Kaleigh Mueller stands in front of her new mom-approved billboard located South of Seward on Highway 15. Mueller said it is the first billboard you see coming off of Interstate 80.
Seward is officially mom approved, at least according to a new billboard on Highway 15.
Kaleigh Mueller, a Seward resident, designed a new billboard for the Seward County Chamber and Development Partnership and the Seward Visitors Committee.
Mueller said Suzanne Gligorevic, SCCDP marketing and communications coordinator, asked what it would take to design a billboard.
“I’ve worked with her on other projects and stuff, too, so we kind of understand each other’s lingo and style,” Mueller said.
Gligorevic said the Visitors Committee and SCCDP didn’t want something they had done in the past.
“We realize that Seward is the Fourth of July City so we wanted to capitalize kind of on that look and feel of red, white and blue and all of those things,” she said. “But then we also wanted to just grab people’s attention and maybe just get them to stop in the downtown area as they’re traveling on Highway 15.”
Mueller said she came up with the concept for the billboard when she was driving on Interstate 80.
“I saw one of those cheesy billboards that was like ‘our rest rooms are mom approved’ for the rest stops. That could be a really cool idea if you kind of took a spin on it and made it old fashioned and kind of a timeless look to it,” Mueller said.
Mueller said she took the idea to Gligorevic, who loved it. The next step was taking it to the Visitors Committee for approval.
“Then I got a text or a call from her (Gligorevic) that said it went through and I was really surprised but very happy,” Mueller said.
The Visitors Committee uses lodging tax money to market Seward County. Clark Kolterman, head of the Visitors Committee, said the committee thought the billboard was a good investment.
“It’s a fun look at Seward County and promoting family orientated fun,” he said.
Kolterman said they hope to continue with the billboard and even thought of having a look-a like contest with the mom on the billboard.
Gligorevic said SCCDP also plans to keep in the mom-approved theme for marketing and make a full campaign out of it.
The billboard showcases the website momlovesseward.com. The website currently takes users to the SCCDP site, but will soon direct to the brand new Seward tourism site that Mueller is also designing. Kolterman said the new site should be unveiled at the end of October.
