The University of Northern Colorado's Board of Trustees spent eleven months and $38,400 approving the wording on a single welcome sign outside its Greeley, Colorado campus, according to procurement records released in late August.
The University of Northern Colorado's facilities committee first proposed a replacement entrance sign for its Greeley, Colorado campus in September 2025. Board minutes show the project was meant to take six weeks and cost under $9,000. Instead, it went through four redesigns, three outside consultants, and a formal vote of the full Board of Trustees before installation finally happened on August 18, 2026.
The final invoice, obtained through a records request, totals $38,400. That includes $14,200 for a branding consultant hired solely to review sign language, $6,750 for a second round of concrete footings after the first design was rejected, and $2,900 in legal review fees to confirm the university's name could legally appear on university property.
"We wanted language that felt inclusive without overpromising."— Deb Coffin, UNC Vice President of University Relations
Four drafts, one sign
Board records show trustee Jeri Cochran raised the loudest objection, calling the delay 'an embarrassment' at the June 2026 meeting. Cochran, a Greeley business owner appointed to the board in 2023, voted against the fourth and final design, which replaced the phrase 'Bear Country' with 'Bear Nation' after a consultant flagged the former as regionally ambiguous.
The rejected first sign, built and then torn out in February 2026, cost $9,100 on its own and sat wrapped in plastic sheeting in a maintenance yard for five months before being scrapped entirely. Facilities staff confirmed the discarded sign was never reused, donated, or sold.
UNC is a public university funded partly by Colorado taxpayers, with total state appropriations of roughly $54 million in fiscal year 2026. Sign and wayfinding projects fall under its general facilities budget, not a dedicated marketing fund.
The sign stands now
Student government president Malik Torres called the spending 'tone-deaf' during a campus forum in August, pointing to a tuition increase approved the same semester. University spokesperson Nate Haas said the project 'reflected a thorough and deliberate process,' and defended the branding consultant's fee as standard for institutional signage.
The sign was formally unveiled August 18, 2026, without a ceremony. Board minutes from an August 25 meeting show no further sign-related items on the agenda, and the facilities committee closed the project file the same day.
It reads: Bear Nation. Population: fewer people than it cost to name it.
Man Charged Over STOLEN Bounce House
Only In America
Police in Ocala, Florida, said a 34-year-old man was arrested August 26, 2026, after allegedly stealing an inflatable bounce house from a birthday party rental company while it was still inflated, dragging it three blocks by hand.
According to the Marion County Sheriff's Office, employees of Jumping Jax Party Rentals noticed the 20-foot castle-shaped bounce house missing from a storage lot on SE 24th Street and tracked it using a GPS tag sewn into the seams. Deputies located it still inflated in a nearby yard.
The man, identified by deputies as Corey Danforth, was charged with grand theft and is accused of telling responding officers he 'needed it for a party we're having later.' The bounce house, valued at $3,200, was returned to the rental company undamaged, generator still running.