LSU Carved In Rice

LSU sculpted in purple and gold rice, the school's colors.

Louisiana State University has always had a small but important marketing advantage...

Here it is:

No other state begins with the letter L.

That may not seem important, but it's allowed the university's initials to stand alone, uniquely perhaps, to the point that some fairly educated people outside of Louisiana know it as "LSU" without immediately being able to tell you what the initials stand for.

No kidding, a friend in California asked me once if "the S in LSU was for state or something else?"

He did know, without a doubt, that LSU was in Louisiana, which gets us back to this small marketing advantage it has over other universities.

Take MSU, for example...

Which is it? Mississippi State University, Michigan State University, Minnesota State University?

The same goes for ASU. Is it Arizona State or Arkansas State?

When you think about it, only a handful of states have names that begin with an exclusive letter. For example, only Florida starts with an F, only Georgia begins with G.

But the initials UF or UG - for those respective universities - have never gained the same panache as the 3-letter string, LSU. It sounds almost lyrical. Let me add that I didn't attend LSU, didn't send any kids to school there and have never pulled for its football team. I'm not an aging alumnus, just a guy who enjoys playing with words and poking around in their symbolism.

For me, LSU simply has a ring to it. And the initials are loaded with symbolism.

Which made the landscaping in this photo possible. It's the name LSU spelled out in purple and gold rice, the university's colors. It would have taken a while to spell out Mississippi State University with a grain drill, and forming the letters MSU or UA wouldn't have had the same visual punch. And, lest we forget, rice is Louisiana's staple food. It permeates the cuisine, giving foundation to spices and crustaceans, sausage and red beans.

"This living sign is growing on the LSU AgCenter Rice Research Station in Crowley," writes Steve Linscombe, the station's director and a rice breeder, himself.

Linscombe sent us the photo of the sign with additional facts about it.

The purple rice was developed by Dr. Kenneth Gravois, now LSU AgCenter Sugarcane Specialist, while he was working as a rice breeder with the University of Arkansas. The gold leaf line, Linscombe said, is an induced mutant that was obtained from seed at the Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center in Stuttgart, Arkansas.

As signs go, it perhaps is unique. And it's also edible.

- Owen Taylor