COUNTY NEWS RELEASE

You might recognize the utility emojis used by the Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities (DPU) —there’s the lightbulb one (electric), the blue flame one (gas), the droplet one (water) and the poop one (sewer)—but now you can start calling them by their names. The icons have been officially dubbed Blinky, Toasty, Droppy and Duke!

DPU asked the public to enter its emoji naming contest earlier this month in the hope that giving the little guys monikers might make them even more memorable. Almost 60 citizens of all ages responded with names for one or more of the emojis. After eight days, the contest closed and the six-member judging panel had a list of 221 names to pore over for the four little utility reps.

And the winners are: Verena Geppert with the name Blinky for electric, Matthew Muñoz with the name Toasty for natural gas, Tanya Goehring with the name Droppy for water and Los Alamos High School student Emily Baca with the name Duke for sewer. All winners were awarded ornaments featuring the emoji they named and a bag full of other emoji goodies, energy conservation kits, water bottles and more.

Now that these little mascots have official names, be sure to look for them more in the new year!