OAImages Blog

It’s time to take a break from snowy New England and head to fairer climes.

This is the fifteenth in an ongoing series of posts about state shaped patches. Previous entries have covered state shaped patches from Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia.

It’s turning out to be a bit harder to find true state shaped patches than I thought it would be.   There are a couple of “easy” states with notable state shaped pieces that I have yet to cover but for many states I have had to resort to patches that use the state shape in their design.    Arkansas is another such state.

This is another very short list.  None of the five lodges in Arkansas has issued a patch in the shape of their state.   I, also, have not found the state shape used by any other lodges.  Quapaw 160 is the only lodge to have used this shape in their patch design.

The first patch from Quapaw lodge using Arkansas in its design is a square patch listed in Blue Book as the X4.  It’s pictured at the top of this post.  The patch also shows the lodge’s territory within central Arkansas.  This was issued sometime in the late 1990s.

Quapaw lodge also used the shape of both Arkansas and the lower peninsula of Michigan on their 2006 NOAC flap.   This piece is not yet in Blue Book and I have tentatively labeled it “S27?”.   The state shapes are very small and may not have been readily recognized if not labeled.  The “UPers” of Michigan might be upset that the lodge chose to ignore their part of Michigan in this design.

Maybe sometime soon I’ll finish the drafts for some of the more interesting states… I promise.