By Max Fontaine | Hard-news language-evolution beat

Tri-County Community-Local Health and Healthiness Agency, a Bass Lake-area mainstay since at least 1996, will experience a name-upgrade, according to a statement released this week by Tri-County Community-Local Health and Healthiness Agency director Diana Vienna.

In what some call a long-overdue rebranding campaign spearheaded by a goal to focus on a move toward brevity, the department will become known as Micro-Region SuperHealthFIRST Now!, beginning Jan. 1, 2015.

The agency’s mission remains unchanged: To “provide quality, accessible public health services with ‘(fiscal) responsibility.’”

All wellness initiatives already in place will remain intact, and no further major changes are involved in the changeover, Vienna said, with one exception: She will no longer serve as director. Instead, she becomes part of a management and marketing collective known as Micro-Region SuperHealthFIRST Now! I.M.P.A.C.T. TeamToday (and Tomorrow).

Oh, and people will have to pay for immunizations out-of-pocket from now on.

“(That’s) just the way of the world,” an agency board member told a Beacon reporter over a few beers last night at Funky’s on the Bayou.