MEDIA ADVISORY

TO:                     News Directors, Feature Reporters and Community Calendars

FROM:                 University Relations

SUBJECT:            Blue and Gold to Color UAF Campus this Summer

LOCATION:          Fairbanks Campus

DATE & TIME:     Thursday, May 30, 2002 at 8:30 a.m.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks foliage will get an extra splash of color on Thursday, May 30 when volunteers spend the day planting more than 14,000 blue and gold flowers across campus. The centerpiece for the eighth annual flower planting event will be a bed of white flowers in the shape of a Nanook, UAF’s famous polar bear mascot, in Constitution Park.

The UAF College of Fellows, a support group for UAF, sponsors the project which helps make the Fairbanks Campus more enjoyable for summer visitors and local residents alike. Students employed with the UAF grounds crew grow some of the plants from seed, and others are purchased using funds from the Ruth Hewett Endowment.

The beautification effort is reminiscent of UAF’s agricultural history, which dates to 1917 when the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines was first established.

This year’s campus flower planting will get underway at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 30, 2002. UAF students, faculty, staff and Fairbanks community volunteers are asked to meet at Constitution Hall or at the UA Museum for plot assignments, tools and refreshments.

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CONTACT: UAF Assistant Director of Development Kim Davis at 907-474-6726.

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