I was fortunate to meet Terry Knight when we were both walking in Lakeport one morning.

He is my hero the way he covers the lake and wildlife in his newspaper columns. We frequently crossed paths when we were both involved in Clear Lake Advisory Committee work many moons ago.

One thing we discussed on our walk was the lack of visitors and activity on our lake. We both agreed that the lake has not been properly marketed. As an aside, I had just found out that the Lakeport B of A branch would soon close. Fortunately they are leaving the ATMs at this time.

One can be positive and come up with good things happening around the lake. But in reality, the area is dying on the vine (no pun intended). Positive actions like the improvements to the main streets in Lakeport, Kelseyville, etc., are nice but too little too late.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this county and this lake. And uncontrolled growth is not what any of us want. However, we do need to increase tourism and interest in this region to improve the economic picture for our businesses, our citizens, and for the community in general.

I have pictures of myself in this lake (taken by others as this was before selfies) in the 1940s in one of the wooden boats my Dad used to build. I have seen this lake as some of you have continuously for the last 70 years or so and for about half of that time the lake (economically) has been in decline.

Many of us love it but not enough of us to fuel the economy, to keep the kids interested, to fund lake protection (mussel prevention etc.). We need good brand recognition (e.g. Lake Tahoe) as opposed to only being known for algae, weeds, fish die offs, floods, etc.

Those things will continue, but do you hear much about the weed issues and the algae issues in South Lake Tahoe? No, they do exist but you don’t because their message is more focused on the positive and unique things about “Tahoe” (it is not even necessary to mention it is a lake).

So, back to marketing. Terry and I discussed when the county hired a professional marketing organization to determine what we needed to do to change our image and improve our “brand.”

Their primary piece of advice was to change the name of the lake to Lake Konocti. Most in county government and all the good old boys and gals were either laughing or up in arms. “We paid them all that money to suggest that” was not an unusual comment. Too complicated, too expensive, too ridiculous.

I and several others thought it was brilliant. Terry agreed. I have spent much of my career in marketing roles and changing the name of this lake would be the most effective marketing action possible.

Like Tahoe, it would be unique. It would get widespread press everywhere (assuming the word was spread to all the appropriate media). It would provide a context to explain our volcano, our Native American roots, our unique nutrient rich lake, “the oldest lake in North America finally gets a proper name.”

Clear Lake is common, it is not inspirational, it requires the word “Lake” for context, and it has lots of baggage.

There are 283 Clear Lakes in the USA, two in California (the other California Clear Lake is a reservoir in the Klamath Basin). There are several in nearby Oregon, and several in Canada.

“Konocti,” if properly rolled out, would start the clock over and provide context for our wineries, our unique geography, our lake and all its positive attributes. Algae would be one of the many attributes of our eutrophic lake, not a defining condition.

It truly would be a marketing game changer and if properly executed and exploited it would create interest and excitement we have not witnessed since Interstate 80 allowed easy access to Tahoe.

However, it would be somewhat complicated and there would be costs, of course. Congressman Mike Thompson is probably prepared to proceed as he has been promoting renaming all the military installations in the US that have a name that relates to the Confederate Army such as Fort Bragg the largest military installation in the world. Next in the cross hairs will be our coastal city of Fort Bragg.

If such useless name changes are being considered, why not change the name of a lake to try to save a troubled economy?

The county can keep the same name, all the cities and towns can stay the same, addresses can stay the same, all we have to do is bond our two prized attractions: our mountain and our lake by a simple name change.

The timing is perfect: the new Lake Konocti, the proposed shoreline development in Lakeport, the development being defined for the Guenoc Valley, and (hopefully) a new Konocti Harbor Resort would collectively create a giant sucking sound pulling previous and new tourism into our county.

If an economic boost is needed, this should be considered quickly. We should shake things up. If everything is OK as is, we can just let the thought die again.

Ed Calkins lives in Kelseyville, Calif.