Another name for Valdosta

Published 11:01 pm Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Valdosta becoming TitleTown USA has been an exciting new chapter in the lore of our town. TitleTown USA is something that pulled Valdosta and Lowndes County together. Something to make us all proud.

And it gives Valdosta a new nickname in a town that loves nicknames almost as much as it loves winning championships.

TitleTown USA seems the perfect complement to Valdosta’s nickname of Winnersville, which also reflects the region’s ability to have championship seasons.

TitleTown USA also joins the Valdosta nickname of the Azalea City, which reflects the number of colorful azalea blooms decorating our town each spring. Valdosta has also, at times, been designated as a Tree City USA, because of our fine trees.

A more recent moniker attached to Valdosta was the now rarely seen Valdosta: The Town Where There Are No Strangers. Now, we have Valdosta: A City Without Limits.

A hundred years ago, Valdosta had flowery nicknames such as “Georgia’s Garden of Eden,” “the Jewel of South Georgia,” “Queen City of Southwest Georgia,” the “Blossom Among the Pines,” and the “Busiest Little City of Them All.”

Perhaps, another nickname should be Valdosta: A Town Known By Many Aliases.

Now, Valdosta has added TitleTown USA to both its list of accomplishments and its aliases.

As TitleTown, can we be called TitleTownians as well as Valdostans? Or would it be TitleTownites? How about TitleTowners? Or maybe TitleTownizens?

In this age of abbreviating things, will we soon refer to TitleTown as “TT USA”? Mmm, maybe not. Possibly “Double T USA,” though that sounds more like something on the tag of an extra-large T-shirt, and it doesn’t really making saying TitleTown USA any shorter.

Though there is one thing, we’ve learned long ago, winning titles takes hard work and dedication. Winning the title of TitleTown USA took hard work and dedication. Some folks spent their work hours last week voting non-stop for Valdosta on the ESPN Web site.

A lot of much larger cities probably thought they had the title of TitleTown in the bag without working for it. These bigger cities seemed to believe they were EntitledTown USA, but a sense of entitlement didn’t earn them the title.



Dean Poling is The Valdosta Daily Times assistant managing editor.