A battle coin to commemorate the new USS North Dakota was unveiled Thursday, the first in a series of four that will be produced until the submarine is commissioned in 2014.

Fifty of the silver battle coins will be minted, with the first one going to the North Dakota Heritage Center. They will be available for $100 each. An additional 1,500 verbronze coins also will be for sale at $20 each.

Bismarck-Mandan Chamber of Commerce president Kelvin Hullet said proceeds from the coins will go to activities to help promote the submarine. Orders to buy one of the coins are available at the Bismarck-Mandan Chamber of Commerce, 1640 Burnt Boat Drive.

Gov. John Hoeven, flanked by Admiral Bill Owens, Vice Admiral Jeffery Fowler and Judge Robert Wefald, helped unveil the design of the coin.

Fowler, the superintendent of the Naval Academy and a Bismarck native, said after heading for Annapolis years ago that it's an honor to see the state have a ship named after it.

"So now I'll get to see the youth commissioned as officers on the North Dakota," Fowler said.

Hoeven has a proposed appropriation for $100,000 in the state budget to help promote the submarine in North Dakota.

"We have to build our efforts and put some money in the budget for this and raise some dollars to make sure we support this effort and build this relationship with the USS North Dakota," Hoeven said.

Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter named an upcoming Virginia-class nuclear submarine after North Dakota in July 2008. The last warship named after the state was decommissioned in 1923.

The USS North Dakota will cost $2.5 billion and is expected to be competed in 2014.

"This is a relationship with America that is going to be great for the state," Owens said.

(Reach reporter Brian Duggan at 223-8482 or brian.duggan@bismarcktribune.com.)