Orange County's flag

Orange County flag design, submitted by Laura Shernaman and official adopted by the Board of Supervisors

The Orange County flag was officially adopted by the Orange County Board of Supervisors on December 11, 1968. It was designed by local 11th grader Laura Shernaman (now Laura Berry) and was first flown at the opening of the new Orange County Courthouse on Jan. 10, 1969. It features the county logo with – as the Board put it – “an emblazoned sun centered in a field of Orange.”

The flag began with a contest, announced by the Board of Supervisors in June 1968. The rules, published in local newspapers and distributed by the County Schools Office, began:

1. Any student who has been enrolled during the school year of 1967-1968 in either senior high school or junior college in Orange County may enter.
2. Designs may cover a space of 6" by 9".
3. They may be done on paper or illustration board with any painting medium.
4. The design must incorporate the official county seal (sic). A copy of this may be seen in full color at the Orange County Schools Office, 1104 W. Eighth St., Santa Ana, Room 201.
5. By July 22 all entries must be in the office of John McDonough [at the]... County Schools Office...

Laura with her art teacher, Larry Otterline, and her the artwork she submitted (From Los Angeles Times, 12-12-1968)

Apparently, it didn't immediately dawn on the Supervisors that most students aren't in class in June and July. Ultimately, the contest deadline was extended. Final selection among the eight finalists, out of 80 entries, didn't occur until December.

Those finalists were Charmaine Henderson of Corona del Mar High School; Stanley Weber of Garden Grove; Susan Blacketer and Salli Shattuck of Laguna Beach; Rob Sanders and Christopher Runco of La Habra, and Dennis Baxter and Laura Shernaman of Fountain Valley High School. 

Laura with her flag design. (Photo courtesy Fountain Valley Historical Society)

Shernaman, a Junior, had arrived at FVHS as one of its first class of Freshman when it opened in 1966. A normal teenager, Laura was into roller-skating and dance, but wasn’t a big fan of school. “I was shy,” she said. “My parents were very strict and I mostly kept to myself. But I was on the swim team and I hung out at the beach with my best friend.” 

Despite her other interests, “Art is my first love," she said at the time. And in an era when the local schools offered abundant elective options, she signed up for as many art classes as she could. Her favorite was ceramics, but it was in her Commercial Art Class teacher, Lawrence Verle "Larry" Otterline, who brought the contest to her attention. She came up with four or five designs, showed them to Otterline, and together they chose the one that seemed the best for submission. 

The design Laura submitted was clean and eye-catching, with the logo in the center, backed by rays of sunshine and an orange field. “The orange [color] and the sun just made sense,” she said.

Larry Otterline in 1970. As an art prodigy at Long Beach Polytechnic High School, he won a scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago from which he graduated despite some time off when he enlisted in the Navy.

Speaking of the sun,… Back then, Laura went by the nickname Suni, pronounced “Sunny.” “I had a sunny disposition and I loved the sun. I went to the beach a lot, tried my hand at surfing, and so on. I guess it was my spirit name.” So, although it was indeed an accurate representation of Orange County’s famous climate, the sun was also a recurring motif in Laura’s life.

All told, eighty submissions were received from students throughout the county. County officials, working under Superintendent Robert Peterson and Assistant Superintendent, P. E. consultant, and NFL referee John Thomas “Mac” McDonough, Jr., narrowed the field down to eight. From those eight, the Board of Supervisors would make the final selection.

John T. McDonough, Jr. (Photo courtesy Joel McDonough, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Laura recalled attending the Dec. 11, 1968, Board of Supervisors meeting, accompanied by Mr. Otterline. Laura wore a bright orange minidress and matching orange shoes, accordant with the flag she’d submitted. She expected only to be recognized as one of the finalists. Instead, the Board announced her as the winner, officially declared her design the county’s official flag, and dubbed her "Orange County's modern-day Betsy Ross."

Shocked, she told them, "I didn't know I was the winner," and then, "Thank you." 

Laura received no money or scholarship for her accomplishment but was invited to the “dedication of the flag at the new courthouse,” she said, referring to the Richard Neutra-designed Central Justice Center (1969), which was the new focal point of the young Santa Ana Civic Center. The flag was first flown at that ceremony on January 10, 1969, at 3:00 p.m.

“They gave me a plaque,” she remembers. “There was a dinner dance with the Board of Supervisors, and Mom bought me a nice dress. I went to the dance with a guy named Pete.”

Copy of framed certificate presented to Laura Shernaman by the O.C. Board of Supervisors

Soon after, the County gave one flag to each city within its boundaries. The flag also was occasionally given as a gift for various organizations being honored by individual Supervisors. Initially, the flag was to be "reserved for special occasions and will be displayed in the foyer of the courthouse." It wasn't until February 15, 1972 that the Board authorized the display of the Orange County flag at all County functions.

The first few flags were made as a custom job by Hortie-Van Manufacturing Co. of Pasadena at $215 apiece. According to local historian Jason Scultz, Hortie-Van was also the official flag, pennant and bunting manufacturer for Disneyland, the Tournament of Roses Parade, a couple World Fairs, and more. They also installed flagpoles, including, in 1965, one of the tallest in the world – 155 feet (possibly 157 1/2 feet) – at the Town & Country development in Orange.

The first appearance of the first Orange County flag, 1969. (O.C. Register)

Fountain Valley High School flew the new Orange County flag for a week and asked Laura to paint a second, larger version of her flag design so they could display it in a hallway on campus. Her first painting of the flag, which she submitted to the County, is still held by the Orange County Archives today. 

In 1970, Laura was again invited to take part in the dedications of the Laguna Niguel Courthouse (March 1970) and the North Orange County Judicial District Courthouse in Fullerton (January 1970), she was also a special guest at a number of other community events. 

Later photo of Laura with her second painting of the flag (Courtesy Fountain Valley Historical Society)

Laura liked Fountain Valley when she lived there “because it wasn’t citified yet,” she said. “My family lived in a tract off Brookhurst and Ellis, with Hunt’s tomato fields all around us. But then the industrial parks started moving in and that’s about when I left.”

It’s perhaps fitting that one of the last people to thus value the original, agricultural, “classic” version of Orange County would be the one to design its flag. The logo on that flag captures that old Orange County, with citrus groves and a view of Old Saddleback.

Laura presents flag to presiding judge Logan Moore at the dedication of the Fullerton courthouse, 1970 (Anaheim Bulletin)

Laura married in 1971 – a year after graduating from FVHS. She and her husband lived in Costa Mesa for a short time before heading to Arizona for while and then heading out to live among the mountains and forests in a truck with a camper shell. “I got into nature and didn’t want to raise kids in the city. I was into John Denver at the time. We ended up in Arizona and Colorado and I painted everywere we went.” 

She later ended up in Mariposa, California, near Yosemite, and now lives in a cabin on a forty-acre homestead in the woods of Humboldt, California.

Dedication of the Laguna Niguel courthouse, 1970 (San Clemente Sun Post News) 

Laura appreciates the recognition that her flag still occasionally brings. 

“I’m honored,” she said, “and I still feel a connection.”

“I was in Beliize for Christmas once, with a couple of my kids, and we were visiting Mayan ruins, 35 miles up a river. My kids climbed a huge pyramid there. While climbing, my son was bragging to a tourist that I had designed Orange County’s flag. The word got around our tour group and people were treating me like a celebrity!”

Today, in Humboldt, Laura has a lot of friends. She sells sourdough bread at farmers markets, sells organic natural supplements, and still sells the occasional commissioned painting. 

A recent, altered version of the flag, with spindly sun rays.

Today, flag makers often heavily alter the original wavy sawtooth pattern of the sun’s rays. 

“I did it more like a sawblade,” she said, but she doesn’t mind the modern versions with the pointier, zig-zaggier sun rays, which she says looks nice also. “I like the way they changed it.”

She is less than happy, however, with recent versions of the flag that have no sun on them at all – just the logo on an orange background.

“That’s not my design,” she said. “I’m not sure who did that. The sun’s an important part of it. The sun grows the oranges and it’s Orange County.”

Bogus sunless flag at half-staff, Santa Ana Civic Center, 2018 (Photo by author)

Whether an altered sun or a missing sun -- the flags flying over some county facilities today are not the official county flag as adopted. They aren’t the same flag that has represented Orange County for almost sixty years. Like leaving a stripe off the American flag: It’s still instantly recognizable and most folks will never notice, but it’s not quite the same thing.

But what a fine thing it is to see our own county flag waving in the breeze, beneath or alongside the bear flag and the stars and stripes. 

The actual Orange County flag, flying at the 1984 Olympics Cycling Road Race, Mission Viejo (Courtesy Mission Viejo Library)