From Iowa State media relations:

AMES — The Iowa State University Athletics Department announced today that it is bringing back one of the department’s most popular prior marketing initiatives by unveiling a new billboard campaign throughout the month of August. The Cyclones are installing billboards in Waterloo/Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids and Des Moines welcoming home new Big 12 Conference Commissioner Bob Bowlsby.

A native of Waterloo, Iowa, Bowlsby was recently hired as the new Big 12 leader. Bowlsby served as the director of athletics at UNI and Iowa before his stint as the director of athletics at Stanford.

The campaign is part of a continuation of Iowa State’s “It’s a Cyclone State” billboards that were placed in Iowa in the mid-2000s and became instant lightning rods among sports fans across the state.

The ISU billboard that appeared in Cedar Rapids in 2006. (The Gazette)

“It’s been six years since the ‘It’s a Cyclone State’ billboards were unveiled and we still continue to be asked by our fans when the next billboard would be posted,” Iowa State director of athletics Jamie Pollard said. “We thought this was a great way to renew our billboard campaign and at the same time welcome the new Big 12 Commissioner Bowlsby back to the Cyclone State.”

The billboards will give Iowa State fans the opportunity to win a pair of season tickets through the athletic department’s social media channels.

Through Twitter, fans that take a picture of the billboard and tweet it with the hashtag #BBbillboard will be entered to win a pair of season tickets. A similar concept is also available on Facebook, where a fan can post a picture of the billboard on the Iowa State Athletics Facebook wall to be entered into a season ticket drawing. On Pinterest, fans who repin a picture of the billboard from the Iowa State Athletics Pinterest page will be entered to win a pair of football season tickets as well.

Each social media outlet will offer someone the chance to win a pair of tickets. This contest will run from July 24 through August 7.

The billboards will be at the following locations:

Waterloo/Cedar Falls: University Ave., west of College Square Mall and Tucson Dr.

Cedar Rapids: Interstate-380 while driving south to Iowa City, just south of 33rd Ave. SW.

Des Moines: Interstate-235, just south of the northeast mixmaster