March 5, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Written by: Hannah Field | Editor-in-Chief<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most commonly, drivers in Oregon showcase that baby blue plate boasting a Douglas Fir between navy letters and numbers. This is the standard plate for Oregon \u2014 licensing more than 3.5 million vehicles after being introduced in 1988.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For a relatively cheap fee, that plate can be swapped out for other designs, such as a gray whale, salmon, Smokey Bear, an Oregon Trail Blazers logo, Crater Lake and other various wildlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most recently, Oregon is selling vouchers for a new plate \u2014 featuring important shark species that live off of the Oregon coast to help promote awareness and generate funding for the Big Fish Lab, which studies those exact shark populations. The Big Fish Lab, based in Newport, Oregon, is the only dedicated shark research program in the state and has only been around since 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The plate, titled \u201cVibrant Ocean,\u201d shows off a large salmon shark, front and center, with blue sharks and a common thresher shark in the background. Each voucher costs $40, with $35 going to the lab. 3,000 vouchers must be sold before the plates are produced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
April 7, 2025, will see the addition of an Oregon State University-themed license plate for sale, supporting Oregon State University\u2019s athletics. Other plates, such as \u201cPollinator Paradise\u201d \u2014 a wildflower and bee design \u2014 support other areas of Oregon State University, with \u201cPollinator Paradise\u201d going directly to bee research occurring at the college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Interestingly, \u201cPollinator Paradise\u201d was created by 16-year-old Marek Stanton. \u201cVibrant Ocean\u201d was designed by Natalie Donato, a third-year student at Oregon State University\u2019s College of Science, studying marine biology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Allegedly, Oregon\u2019s \u201cSmokey Bear\u201d plate is most popular among the additional choices. It won the Best Plate Award in 2019 from the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association. Previously, the \u201cCrater Lake\u201d plate won in 2002; it was also the most popular purchased plate until \u201cSmokey Bear.\u201d \u201cSmokey Bear\u201d has continued to raise money for the Keep Oregon Green Association and remains available alongside \u201cCrater Lake\u201d for purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Contact the author at howleditorinchief@wou.edu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
March 5, 2025 Written by: Hannah Field | Editor-in-Chief Most commonly, drivers in Oregon showcase that baby blue plate boasting a Douglas Fir between navy letters and numbers. This is the standard plate for Oregon \u2014 licensing more than 3.5 million vehicles after being introduced in 1988. For a relatively cheap fee, that plate can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6379,6361,6360,6362,1846,6367,6372,6368,6354,6351,3202,6352,1501,6377,6376,6356,6374,6359,279,6353,6371,3929,507,1569,3934,6366,6357,6369,6370,6378,5295,6358,6365,6373,6355,6364,3937,1254,6363,3464,6375],"class_list":["post-22451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-association","tag-bear","tag-charity","tag-crater","tag-crater-lake","tag-dmv","tag-donato","tag-douglas","tag-driver","tag-drivers","tag-fee","tag-fir","tag-green","tag-keep","tag-lake","tag-license","tag-marek","tag-marek-stanton","tag-natalie","tag-natalie-donato","tag-ocean","tag-or","tag-oregon","tag-oregon-state","tag-osu","tag-paradise","tag-plate","tag-plates","tag-pollinator","tag-purchase","tag-registration","tag-shark","tag-sharks","tag-smokey","tag-smokey-bear","tag-stanton","tag-state","tag-university","tag-vehicles","tag-vibrant","tag-vibrant-ocean"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22451"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22456,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22451\/revisions\/22456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}