Why a Hippo? The story of a story that needed telling

Stories about our communities and the people who live in them can be just as important as the stories of our public servants. So tell those, too

Jun 30, 2023

“People want to feel good about where they live.”

Carlos Salinas shared that gem with me nearly 20 years ago. Carlos was newly elected to the City Council and we were doing a short video profile of him. He was paying a compliment to me and our staff for the video content we produced for Round Rock.

Later that day, I was having a coffee with John Garrett, who was just about to launch Community Impact, a monthly newspaper covering Round Rock and neighboring Pflugerville. He wanted to introduce his paper and share what they were trying to accomplish. His goal was provide residents of these fast-growing communities with articles about new roads, new businesses, new developments and the people making all those things happen. They weren’t going to be City Hall watchdogs but they weren’t doing softball coverage, either. As a former journalist, I appreciated that approach. There was enough interesting, non-controversial things going on in those two towns to make for compelling reading.

I passed along to John what Councilmember Salinas told me just a few hours earlier. I didn’t realize it at the time, but John later told me he took that statement to heart as he and wife Jennifer built what has become the fastest (only?) growing print publication in America. They’re now in 60-plus communities around Texas, delivering their paper to more than 2.5 million households.

So, yes, people feeling good about where they live is a powerful thing. And just like last week’s post about telling the story of your public servants, telling the story of your community and the people who live there is another fundamental of governing well.

Today we’ll share the work of two local governments who have taken community storytelling to the next level. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll wonder why you aren’t telling more of the stories that make people feel good about where they live.

We’ll start with my neighbors to the east, the City of Hutto, Texas, population 30,000 — and climbing. Rapidly. (Its population has tripled over the past 15 years.)

Hutto’s got a lot going for it — a charming downtown (don't even get me started on the Texan Cafe and Pie Shop. Suffice it to say, yes for the love of God and all that’s holy you’ll want your pecan pie à la mode, are you kidding me?), along with ample affordable housing, great schools and easy access to major north-south and east-west toll roads that make getting into Round Rock, Austin and the airport relatively painless.

A few years back, it also had the kind of non-stop political turmoil all the coconut cream pie in Texas can’t overcome. The City endured tremendous issues with mismanagement under prior leadership, which led to lawsuits still under appeal, the City nearly going bankrupt in early 2020, unceremoniously laying off one third of its staff, and an enduring legacy of skepticism among many on the City Council and in the community.

For all the many, many good folks who moved to Hutto, they had to be wondering what in the wide, wide, world of sports was a-goin’ on there. What kind of community had they moved to?

Communications Director Allison Strupeck started at the City after a good chunk of the hubbub had died down, and she’s put together a talented team of content creators who have taken on the hard work of remaking the City’s image.

Most of the content they’re creating is focused on financial and operational issues, and understandably so. But the team decided to tell a community-focused story on the one thing everyone in town agrees on: their love of the hippo.

The hippo has been the Hutto High mascot since the 1920s, according to the Hutto ISD website, hipponation.org. (I love that URL.) To say the community has embraced its hippo-ness is an understatement. There are said to be more than 3,000 concrete hippos around town, painted in all kinds of fun themes. The most famous is the first, Henrietta, a 14,000-pound bellowing beauty just down the block from the Texan Cafe.

Henrietta Hippo by KLB2305 — Henrietta Hippo, always at the ready for your Instagram moment in Hutto.

So why not tell the origin story of how the hippo came to be associated with Hutto? And why not debut that story on World Hippo Day? (Yes, that is a thing.) And why not throw a party while you’re at it at Hutto’s inviting new City Hall? Why not, indeed.

There’s a lot to love about this documentary, but here are my takeaways:

It opens with great footage and interviews gathered at a popular country music festival the City hosts, with real by-God folks wondering how the Hippo mascot came to be, and some offering their recollection of the story. So they introduce the subject matter in a fun way and promote the swinging’ good times at KOKEFEST.
The City worked with Hutto ISD to commission an original song for the film. Composed by a music teacher and recorded for the film by her elementary school students, it got me all in my feels listening to those kids proudly singing about being Hippo Strong.
It’s got a 21 minute, 51 second run time, which is something I normally wouldn’t love, but it works here. Because while they’re telling you the story of the hippo, they’re showing you many facets of the community. Said Allison: “We were thoughtful and intentional in visiting key landmarks in the community and documenting meaningful moments such as the Hutto High School homecoming game and a hippo arts and craft project at a local elementary.”
There’s only one City official interviewed, tourism manager Kristi Barnes. She’s a great ambassador for the community, young and energetic, and says newcomers often try to resist getting sucked into Hippo Nation, but, “It’s not going to work. You will be Hippo-ized, for sure.” I think it was smart to keep electeds and top City administrators out of this piece. They need to be telling different stories, and the City is doing just that with lots of other videos more focused on the nuts and bolts of governing.
Last but certainly not least, I now know this is how they answer the phone at the Hutto chamber: “I love hippos with all my heart, this is the Hutto Chamber of Commerce. How can I help you?”

The film premier packed City Hall, with more than 400 people attending, many of whom had to watch in overflow areas.

“Comments about the film and the event – both on social media and in-person – were almost universally positive,” Allison said. “In the weeks following World Hippo Day, the film racked up nearly 2,700 views on the City’s YouTube — nearly seven times higher than the City’s average viewership — with a Facebook post about the the film amassing nearly 120,000 impressions, again, many times higher than our average engagement.”

The film is now a “must-see movie” for anyone living, working or going to school in Hutto, Allison said. It’s being added to the onboarding process for new staff at the City, and a 4-minute version was created so teachers and businesses have two options for showing it to students and staff.

For this labor of love — you have no idea how many long hours it takes a small team to produce a video of this length and quality — Allison and her team were rewarded with a coveted first-place TAMI Award for the project at the Texas Association of Municipal Information Officers annual conference earlier this month. Bravo, Team Hutto!

More importantly, folks in Hutto feel a little bit better about where they live.

Of course, it’s not all mascots with eyelashes on fleek and adorable kids in our communities. We deal with hurt and heartbreak as well. In Texas, we’ve seen suicide mortality rates increase 36 percent since the year 2000. If your government is providing law enforcement services, it’s something your officers have to deal with regularly.

Suicide is a topic no one wants to talk about. Yet, talk about it we must because we love our communities and have pledged to serve the people who call them home, no matter how difficult. In Plano, Texas, they’re talking about it with grace and power.

Recognizing the impact of suicide on surviving family members, several years ago the county mental health authority, LifePath Systems, added counseling and family support programs to its services. Tragically, the program has been underutilized while suicide rates post-pandemic began to increase dramatically. So LifePath asked the City for help telling that story.

The City delivered.

Every Story Matters is a series of PSAs to raise awareness of the counseling and support services. Quite simply, these are among the most enthralling PSAs I’ve ever seen. They are hard to watch and impossible to look away from because they feature surviving family members telling the stories no one wants to ever have to tell.

Shannah Hayley is the City’s Director of Communications and Community Outreach. I’ve known Shannah for years, and she’s as good as anyone in the business of local gov communications. The attention to detail in these videos sets them apart, along with, of course, the courage of the family members willing to share the unthinkable.

“The production used color and lighting as a key element in storytelling,” she said. “The pieces were shot in black and white, with the individual sharing the story of the lost family member. Individuals held a portrait of their loved one to demonstrate the personal value and love for the family member. As individuals shared the help received through LifePath services, the video transitioned to full color. This was to demonstrate that survivors can find a sense of hope and life purpose after the devastating life-changing impact of a family member suicide.”

According to Shannah, the goal of the series was to highlight:

Anyone can be a victim of suicide, for a variety of reasons, to demonstrate the universality of suicide.
Suicide has a negative impact on those left behind, to counteract the message “they will be better off when I’m gone.”
There is hope and healing for those left behind, to encourage individuals to take advantage of resources available to surviving family and friends.

The videos had 1,200 views on the City of Plano’s YouTube, with 11,202 total impressions, and 4,300 views on the City of Plano, LifePath Systems and Plano Police Department’s social channels, with 56,010 total impressions and a 3.4 percent engagement rate.

The series also won a first-place TAMI Award for Plano.

More importantly, LifePath Systems reported increased contacts from the community related to the family support services it provides. What’s not to love about that?

Full disclosure: In my consulting gig with Strategic Government Resources, I helped facilitate some meetings of the City of Plano’s Listening Tour in 2022. Bonus disclosure: I’m going to write about that fantastic project in a series of posts on listening that’ll be coming up in a few weeks.

Next week, we’ll have more great examples of community storytelling, including history lessons and dreams come true. If you’ve got an example of great community storytelling, please share it with me and our growing number of subscribers in the comment section. We’d love to hear from you.