UNT students vying to “Keep Denton Chido”

by Addley Fannin of of North Texas Daily

DENTON — What started out as a casual idea between two NT seniors turned into a citywide campaign in support of small businesses.

The "Keep Denton Chido" slogan, which can be seen on T-shirts and stickers throughout Denton, was created by interdisciplinary studies senior Mickey Moreno and geography senior David Sisuentes in an effort to promote the independent groups they feel make Denton special.

"Denton is a cool little town," Sisuentes said. "We need to keep people aware of how the whole space that Denton was known for is gone. It's to keep awareness and not let small businesses die, keep the 'mom-and-pop' shops around."

The campaign started while Moreno and Sisuentes were both attending summer classes and living in their Sigma Lambda Beta fraternity house.

Though both are natives of Fort Worth, Moreno had been coming to Denton with family for half a decade and told Sisuentes about what the city was like before the historic Fry Street area was torn down in June 2007.

"I remember what Fry Street used to be like really well," Moreno said. "I told David about what happened, and he was like, 'Man, someone should do something about that.'"

After some discussion, the pair created a slogan inspired by the "Keep Austin Weird" campaign, which promotes a similar pro-small business stance in the state capital.

The word "chido," a Spanish slang term that means "cool" in a very broad sense, was chosen because the term can be used to describe many things that are unusual.

"It's a real versatile word," Sisuentes said. "You can use it for basically anything, but its main purpose is cool or unique. It's just a unique word that really describes a certain state of mind."

Moreno and Sisuentes had the message printed on an order of T-shirts, which they then began selling to friends and associates.

"We started with 20 T-shirts, and we ended up selling them within a week just our friends," Moreno said. "So we made 20 more, and they were gone in two days. Next thing we knew, people we didn't know were wearing them because people were buying them and handing them out."

The message quickly spread in ways the creators did not expect.

"When people started wanting stickers as much as the shirts, they started making them themselves and sticking them up," Moreno said. "It was a form of graffiti, and I didn't really support it because of that, but it was really cool to see my stickers around."

Now, the slogan has inspired several different designs of stickers as well as a variety of T-shirts, and both a MySpace page and a Facebook group have been dedicated to spreading the message throughout the community, as well as informing people about unusual businesses in town.

"I went around asking business to put them on the page, so that people will know about the Denton art side and the bar scene and stuff," Moreno said. "I'm thinking about creating a better Web site for Keep Denton Chido, depending on how many people like the MySpace page."

Through the Web sites, the T-shirts and slogan stickers are still present throughout the small business area, and Sisuentes and Moreno hope that their message will reach out to the heart of Denton residents.

"The goal is really to save Denton's soul," Moreno said. "We just want to support awareness about what's going on, and make sure that everyone always remembers to keep Denton chido."

For more information on Keep Denton Chido, visit myspace.com/keepdentonchido.

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