GTE used to be a household acronym in much of rural Iowa; it was the phone company. At the turn of the 21st century, GTE’s Iowa assets were sold to Iowa Network Services, which within a year turned into Iowa Telecom. Iowa Telecom, in turn, got eaten up by Windstream in 2010.
But also spotted this month was one that’s making a Logan’s Run-esque escape from the authorities: a light-blue embossed numbers-first CTY. This plate would have been issued in Tama County in April 1997, making it old enough to buy a lottery ticket soon.
(I miss when counties got substantial blocks instead of a couple thousand at a time.)