This morning I am speaking with the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee at the Idaho State Capitol. It’s an important venue to share with our legislators both our accomplishments and our challenges as they make important recommendations regarding our budget. The meeting will be livestreamed beginning at 8 a.m. Mountain time. In the meantime, I want to tell you about a fun project that is bringing Vandals together. At this year’s Homecoming Parade, I ran into Ben Hunter, dean of University of Idaho Libraries and pipe major of Border Highlanders, our local pipes and drums group. He and his group were dressed in traditional Scottish Highland kilts and I asked why we did not have our own Vandal Tartan. He said it was about money, and I said it is about time we solved that problem. We need Vandals everywhere to help us make a decision that will have ramifications for Vandal fashion for years to come. We’re calling on our stakeholders across the country and around the world to make their voices known on the Vandal Tartan. We’re in the final days of deciding on the official design for our tartan, which will be logged with the Scottish Tartan Register and adorn Vandal apparel going forward. The tartan is a traditional Scottish weaving pattern that is used to identify families and other organizations. It dates back thousands of years, and in the 1800s, Scottish clans began to identify themselves by using the distinctive patterns. |