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Efforts underway to produce Mount St. Helens license plates

VANCOUVER, Wash. — Tired of seeing Mount Rainier on the vehicle in front of you?

The Columbian reports that Clark County residents may soon be able to buy license plates featuring a mountain closer to home.

The Mount St. Helens Institute is working with Rep Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, to get legislative approval next year for a Mount St. Helens license plate that would raise money for the nonprofit institute. The effort is timely with the upcoming 40th anniversary of the volcano’s cataclysmic eruption on May 18, 1980.

“Portland has Hood, Seattle has Rainier,” said Ray Yurkewycz, executive director of the Mount St. Helens Institute. “Southwest Washington has Mount St. Helens.”

The institute has launched an online petition drive, with the goal of collecting 4,000 signatures by the time the 2020 Legislature convenes Jan. 13. As of Tuesday morning, it already had collected more than 1,300 signatures in the first few days of launching its campaign.

Don Clark of Invisible Creature in Maple Valley designed the license plate for free, Yurkewycz said.