Photo Provided Neil Armstrong, president of the WVU Alumni Association’s Greater Cincinnati/Dayton chapter, poses with a possible version of a WVU license plate on its way to being available in the state of Ohio. Armstrong led the charge to create a bill passed in the Ohio Legislature that makes the plate available.

WHEELING — Neil Armstrong has made it so Ohio residents are able to add a little taste of the Mountain State to their car among the sea of Buckeyes.

Armstrong, a Wheeling native who has lived in Ohio for the last 30 years, has spearheaded the passage of a bill in the Ohio General Assembly that will allow Ohio residents to purchase license plates emblazoned with West Virginia University’s famous “Flying WV” logo.

There are still a couple of steps to go before the plates will be available to buy through the Ohio Department of Motor Vehicles, but he’s confident that they’ll be ready to go by the summer.

The seeds of this idea were planted a few years ago, Armstrong said. His daughter attended the University of Alabama and its Cincinnati alumni chapter was working on getting the Crimson Tide’s logo available on Ohio license plates. Marshall University also got a bill passed allowing for the purchase of plates with the Thundering Herd logo.

Armstrong, now the president of the WVU Alumni Association’s Greater Cincinnati/Dayton chapter, figured if those schools could get their logos on Ohio plates, WVU could, too. So in 2023, Armstrong contacted the office of Ohio State Sen. Steve Wilson, R-Maineville, to see if he would sponsor a bill. Wilson’s office told Armstrong to reach back out in mid-2024.

“So I reach back out and it went silent,” Armstrong said. “I honestly forgot about it. But then, out of the blue, I get an email from his office saying, hey, we’re ready to go. It’s getting voted on in a month.

“It surprisingly wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be,” he added.

The next step, he said, is to get 150 “wet” signatures — actual pen-to-paper signatures — from people who would buy the plate. The demand, he said, would greenlight the production. He already has collected about 60 signatures and has plans to get the word out to get more.

He’ll be working through the WVU Alumni Association to make sure alumni throughout Ohio know about the opportunity. He’ll also collect signatures from those interested at WVU’s men’s basketball game at 2 p.m. Feb. 2 at the University of Cincinnati, as well as at WVU’s 6 p.m. April 1 baseball game at Ohio State.

While 150 signatures is the minimum, Armstrong hopes to get at least 300 by the time the law goes into effect on April 9. When the plate becomes available, it can be selected from the “Organizations” category on the DMV website.

Getting this done makes Armstrong feel good for a couple of reasons. For one, it gives Ohio residents who are WVU alumni or fans another opportunity to show their pride for the Mountaineers. Those folks are always eager to talk West Virginia when they find each other out in public.

“I have four kids and one actually went to WVU,” he said. “But they all know that anytime I’m out and I’m wearing WV anything and I see somebody else with a flying WV on, they know they just lost 15 or 20 minutes of their day.”

But there’s also the opportunity to help Ohio students who want to attend WVU. With each license plate purchased, $25 goes to support West Virginia University scholarships for Ohio residents.

And if enough people sign up, those dollars will add up, Armstrong said.

“Let’s say we get 1,000 plates throughout the state,” he said. “That would be $25,000 a year for scholarships. Add that up over 10 years and it’s $250,000. This is an opportunity to really help students throughout the state, and that was one of the big reasons we wanted to do this.”