Last year, Texas citizens said yes to a colorful new license plate to replace the current design introduced nine years ago.
  The new plate—the Lone Star Texas—took the top spot last February among five designs that were posted online for public viewing and voting. It features the big Texas sky with wide brushes of blue and red, the familiar Lone Star, and the mountains of West Texas.
   But, don’t run out and purchase the new plates just yet. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is encouraging residents of Trinity County to be good environ-mental stewards. Don’t buy new plates until your old plates have expired.  License plates are good for seven years. If you wait, you get the new plates at no additional charge.
   Texans loved the designs. TxDOT received e-mails from close to 10,000 citizens explaining why they voted for a particular design, and thanking the agency for giving them the opportunity to choose. The citizens of this state spoke with 1.1 million e-Votes, 455,878 of those cast for the Lone Star Texas.
   This is also the first of the new seven-character combina-tions. TxDOT has finally exhausted the alpha-numeric license plate patterns for the current six-character version. It’s the perfect time to introduce a new plate design.
  More importantly, the citizens spoke. The result is the Lone Star Texas plate—coming soon to our county tax office and our designated locations for handling titles, registration, and renewal.
  Go to www.txdot.gov for more information.