Dr. Loyke with sign: Lehigh’s retired Dr. Hubert Loyke stands next to one of the new Welcome to Lehigh signs to be erected at an entrance to Lehigh. It was Loyke who first noticed that the original welcome sign on Lee Blvd. had been removed and came up with a plan to help the Chamber to come up with new signs. See cu.lehighacrescitizen.com to see more photos of the celebration. Photo by Mel Toadvine

The “battle of the signs” has ended in Lehigh and the Chamber of Commerce has come out the winner. The so-called battle, according to Lee County Commissioner Frank Mann, started just before he was elected three years ago.

The Welcome sign to Lehigh Acres on Lee Blvd. on the west end of town had suddenly disappeared and members of the community wanted to know if it had been stolen or what.

“The county’s department of transportation removed the sign because as they said, it was not being maintained and was in bad condition,” Mann said.

It’s taken three years to get a new sign to be put back at nearly the same place, he said, and now both sides of the fight have come together. In fact, the community’s getting six Welcome to Lehigh signs and last week, they decided to celebrate the occasion in front of their offices in the Towne Centre shopping center on the corner of Homestead and Alabama Roads.

How do you celebrate new signs? The Chamber decided to have a couple of ribbon cuttings in front of one of the new signs.

Worked to get new signs: Shown here at a ribbon cutting to celebrate the new Welcome to Lehigh signs are from left, Damon Shelor, Edd Weiner, Myra Kessler, John Miller, Dr. Hubert Loyke and Oliver Conover. They served on a committee to bring about new signs to Lehigh. A second ribbon cutting exercise was also done to include others at the celebration at the Chamber office. See cu.lehighacrescitizen.com to see more photos. Photo by Mel Toadvine

On hand were several people in the community who had gone to bat for the Chamber.

One of those was the man who started it all, according to Oliver Conover, who was the Chamber’s executive director at the time of the sign’s disappearance. It was Ollie Conover who made calls to the county demanding to know why Lehigh’s welcome sign had been removed. But as he puts it, it became a fight between him and the transportation department. They were not going to replace it and if Lehigh wanted signs, the Chamber would have to provide them and it would have to go up the channels to get final approval from the County Commission. What upset Conover, he said, was that the Chamber was not warned that county transportation officials were going to take the sign down and take it to where old signs goes and Conover didn’t know where that was.

Conover said that retired Dr. Hubert Loyke of Lehigh came to his office and told him the sign was gone. But he had a plan about getting new signs and how they should be designed. Loyke is a volunteer physician for the Senior Friendship Centers of Lee County and has been a resident of Lehigh for 16 years. He is also a medical adviser to the American Red Cross of Lee County. He was in private practice for 48 years in Cleveland, Ohio.

Commissioner Mann said the issue slapped him in the face after he was elected and he immediately tried to mediate between Conover and the Chamber and the county employees who tore the sign down, the county’s transportation department, who said it was an eyesore and the Chamber was not maintaining the sign. For many at the time, the sign didn’t seem to have any visual problems. Thousands of people drove past it every day and nobody ever complained locally about its condition, Conover said at the time.

Mann talked and talked to both sides, as he put it, and finally came up with a solution: The Chamber would buy signs and maintain them, but they couldn’t depend on the county to help pay for them.

Joe Whalen, the present CEO and president of the Chamber, said the cost for six new signs had a price tag of $5,500 and the money was raised by local clubs.

According to a news release put out by the Chamber, officials said “the signs are the result of years of planning and work by the Lehigh Acres Chamber of Commerce, Lehigh Acres Community Planning Corp., and Keep Lehigh Acres Beautiful Inc. In addition to these organizations,the Lee County Department of Transportation, Lee County Traffic Division as well as the Legal Department of the county were involved in the project before it was presented to the county Board of Commissioners for approval.”

There was no mention of what Mann called a real battle and he talked about it when the Chamber celebrated the new signs last week.

Each of the six signs will have the image of the famous “cookie” icon located at the intersection of Homestead Rd. and Lee Blvd.

According to Chamber officials, the signs will be located at Lee Blvd and Leonard Blvd., Gunnery Rd and SR82, Joel Blvd. entrance from Alva, Alabama Rd and SR82 and Sunshine Blvd. and SR82.

Two of the signs (Gunnery/SR 82 and Lee Blvd., and Leonard Blvd.) will thank motorists for visiting Lehigh on their reverse sides. Each sign has at least one sponsor to underwrite its cost. The sponsors are: First National Bank of the Gulf Coast, Majestic Golf Club, Mike Arcentales/State Farm Insurance, the Rotary Club of Lehigh Acres, the Kiwanis Club of Lehigh Acres, CenturyLink and AIM Engineering. Those on the Lehigh Acres Welcomes You signs committee included Oliver Conover, Myra Kessler, Dr. Hubert Loyke, John Miller, Damon Shelor and Edd Weiner. The signs were made by Steve Hunt of Artype.

“It was a hornet’s nest that I inherited and it took a lot of back and forth negotiations to make everyone happy, but make both sides happy we did,” Mann told The Citizen.

“And its a great way to promote Lehigh, a great city that’s really not a city because it’s not incorporated,” Mann said.

The Chamber wants to put up a sign on Buckingham and Alvin Drive and is looking for a sponsor. It you would like to help, give the Chamber a call.