When the Packers signed Brett Favre in 1992, Phillip Purpero, a grading contractor from Milwaukee, was so moved that he took a trip to the nearest Department of Motor Vehicles. There, he filled out an application and a few months later got his FAVRE vanity license plate in the mail. Six years later, Purpero applied for a second plate honoring the quarterback, this time for his daughter. He wanted FAVRE4, but that had already been taken, so he settled for 4FAVRE.
But over time, Purpero grew tired of people lurking around his car in the Kohl’s grocery store parking lot, wondering whether he was Favre’s father. So, after 13 years, he passed the honor (and burden) on to his son-in-law.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, there are more than 150,000 vanity license plates registered in Wisconsin, including many with a Packer-related personalized message. In August 1994, the DOT announced that new plates would carry seven letters, as opposed to the previous six. This in turn meant that one lucky person would have the opportunity to sport the word “Packers” on the bumper of his or her vehicle.
On the first day the DOT began accepting the seven-letter plate applications, 22 applicants had already put in for PACKERS. The first application opened was from Alan Cherkasky, a doctor who lives in Kaukauna. Cherkasky has renewed it annually ever since. Two years ago, he ordered a duplicate plate and gave it to the Packers Hall of Fame. He says he’d consider selling his original, “but my asking price would be huge.” As of now, says Cherkasky, there have been no offers.
Much like the act of willing season tickets, a number of Packers plate owners say they plan to pass their tags down to family members. Collette McFarlane, 79, who has had season tickets for 40 years, plans to give her plate, GBPACK, to her nephew, along with her seats. Still others say they’d sell their plates to the highest bidder.
While renewal of a license plate is required annually, a personalized message stays in the holder’s name for two years after the last renewal. A person can continuously renew that plate for as long as they are registered to drive.
Danny Rozmenoski, an employee at Ho-Chunk Casino, knew someone from Black River Falls who owned the license plate THEPACK. He offered to buy his friend’s car to get the plates but was turned down. Eventually, the friend handed over rights to the name for $100. Rozmenoski now boasts THEPACK on his blue Ford Explorer and doubts he’d ever let it go. “If you offered me $5,000,” he says, “I still wouldn’t take it.”
With most of the Packers references taken, some fans have opted to jab at the neighboring purple pride. Jeff Cunningham, a police of-ficer from Stoughton, decided to give the Minnesota Vikings fans living next door a “good-natured rubbing” and stuck H8VKGS on the back of his tan minivan. But amid the post-9/11 fury of worry, the DOT decided to pull any plates incorporating the word “hate.” Cunningham received notification from the DOT that they would be revoking his registration. When he explained that the plate was directed to a football team and was “all in good fun,” the department allowed him to keep it.
Recalls DOT official Paul Bernander: “A meeting of upper-level management determined that as long as it wasn’t directed toward an ethic group, he would be allowed to keep it, because when used for pro sports, it is used as humor.”
And because we all really do H8 the VKGS.
