Indian Hills is a small mountain community of roughly 1,300 people in Jefferson County, Colorado, along US Highway 285 southwest of Denver. Its best-known landmark is not a peak or a trail but a teal roadside sign outside the community center, where a volunteer named Vince Rozmiarek posts a new pun every few days. Photos of the board have been shared widely online, earning him the nickname the "king of dad jokes".
It started as a prank. On April Fools' Day around 2013, Rozmiarek put up a message announcing that Indian Hills had been annexed by neighbouring Morrison, a town known locally for strict speed enforcement, and telling drivers to slow down. Plenty of people believed it, and the reaction reportedly included a call from the Morrison police. He has kept the board going ever since, mixing his own jokes with puns found in books and online. Each message has to fit five lines of about 14 or 15 letters, so every word counts.
Here are 30 photographs of the sign, grouped by theme, with a note on how each joke works. The originals were shared on the Indian Hills Community Sign page on Facebook.
How the Indian Hills sign works
The board is a standard changeable-letter sign, the kind used by churches and schools across America. Rozmiarek changes it two or three times a week, and he has said he tries never to repeat a message. Most posts are puns, but the board also carries local news, support for Denver sports teams and the odd gentle jab at the police. A Broncos joke after the 2016 Super Bowl, "Large Panther eaten by giant Ware-Wolfe", was one of the first to go viral.
The format suits puns perfectly. A driver has only a few seconds to read the sign, so the setup and punchline must arrive almost at once. The best examples make you reread the first line after the last one lands.
Brain teasers and wordplay
"WHAT I IF TOLD YOU – YOU READ THE TOP LINE WRONG" A classic brain trick. Most readers skim straight past the swapped words in the first line, because the brain predicts the familiar meme phrase "What if I told you" and fills it in automatically. The second line only works because the first one fooled you.
"WHAT I IF TOLD YOU – YOU READ THE TOP LINE WRONG" A wider shot of the same sign that opens this collection, showing the community center lettering and the cabins beside the road. It became one of the photos most often reposted from the Facebook page.
"WELL, TO BE FRANK, I'D HAVE TO CHANGE MY NAME" An everyday expression taken literally. Signs like this rely on the reader hearing the phrase in their head before the second line flips it.
"IRONY: THE OPPOSITE OF WRINKLY" Irony and iron-y. A pun so simple that it works for children and adults alike, which is part of what makes the board popular with families.
"I'M FRIENDS WITH 25 LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET. I DON'T KNOW Y" The English alphabet has 26 letters, so the missing one is Y, which sounds like "why". It only works when read aloud in your head.
"HE WHO LAUGHS LAST DIDN'T GET IT" An update on the proverb "He who laughs last laughs best". Photographed at dusk, with the lights of a neighbouring cabin glowing in the window.
"I LIKE COOKING MY FAMILY AND MY PETS. USE COMMAS, THEY SAVE LIVES" A well-known grammar joke about the Oxford comma and punctuation in general. Without commas, the sentence changes from a list of hobbies into something very different.
Food and drink puns
"TURNING VEGAN WOULD BE A BIG MISSED STEAK" This "missed steak" pun briefly made local news. According to 9News Denver, two passers-by rearranged the letters to read "turning vegan is awesome" and took the spares, prompting a playful ransom post online; the letters were returned within a day and the center answered with "I have no beef with vegans".
"WHENEVER I TRY TO EAT HEALTHY A CHOCOLATE BAR LOOKS AT ME & SNICKERS" A brand-name pun on the Snickers bar. It is the sort of short, food-based joke that fits neatly into the sign's five lines.
"BAN PRE-SHREDDED CHEESE. MAKE AMERICA GRATE AGAIN" A play on a well-known campaign slogan, swapping "great" for "grate". Like most of the political signs, it targets wordplay rather than people.
"IN SEARCH OF FRESH VEGETABLE PUNS. LETTUCE KNOW" The sign doubles as a request for submissions. "Lettuce know" is one of the oldest vegetable puns around, used deliberately as the example.
"CRUSHING POP CANS IS SODA PRESSING" Soda pressing and "so depressing". The sign also manages to use both "pop" and "soda", two common American names for a fizzy drink.
"COW STUMBLES INTO POT FIELD! THE STEAKS HAVE NEVER BEEN HIGHER" Recreational cannabis became legal in Colorado in 2012 and went on sale in 2014, so a cannabis joke has a local flavour. The "steaks/stakes" swap does the rest.
Science, jobs and everyday life
"DOGS CAN'T OPERATE MRI SCANNERS BUT CATSCAN" A pun on the CAT scan, the common name for computed tomography. The sign went up during a heavy snowfall, with a pickup crawling past in the background.
"FOR CHEMISTS ALCOHOL IS NOT A PROBLEM, IT'S A SOLUTION" A chemistry classic: in the lab, a solution is a mixture in which one substance is dissolved in another. Science puns are a recurring theme on the board.
"ELECTRICIANS HAVE TO STRIP TO MAKE ENDS MEET" Electricians strip the insulation off wires so the bare ends can be joined. The double meaning is mildly risqué, which is about as far as the sign usually goes.
"MY MOOD RING IS MISSING AND I DON'T KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT THAT" Mood rings, the colour-changing jewellery that was a craze in the 1970s, supposedly revealed your emotions. Without one, the joke goes, you are lost.
"IF YOU SUCK AT PLAYING THE TRUMPET, THAT'S PROBABLY WHY" A literal reading of a slang phrase. Brass players blow into the mouthpiece rather than suck, so the advice is technically sound.
"BIG SHOUT OUT TO MY FINGERS. I CAN ALWAYS COUNT ON THEM" A gentle pun for younger readers, playing on the phrase "count on" someone. It was photographed in bright autumn sun beside the highway.
"PLEASE CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION TO YOUR ISSUES" A popular one-liner borrowed from magazine language: issues as editions, and issues as personal problems. It is a polite way of telling someone to keep their drama to themselves.
Politics, drivers and local life
"THE PROBLEM WITH POLITICAL JOKES IS THAT THEY SOMETIMES GET ELECTED" An old one-liner that has circulated in many versions for decades. It pokes fun at politicians in general without naming anyone, which keeps a shared community board from taking sides.
"PUNS ABOUT COMMUNISM AREN'T FUNNY UNLESS EVERYONE GETS THEM" The joke works on two meanings of "gets": understanding the pun, and everyone receiving an equal share. It is one of the most widely shared signs from Indian Hills.
"WISHING YOU A HAPPY WHATEVER DOESN'T OFFEND YOU" Posted in the snowy season, it gently teases the yearly debate over holiday greetings. The joke lands on the debate itself, not on any one group.
"FORGET WORLD PEACE, VISUALIZE USING YOUR TURN SIGNAL" A twist on the "Visualize world peace" bumper sticker, aimed squarely at drivers on US Highway 285, which runs right past the sign.
"I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, THE POLICE COME, IT'S AWKWARD" The nursery chant about ice cream is cut short by real life. Rozmiarek has said he enjoys the occasional edgier sign, and this one keeps it playful.
"DESPITE THE HIGH COST OF LIVING, IT REMAINS POPULAR" A dry observation that works anywhere, but feels especially apt in the Denver area, where housing costs climbed sharply through the 2010s.
Weather and mountain humour
"OUR MOUNTAINS AREN'T JUST FUNNY, THEY'RE HILL AREAS" A local favourite: "hill areas" sounds like "hilarious". Indian Hills sits in the foothills west of Denver, so the pun doubles as a bit of civic pride.
"LIFE IS SHORT. IF YOU CAN'T LAUGH AT YOURSELF, CALL ME, I WILL" A cheeky reversal of a motivational poster line. Note how the sign is half buried in snow: the board is changed all year round, whatever the weather.
"TRIED TO GRAB THE FOG. I MIST" Photographed on a genuinely foggy day, with mist hanging in the pines behind the board, which makes the timing part of the joke.
"QUIT STEALING R LETTERS" Not a pun but a pointed message. Letters really do go missing from roadside boards, and here the sign makes its point by using a lone R for "our" and exclamation marks in place of the missing letter I.
Why a pun sign brings a town together
Puns divide people: some groan, some laugh, most do both at once. That shared reaction is exactly what makes a roadside board like this work. Commuters on Highway 285 slow down to read it, visitors stop to take pictures, and locals argue in the comments over which joke was best. The community center, which hosts weddings, memorial services, birthday parties and veterans' events and relies on fundraisers to stay open, gets a steady stream of goodwill in return.
If you are ever driving through the foothills west of Denver, keep an eye out for the teal board on the side of the road. There is a good chance a fresh groan is waiting for you.
Sources: Colorado Public Radio: How Indian Hills grabbed the world's attention with a punstoppable teal road sign (21 September 2018); Mental Floss: A small Colorado town's punny signs are receiving national attention (11 September 2018); 9News: Vegan debate fires up discussion on community sign. Sign photos: Indian Hills Community Center / Vince Rozmiarek, via Indian Hills Community Sign on Facebook.
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