Enter
the Hoosier Gazette Indiana tattoo design contest
By Josh
Whicker, Editor
January 30, 2005
Sometime during the spring
semester of my senior year in high school, I rode with friend Casey Kostrebski
to Henderson, Kentucky where we visited Different Shades, a tattoo parlor
just across the river from my hometown of Evansville. This was when one had to
leave the state to have their body adorned with permanent works of art.
Casey had been talking for
months about getting a tattoo of Garfield on the small of his back, and I just
wanted to go along and see what getting a tattoo was like. Being the
spontaneous person I can sometimes be, I saw a design of a panther tattoo that I
liked (my high school is the Reitz Panthers) and decided to go ahead and get
it.
One-and-a-half hours and
$70 later, I had a stalking panther adorning my left deltoid. Casey watched in
horror as I received my tat, and after almost fainting decided he would come
back another day.
To his credit, months
later he did go back to get a horny toad inked on his upper back.
I also got my first name
tattooed on my right bicep one day while in college—once again I just went in to
look and suddenly decided “What the heck?” It couldn’t really make me any
uglier.
It has been almost ten
years since I got my second tattoo. It is about time to get another.
After thinking long and
hard about it for the last fifteen minutes, I decided it would be cool to get a
Indiana-related tattoo since I spend the better part of just about every Sunday
afternoon writing satire about the Hoosier State.
Since I don’t know of any
tattoo artists that specialize in Indiana-related tattoos, I decided to have a
tattoo design contest to see what you folks out there can come up with.
For the next ten weeks,
send in your Indiana-related tattoo designs to
editor@hoosiergazette.com with
your name and address. I will judge all submissions and pick the one I like the
best on April 11. The winner will receive a Hoosier Gazette t-shirt and have
their tattoo-design posted on our home page for all to appreciate. I will also
have this design permanently etched into my right deltoid. Like I said, it
really can’t make me any uglier. My wife isn’t thrilled though.
