Tom Tolen / news@whmi.com

Perhaps you’re not aware of it, but those five snowplows plying the streets of Brighton these days, keeping roads clear of snow, all have names. For the second year in a row, the city held a contest in which residents were invited to name the snowplows that keep city streets safe and free of snow accumulation during the grueling winter months.

City Department of Services Director Marcel Goch, in giving credit to City Clerk Tara Brown for the idea, says that staff thought a snowplow naming contest would be a neat activity and add a little levity to the normally dull, drab, dreary doldrums of the long winter months. Goch said, "It was felt it would be a fun thing to do to get the community involved in a naming contest.”

This year's results were inventive, to say the least, and a few of them were outright amusing. The winning entries were Taylor Drift (named after mega-star singer Taylor Swift), Darth Blader (for the evil character Darth Vader in Star Wars), Plowzilla (named after the movie monster Godzilla), Alice Scooper (named for Alice Cooper, the famous Detroit rock singer) and The Big Leplowski (named after the main character in a gangster movie).

Goch says a few of the names submitted had to be eliminated because they violated community standards, or, as he puts it, “were inappropriate.”

The city solicited submissions and, after the results were in, there were about 50 entries in all. Staff then put their collective heads together and came up with the winning five submissions — one for each city snowplow.

Goch says there were no prizes awarded since the contest was just for the fun of it…but those who submitted the winning names have the satisfaction of knowing the name they submitted now adorns a city snowplow truck.