WSU News Archive

By John Sutherland, Marketing and Creative Services

PULLMAN, Wash. - The Cougar Nation has spoken - casting more than 34,000 votes - and as a result Washington State University has an official tartan.

 

The winning design was unveiled Friday during Homecoming week in the office of WSU President Elson S. Floyd. Students from the Department of Apparel, Merchandising, Design and Textiles (AMDT), department faculty chair Karen Leonas and Butch, the university’s beloved mascot, made the announcement.

 

The students presented Floyd with the first WSU tartan product: a necktie featuring the university’s crimson and gray colors in a traditional pattern of interlocking horizontal and vertical bands.

 

"We were absolutely delighted to see the enthusiastic participation by Cougars of all stripes in the Prowling for Plaid campaign,” Leonas said. She laid the groundwork for the campaign and involved AMDT students in guiding development of the tartan designs, from concept to market, and in turning out the vote.

 

Students from AMDT, department chair Karen Leonas and WSU mascot Butch unveiled the university's official tartan Sept. 21. The group presented WSU President Elson S. Floyd with the first tartan product: a necktie featuring the university's crimson and gray colors in a traditional tartan pattern of interlocking horizontal and vertical bands.

Voters selected from among three designs. The winning design, which finished some 5,000 votes ahead of the runner-up tartan, is arguably the most sophisticated of the three. It represents the complexity of WSU and its many facets, Leonas noted, an appropriate choice to represent a 122-year-old teaching and research institution that serves citizens statewide and beyond.

 

"We saw trans-generational support from the Cougar faithful during the campaign,” she said. "Alumni of all ages, students and die-hard sports fans participated in the voting.”

 

The winning tartan will be registered with the International Tartan Registry, a Scotland-based agency that has indexed some 7,000 tartans created worldwide.

 

Besides creation of a new WSU tradition and the pride-building aspects of the campaign, selection of a tartan will deliver a tangible benefit to students: a portion of the revenues generated by sales of tartan merchandise will support and enhance the student learning experience.

 

"We work very hard in AMDT to provide our students with the type of experiences that prepare them for leadership positions in the textile, apparel and retail industries in the Pacific Northwest,” Leonas said. Funds generated from the sale of tartan merchandise might provide opportunities for students to visit Scotland, for example, to gain first-hand knowledge about the Scottish textile industry.

 

WSU tartan neckties will be available to the public for purchase on a first come, first served basis beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Homecoming Tailgate Reunion sponsored by the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences and WSU Extension. The event will take place at Ensminger Pavilion on Wilson Road on the WSU Pullman campus.

 

Visitors to the AMDT table will be able to pre-order other tartan merchandise, including lamb’s wool scarves, fleece-lined muffs, wool serapes and totes. Those products - as well as tartan lanyards, lightweight women’s scarves and other products - will be available for purchase soon at the AMDT website: http://amdt.wsu.edu/. Merchandise will be available later in the fall at the Students Bookstore Corporation (Bookie) on the Pullman campus.

 

A committee of university, community and apparel industry representatives helped narrow the number of proposed tartan designs from nine to three. The committee included Melinda Beasley, managing broker, Beasley Realty, Pullman; Pamela Bernardo, wife of Dan Bernardo, WSU vice president of agriculture and extension and dean of the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences; Carmento Floyd, wife of WSU President Elson S. Floyd; Dean Holly, founder and CEO of Thomas Dean Co., Bellevue, Wash.; Glenn Johnson, mayor of Pullman and WSU Lester Smith Distinguished Professor of Media Management; Rhonda Kromm, immediate past president, WSU Alumni Association; Linda Peffer, vice president, corporate responsibility, Nordstrom; Kendra Moos, wife of Bill Moos, WSU director of athletics; Tom Meister, president and CEO, Konjo Abada, Vancouver, Wash.; Jud Preece, senior associate director, WSU Alumni Association; and AMDT students Katie Ronngren and Shanteara Cornmesser.

Collegiate Tartan Apparel, based in Greensboro, N.C., will create WSU’s tartan merchandise. The university’s Office of Trademark Licensing will manage licensing. Sales of merchandise will generate royalties and scholarship funds to benefit WSU students.

 

To learn more about the WSU tartan project, visit http://tartan.wsu.edu.

 

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Contacts:

Karen Leonas, WSU Department of Apparel, Merchandising Design and Textiles, 509-335-6766, kleonas@wsu.edu

Alyce Anderson, WSU Trademarks and Licensing, 509-335-2202, aanderson@wsu.edu

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