The Signs We Build and the Stories They Tell

Oh, billboards.

In the ’60s, my grandfather started leasing land and building signs to advertise our Ramada Inn and Jerry’s in Elizabethtown. Then he added a few more for Cracker Barrel and gas stations along the highway. Back then, it was simple, you built a sign, painted it bold, and people pulled over. Easy as that.

Except it wasn’t.

Lady Bird Johnson wanted to “beautify America” and launched the Highway Beautification Act. It sounded lovely on paper, but it ended up making things tricky for states like Kentucky, which relied heavily on highway funds. Decades later, that act is now defunct, the federal government actually owes Kentucky about a million dollars, and we’re still navigating some of the toughest sign regulations around.

I’ve joked that when I tell people I’m in the billboard business, I feel like that tea towel I once saw in college: “Don’t tell my mom I sell real estate. She still thinks I play piano in a whorehouse.”

Billboards work. I know that. We’ve done the studies. I’ve seen it firsthand. And yes, I once put myself on a billboard a mile from an ex-boyfriend’s house so he’d have to look at my face every day for six months. (He made my son cry. That’s another story for another day.)

When people asked why I was on a billboard in Glasgow, Kentucky, I asked why they were. “We’ve got a lake house at Barren,” they said. Exactly.

We underestimate how many people pass through this corner of the state every single day.

Still, I do think we’ve made things harder than they need to be. Somewhere along the line, “standards” turned into a stack of red tape. Signs are meant to help people find what they’re looking for, a warm meal, a small business, a place to stay, not to clutter the landscape. When they’re done right, they add to the character of a place, not take away from it.

I get it. No one wants ugly signs or bad design. But I also think we forget how much a simple sign can mean to someone trying to keep their doors open. Those of us who build them just want the chance to make something that looks good and does good.

Because here’s the thing: a billboard can be beautiful. The creative should be as thoughtful as the website you click on after you see it. But too many local ads are just a face on a board. That’s not storytelling, that’s just standing there.

Whatever happened to clever? To funny? To something that makes you feel? There’s real art and science behind what catches the eye and stays in your mind.

When it’s done right, a sign isn’t just advertising, it’s a piece of local culture.

At the end of the day, I hope the signs I’ve built have done more than sell something. I hope one of them made somebody stop, learn about someone they didn’t know existed, visit a place they’d never heard of, or smile at a line that made them think.

If I’ve done that, built something worth looking at and raised a few kids who make this world better, then I’ve left Kentucky a little better than I found it.

—Laura

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