didn't like to give away the old keys -- they felt too impersonal -- but I'm looking forward to using these in the coming years to recognize Duluthians who are accomplishing great things in the world. It should be fun.

Thanks again to Greg Benson for the idea and his willingness to produce and personalize the keys. Not only is it a design worthy of hanging in a den, it's also made from a dishwasher-safe material.