Favorite Herky chosen: C(Herk)itry voted clear favorite

Thousands of votes were cast in the Press-Citizen's online contest to choose your favorite Herky on Parade, and we have a winner.

C(Herk)itry, created by Jason Soliday, was the runaway winner in the final round, with 3,043 votes. Coming in a distant second was Marching Band Herky, with 1,470 votes.

Soliday, in his 21st year as an art specialist with Des Moines Public Schools at East High School, will receive a miniature set of all 83 Herky on Parade statues, courtesy of the Iowa City/Coralville Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Soliday is a University of Iowa alumnus and former Hawkeye football letter winner. He worked closely with Dr. Kartik Reddy, who sponsored C(Herk)itry in honor of his father, a professor in the UI College of Engineering. Kartik's goal was to incorporate imagery related to his father's work in VLSI Circuit Design, as well as to create a superhero feel. Soliday used a circuit theme, included the Tiger Hawk logo, a block "I" and a representation of Sudakhar Reddy's face.

In another contest based on selfies with the Herky statues, which we called "Herkyandme," we received 115 photo submissions from Twitter and sent to us via email. A random number was selected and matched with the winner, a photo with "Big Foot Herky," submitted by Mary Kenyon. Kenyon also will receive a miniature set of Herky on Parade statues.

View those galleries below. If you want to keep submitting your Herky selfies we'll keep uploading them. Send them to online@press-citizen.com.