The Live Oaks of LSU

Remembering the First 100 Years

by William Guion 1
 What’s in this proposal?
1 – Proposed jacket cover image

2-3 – What’s in this proposal?

4-5 – Proposal, or my ideas in two pages

6-11 – Sample main section spread – The Quadrangle Oaks

12-15 – Sample main section spread – The Memorial Oak Grove

16-19 – Sample main section spread – The Endowed Oaks

20-21 – Sample of an endowed oak “Portrait” subsection spread

22-23 – Sample of a “My Favorite Oak” subsection spread

24-25 – Book Content Outline and Author Biography

“Oaks and Arches”

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 B ook P roposal
Dear Katie, Craig, and Steve,
I’m writing to solicit your support in creating a gift book containing photographs and essays—stories of, and about, the
historic live oaks of the LSU campus.
The working title is: “The Live Oaks of LSU – Remembering the First 100 Years.”
Background: Every old oak in Louisiana has stories connected to it. Human stories. LSU’s old oaks were witness to a
formative and lengthy span of campus history—the oaks’ first 100 years. These old trees are icons of the South. They are a
prominent feature of LSU’s sense of place, and a part of the life stories of thousands of alumni, faculty, and staff. The oaks
are woven into the fabric of memories and experiences of all who have spent time under their arched limbs.
This book is a portrait of LSU’s memorable and notable live oaks. Viewed through a lens shaped by time and the recol-
lections of several alumni and friends, it shares the stories connecting oaks and people. It is a visual portfolio of dramatic
color and black-and-white images paired with quotes, essays, and oak-conservation facts. In short, this book is a gumbo of
interesting and entertaining stories, quotes, and photographs—a synopsis that’s seasoned with the piquancy of memory and
age, and served like a tasty meal shared with old friends.
Intent—why create this book: This book celebrates the remarkable beauty of the LSU campus, with a focus on its more
than 1300 live oak trees. It will share human stories connected with the trees, from their planting as saplings in the 1930s
to the present day. It will shine a light on the heart-felt bonds that have grown between people and oaks and what that rela-
tionship has meant to both. This book also celebrates the success story of human care and financial support that has enabled
LSU’s oaks to survive and thrive for a century. College recruiters understand the drawing power of LSU’s forest landscape
and how its iconic live oaks can be a decisive influence on a student’s choice of school. It is a positive and uplifting story,
just waiting to be told and shared.
There are no other published books that focus entirely and specifically on LSU’s live oaks and the human stories connect-
ed with them. For research, I found The Architecture of LSU by Michael Desmond and Treasures of LSU, edited by Laura
Lindsay, most helpful for background information on the history of LSU’s live oaks.
Audience: The Live Oaks of LSU will be a popular gift and keepsake for tens of thousands of alumni, students, faculty, and
44 staff, as well as countless others who wish to remember and share their love of LSU with friends.
Why me? I have photographed and documented historic and notable live oaks of Louisiana for more than 35 years. My
photographs and research have resulted in numerous articles, six books, two websites, and a virtual guided tour of historic live
oaks along Bayou Lafourche (liveoaktour.com). In the past decade, I’ve also created the “100 Oaks Project” blog in which I
describe my ongoing search for the oldest live oak trees in Louisiana. My primary career path until 2015 was as a professional
writer, editor, and creative director working for Fortune 500 companies such as McGraw-Hill Education, Hallmark Cards,
and Charles Schwab. Parallel to my editorial career, I led a quiet and growing co-career as a fine-art photographer (a longer
biography is included on the last page of this document).
What will the book look like? The page spreads that follow (pp. 6–23) will give you an idea. I envision The Live Oaks of
LSU to be approximately 112-128 pages, with between 80 and 100 color and black-and-white images and text. I suggest it be
designed as an 8 x10 inch, hard-bound book, in landscape format with jacket. This size is appropriate for marketing as a “gift”
through diverse sales channels, such as gift shops, bookstores, and businesses that market other LSU memorabilia. And, it
can be marketed at a price point between $24.95 and $29.95 (with a minimum print quantity of 5,000 books). This price is a
sweet spot for gift book sales.
Ideas to promote and market the book: If the LSU Alumni Association supports the publication and promotion of this book,
it could realize immediate 2020 holiday sales to alumni and alumni-owned businesses who wish to own a copy or to give copies
as holiday gifts. You could offer these additional options to encourage multiple purchases:
1) Customize the back of the book jacket for those who wish to personalize and use the book as a self-promotional gift, or,
2) Offer a combination of book(s) and fine-art print(s) along with or without a customized book jacket. (I’ve used these options
successfully with other commissioned book projects.)
This book could also serve as “catalog” to accompany a fine-art print exhibit of images from the book at the LSU Museum and
other state and university museum galleries. And if possible, I would support book sales through regional bookstore signings,
interviews, and lectures.
Thank you in advance for your kind consideration of this project.
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 The Quadrangle Oaks

T he Quadrangle (called simply the “Quad”) was originally

planned as a grand courtyard, surrounded by classroom and
administration buildings. Since the Olmsted brothers were
strictly landscape architects, German architect Theodore
Link was hired in 1921 to design the buildings for the new
campus. He adapted the Olmsteds’ layout and added his own
ideas to the specific placement and design of structures.

Link used a distinctive Italian Renaissance style for the

original Quadrangle and the Memorial Tower. His design was
comprised of graceful archways, tile roofs, and stucco walls—
all finished in warm Mediterranean earth tones and textures.
Link reportedly said that his work for LSU represented the
pinnacle of his architectural career.

The Quad oaks were among some of the first planted at LSU,
possibly as early as 1926.* The new campus was formally
dedicated that year and building construction was underway
(a mid-1920s photograph of the Quad from the Memo-
Oak at the entrance to William C. Stubbs Hall
rial Tower shows no oaks planted yet).* However, a second
source*states that the Quad oaks were planted in 1932 or 1933
Oak circled by benches, southwest corner of Quad by Atkinson Hall
by long-term LSU landscape gardener, Steele Burden, who was hired
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 The Quadrangle Oaks (continued)
W
in 1932 to tend the plants and gardens of the new campus.

The first-known drawings of a formal landscape plan for the

Quad were drafted by the LSU “field office” staff of E.A. McIlhenny’s
Avery Island nursery. And though this plan was created by landscape
architects working for McIlhenny, the actual planting was done by
Steele Burden, who often made his own changes to any formal plan,
based on his “intuitive” approach to garden design.*

Historic aerial photographs of the campus show that the Quad

oaks were well-established by February 1938, when the new Physics
and Math Building was being finished.* That would make these oaks
more than 90 years of age today, since McIlhenny’s young oaks were
ordinarily 5 to 10 years of age when purchased.

The Quadrangle was intended to be the metaphoric heart of the

LSU campus. But it would still be years before the Olmsteds’ park-
like vision would be realized, as landscaping lagged behind the first
order of business—constructing classroom buildings.

When Laura Lindsay, professor emerita in the Manship

School of Mass Communications, was a student at LSU in the sixties,

she recalls that, “The Quad was not much more than a vast lawn
88 Oaks and arched walkway, in front of Himes Hall and Olinde Career Center 99
 The Quadrangle Oaks (continued)
dotted with live oaks. When it rained, we’d take off our shoes and
wade through the mud. There were not as many walkways then, and
they weren’t always where they needed to be,” she said. “Beginning in
the 1970s, the Quad received a much needed makeover from land-
scape architects and LSU alumni, Hensley-Thompson-Cox. Benches
and wide stone walkways were added along with fresh landscaping,
including native azaleas and crape myrtles, spread liberally through-
out, and sprinkling color across the seasons.

According to Lindsay, “before the landscape update, people

didn’t hang out in the Quad; but afterwards, with more walkways and
seating areas, it became a huge gathering place for students. Today,
the Quad is a thing of beauty. In the spring it’s magnificent, with
blooming azaleas and the cooling canopy of old live oaks. They are my
favorite oaks on campus,” she added.

The Quad’s sylvan setting is a space that heartens reflection, re-

laxation, and conversation between friends. Its melding of man-made
and natural beauty is much closer to what the Olmsted brothers had in
mind—a garden-like campus that could inspire learning. d Oak and artist Sue Brown’s fresco, northeast portico of Allen Hall

Oxley Oak and Memorial Tower, view from northwest corner of Quadrangle
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10 11
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 The Memorial Oak Grove

B etween 1919 and early 1926, LSU officials and local legion-
naires (war veterans) cooperated in a plan to create a fitting
memorial to commemorate the university’s contribution to the First
World War—and a tribute to LSU’s and Louisiana’s lost and living
veterans.

The Memorial Tower was the leading element in this plan, but
the idea also emerged to plant a grove of live oak trees, as a living me-
morial to honor specifically those men from LSU who died in service
during World War I.

Dedicating trees to honor individuals originated from two lines

of American thought in the early 1900s: 1) the desire to recognize
heroic acts and 2) a growing environmental and poetic view that trees
are symbols of life and rebirth. This conservationist spirit spreading
across the U.S. may be attributed partly to President Theodore Roo-
sevelt’s outdoorsman example and to popular poetry and literature
that venerated nature and trees (such as Joyce Kilmer’s poem “Trees”
which was published prior to World War I).

In 1925, as the layout of the new campus was still taking shape,
a group of LSU administrators decided to establish a memorial oak

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grove in a natural depression southeast of the Memorial Tower.* 13
12 The Memorial Oak Grove, view towards the monument wall 13
 The Memorial Grove (continued)
The fallen LSU men to be honored were identified and 31 teen-
age oaks were donated by horticulturist E.A. McIlhenny from Avery
Island for the project. Thirty oaks would represent the 30 who gave
their lives, and one tree would honor the Unknown Soldier (to mirror
the tomb created in 1921 at Arlington National Cemetery, across the
Potomac River from Washington, D.C.).

Members of the LSU Forestry faculty developed a blueprint

for the grove’s planting; and on March 12, 1926, President Thomas
D. Boyd, legionnaires from the local American Legion, ROTC repre-
sentatives, and others gathered for the dedication.

Fifteen years later, bronze plaques imprinted with the soldiers’

names and birth/death dates were placed at the base of each tree.
Over time, the campus grew up around the trees, and memories fad-
ed. But human stories are never completely lost or forgotten.

On November 11, 2018, the 100th anniversary of the end of

World War I, LSU rededicated the grove of oaks and re-honored the
30 fallen alumni in a ceremony that included relatives of the dead.
Future plans for the grove include new landscaping and interpretative
signage to help keep its stories alive. d
Memorial Oak Grove wall and benches Memorial Oak and plaque to remember Julian Bowles Sanford
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 The Endowed Oaks

T he early nineties were difficult for LSU’s oaks. Increased traffic

(both people and vehicles) over the oaks’ root areas, combined
with general budget tightening, meant the oaks received less main-
tenance when it was needed most.

But a novel concept emerged in 1993 from the LSU Foun-

dation Board­—to allow people to donate to an endowed account
that would subsidize live oak care. With the “Endow an Oak” pro-
gram, donors may make any size gift to help maintain LSU oaks.
Or, they may direct their gift to endow a specific oak in memory of
themselves or someone they wish to honor. In return, LSU places
a permanent bronze plaque beneath the oak with the donor’s name
and dedication message and the oaks receive needed funds for
maintenance.*

It’s an innovative idea, according to Frederick J. Fellner,

PhD and Assistant Director of Landscape Services; and it’s help-
ing. “The oaks need extra care because they’re in a high-traffic,
living landscape,” he said. “They are our most prominent tree res-
Oak and palms, west side of Parade Grounds
idents. They’re what makes this campus unique. The endowment
program supplements our budget and enables us to perform mainte-
Oaks along Dalrymple Dr., north side of Parade Grounds
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16 17
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 The Endowed Oaks (continued)
nance that we otherwise would have to delay,” Fellner emphasized.

For donors that choose to endow a single

specific live oak tree, the gift amount required
ranges from $4,000 for a general campus oak,
up to $50,000 for an older, well-recognized
tree, like those in the Quadrangle.

Fifty percent of every gift goes into an

invested fund that grows over time. The other
half is placed into an operating account that can
be used by LSU’s arbor management team for
immediate oak maintenance.*

According to Fellner, more than 300

campus oaks currently have been endowed,
including all of those surrounding the Parade
Grounds and a few in the Quad. However, there
Three oaks and two mounds, view from near Peabody parking lot
remain close to 1,000 more campus oaks (old and
new) that are available to be endowed. d

Quad Oaks, view from in front of Olinde Career Center

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 The Oxley Oak

H undreds of students walk past this oak, moving

under the canopy of oak limbs on their way to
classes in Audubon Hall. Some students call it the “Audu-
bon Hall Oak.” Others may not know it by any name,
only by the graceful arch and dip of its limbs and the cool
shadows that it spreads onto the benches that flank it on
two sides.

This well-known endowed oak is dedicated to

LSU alumni David Grieve Oxley and Margaret Catherine
Oxley by their parents, James and Judith. Both brother
and sister died young and both from tragic illnesses—Da-
vid at the age of 20 and Margaret at 36.

“Margaret was my best friend,” said LSU alumna

Teresa Shields. “Like her oak, she was the epitome of
strength, grace, and beauty. A photograph of her tree
welcomes me every time I walk through my front door.
It reminds me how love, loss, passion, persistence, and
patience come together to offer hope and create some-
thing beautiful and strong.” d

Oxley Oak, in front of Audubon Hall, northwest corner of Quadrangle Oxley Oak, vertical view, with Memorial Tower in background
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 My Favorite Oak — The Campus Mounds Oaks

“M y connections to LSU’s live oaks are many: enjoying the

shade of the lakeside trees as a child when my grandfa-
ther took me to feed the ducks; sitting under the parade ground
oaks as a student to enjoy a game of Ultimate (Frisbee); and
later, trips to appreciate memorials to deceased LSU students
(science star Benjamin Boussert and graduate students Chan-
drasekhar Reddy Komma and Kiran Kumar Allam).

However, my favorite oaks line the remarkable campus

mounds. I treasure memories of stopping in their shade while
biking to a shift at KLSU. I remember looking at their ele-
gant branches during late-night conversations about writing,

music, and history.” d

­­ ­ – Elise Blackwell, professor of English,

Three oaks and south mound University of South Carolina, novelist,
and LSU alumna

Four oaks, next to mounds, view toward Peabody Hall and Hill Memorial Library

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 Book Content Outline William Guion Biography
Front matter – 4 pages William Guion has photographed live oak trees and the Louisiana landscape for 35 years. His black-and-
Introduction – 2 to 4 pages white and color images portray the oaks elegantly, revealing the majestic and mythical qualities of this Southern icon.
He was introduced to black-and-white photography as part of his journalistic studies in college. Between 1985 and
Foreword – 2 to 4 pages; by (possibly LSU alumna Suzanne Turner)
1995, he participated as student and assistant in various photography workshops given through the Friends of Pho-
The Men Who Planted Trees – approx. 16 pages; Profile of Steele Burden and E.A. McIlhenny and the tography in Carmel, CA. Following one of his instructor’s advice to “find something you love and photograph it again
roles they played in growing and planting live oaks at LSU (will include excerpts from interviews with and again” as a way of improving both his technique and vision, he began a series of studies of live oak trees on his
Steele and from the biography of E.A. McIlhenny) native Louisiana soil. More than three decades later, he continues this work, locating, researching, and documenting
The Quad Oaks – approx. 16 pages – images, alumni quotes and essay about the oaks in the Quad the state’s oldest, historic, and notable live oaks as a way of pointing out their importance to local culture.
(includes a sub-spread on the Oxley Oak and quotes from alumni) His writings about and photographs of Southern live oaks have appeared in numerous publications like
The Memorial Grove – approx. 6 pages of images and stories of the 31 Memorial Grove oaks American Forests magazine, Louisiana Life, Country Roads magazine, the Journal of the International Oak Soci-
Oldest and notable oaks – approx. 22 pages of images, alumni quotes, and stories on Bicentennial Oak, ety, the Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate magazine, Cultural Vistas (publication of the Louisiana Endowment of the
Enchanted Forest, Lagoon Oaks, and others Humanities), Under the Oaks magazine (the alumni publication of Newcomb College of Arts), the Calumet Fine-Art
newsletter, View Camera magazine, Creation Spirituality magazine, and books like Live Oak Lore by Ethelyn Orso,
LSU’s Live Oak Endowment Program – approx. 24 pages of endowed live oaks around campus with
and Folklife in Louisiana through Photography by Frank DeCaro.
alumni quotes, stories, and photos
Guion’s photographs are contained in a variety of private and corporate collections across the country as
Care and feeding of an urban forest – approx. 8 pages on the principles and processes that LSU
well as the public collections of the Louisiana Folklife Museum, the Louisiana State Museum, and the New Orleans
has developed around the care of live oaks in a heavily trafficked university campus; sidebar on the
Museum of Art. In 2016, he received a major grant from the Louisiana Department of Tourism to create a self-guid-
benefits of live oaks on campus, aesthetically, culturally, ecologically, and financially
ed tour of the historic live oaks along Bayou Lafourche.
The Live Oak, Louisiana’s Cultural Icon – 2 pages
A sampling of his work is contained in five books: Heartwood, Meditations on Southern Oaks, published by
Acknowledgments – 2 pages Bulfinch/Little Brown Books in 1998; Heartwood, Further Meditations on Oaks, commissioned in 2008 by Blue
Back matter – approx. 4 pages Oak Capital; Across Golden Hills – Meditations on California Oaks in 2013, also commissioned by Blue Oak Capi-
(Outline based on 112 page length) tal; Laura Plantation – Images and Impressions, commissioned in 2017 by The Zoe Company; Quercus Louisiana,
The Splendid Live Oaks of Louisiana, published in 2019 by 100 Oaks Press; and Oak Alley Plantation, Portrait
*(Asterisks used throughout this proposal indicate where source material would be referenced)
of a Southern Icon, commissioned by Mayhew Enterprises, Inc. and published in 2019.
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