POCATELLO — It’s official: Pocatello no longer has the worst city flag in North America.

Several dozen Pocatello residents fronted the cold winds Tuesday during the city of Pocatello’s flag raising ceremony, during which a color guard crew raised a new American flag and the new city flag to the top of the flagpoles in front of Pocatello City Hall.

“I will not be sad to see the old one go — this new one is definitely an improvement,” said Heidi Adamson, a member of the Pocatello City Council. “When I first saw the new flag, I have to be honest and say that it wasn’t my favorite. But the more I’ve been exposed to what the community is working on and the more I’ve see everyone rally behind and get excited about it, I’ve really come around.”

When podcast host Roman Mars’ announced during a TED Talk that the North American Vexillological Association declared the old flag — which incorporated both copyright and trademark symbols — the worst city flag on the continent, it sparked the initial interest to change flag designs.

“It violates all the principles of good flag design,” said Greg Gunter, whose marketing business created the artwork for the old flag as a logo for a city pride campaign back in 2000, after which somebody literally ran it up the flag pole.

Pocatello resident Kasi Beorchia said that when she watched this TED Talk, she immediately wanted to do something about it.

“I jumped on Facebook and asked who wanted to do something about this with me,” Beorchia said. “There were several that jumped on board, and in fact five of them joined the committee to get to work.”

After a supporting vote from Mayor Brian Blad and the City Council, two groups formed in 2016 to begin designing a new city flag, the ad-hoc design committee and an expert committee composed of local and national experts in design, history, vexillology, advertising and art.

In total, the ad-hoc committee sorted through more than 700 design submissions that were received from as close to home as Pocatello and as far away as Australia.

“It was so surreal,” Beorchia said about watching the raising of the new flag. “It’s been two years since we watched the video, so it seems crazy that this is actually happening.”

The chosen design titled, “Mountains Left,” holds much symbolism for the city of Pocatello. The three red mountains stand for the three prominent peaks in Pocatello: Scout Mountain, Kinport Peak and Chinese Peak. The peaks also stand for the three peaks, or pillars, of Pocatello’s economy: education, industry and recreation.

The blue line across the bottom and under the mountains represents the Portneuf River. The golden compass rose represents both direction and also reflect the city’s leading role in transportation and trade. The colors also hold meaning: white for the snowy mountain peaks, blue representing the sky and river, gold representing agricultural ties and red as a subtle tribute to Red Hill in Pocatello.

The price to replace the Pocatello flag? A whopping total of $234. A price that Blad said was well worth it.

“It’s amazing how much money we spent on this project,” Blad said. “I have to tell you, it’s incredible how much we spent. It was a grand total of $234.06, so it’s great to have this kind of an outcome for that amount of money.”

Logan McDougall, the chair of the ad-hoc committee and spokesman for the city of Pocatello, said that interested citizens can purchase their own city flag from the Pocatello-Chubbuck Chamber of Commerce for the price of $50.

Also, Bill Stanton of the ad-hoc committee purchased several patches, pins and bumper stickers depicting the city flag, which can be purchased by emailing his wife, Natalie, at chacofeet@gmail.com.

“Again, the committee really did a phenomenal job on selecting this design,” Adamson said. “I think it turned out to be a bigger project than they expected, but I really have to hand it to them — they did a great job.”