Phillip Brooks of Knoxville submitted the winning entry in the George L. Carter Railroad Museum logo contest at East Tennessee State University.Brooks was recognized and received a $500 cash prize during an awards ceremony on Dec. 3 at the Tennessee Credit Union branch at 310 Sunset Drive.
The logo contest was held in November in conjunction with the Carter Railroad Museum’s second anniversary and National Model Railroad Month. Artists of all ages were invited to participate in the contest, which was coordinated by the museum, ETSU and the Mountain Empire Model Railroaders (MEMRR).
Brooks, a 1982 ETSU graphic design alumnus, is a model railroader and a fan of Southeastern railroading, history and modeling.
“The logo incorporates design elements important to George L. Carter’s life and work,” Brooks wrote in a letter accompanying his entry. “The shape of the logo and locomotive artwork echo Carter’s own Clinchfield Railroad logo, and frame a stylized Carter portrait. The locomotives are early EMD ‘F’ units, which were also used by the Clinchfield.
“Another nod to local railroad history is the use of Southern Railway’s font in the museum name, with gold lettering on a black background reminiscent of Southern’s ‘tuxedo and gold’ scheme. Southern ran through Johnson City until Norfolk & Western and Southern merged to form Norfolk Southern Corp. in the mid-1980s.”
The new Railroad Museum logo also incorporates the classic ETSU mountain logo, as required by the contest rules, as well as the university’s colors of blue and gold.
Other participating regional artists whose designs placed in the competition included Tommy G. Tidwell of Johnson City, first runner-up; Sandy Green, a school teacher from Erwin, second runner-up; and Lillian B. Brooks of Hendersonville, third runner-up.
They received $250, $100 and $50 respectively in prize money. Funds for the prizes were provided by Tennessee Credit Union.
The Carter Railroad Museum, located in the Campus Center Building at ETSU, is open to the public every Saturday from 10 a.m.-3 p.m., staffed by volunteers from the MEMRR.
Admission is free.
For more information or special assistance for those with disabilities, contact Dr. Fred Alsop, museum director, at 423-439-6838 or e-mail him at alsopf@etsu.edu.
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