Whether you’re sending a text or writing an email, typos can happen to anyone. You rarely see it on a billboard.
One along Highway 97 in near Empire Avenue in Bend caught plenty of attention Monday, encouraging people to “Explore Prinevelle.”
“You could give it a French accent if you wanted to, like ‘Prine-Vellay.’ It’s all where you put the accent, I suppose,” Prineville Chamber of Commerce Board Chair Jeff Fox said.
The typo is easy to miss if you’re not looking closely. There’s an “e” where the “i” should be.
The billboard was meant to generate tourism for the City of Prineville. It was removed Monday afternoon.
“We have that brand new [Prineville] mural that I came by and I thought, ‘I wonder if the artist actually made a mistake there. I had to do a second take to see how it was spelled,” Fox said.
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Boe Brodhun owns The Shop on Nels Anderson Road near the billboard. As a business owner, he understands accidents happen.
“There can be oversight in places, but even with oversight mistakes happen. To me, it’s not a big deal, I hope it gets resolved and it’s a beautiful photo up there. It makes me want to go to Prineville,” Brodhun said.
The City of Prineville partnered with Prineville businesses to buy the ad. A lot of people had to approve it before it was placed along the busy highway.
“It was approved and moved forward, but I think what happened when the company moved it forward to the printer they sent the wrong file that was of a previous one that had not been accepted. Therefore, the spelling mishap was overlooked completely,” Fox said.
Fox says the typo may be a blessing in disguise because of the attention it’s been getting online.
“I wish we could take credit for it being on purpose because sometimes, these are favorable mistakes to have,” Fox said.
Fox says that while it may have been fun to keep the billboard up a bit longer, the billboard company admitted to the mistake. They have replaced it with a Smokey Bear ad.
