Lyon College
Arkansas
1872
Formerly “Arkansas College”
Detailed historical information about the school colors of Arkansas College is not available at this time, but apparently the college changed its colors from dark shades of red and blue to a dark shade of red and white in the early 1920s. Today Lyon College’s colors are once again dark red and dark blue, officially defined “crimson” and “navy blue”. In actual practice, the shade of crimson ranges from a true red to a dark red, with the latter more commonly seen.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): red/white (1923-1935)
The Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) probably assigned Arkansas College a hood lining in the late 1890s or early 1900s before it changed its colors to red and white. Academic hood lists published by the IBAC in 1927 and 1948 described Arkansas College as having a hood lined blue with a red chevron. However, an updated 1972 IBAC list described Arkansas College’s hood lining as red with a white chevron, which is a description probably borrowed from a list of hood linings compiled by Kevin Sheard for Academic Dress and Insignia of the World (1970). Because Lyon College has once again adopted dark red (what it calls “crimson”) and dark blue (navy blue) as its school colors, here the original pre-1920s IBAC lining assignment has been retained.
On paper the Bureau’s late 1890s or early 1900s color arrangement appeared to duplicate the hood lining the Bureau had also assigned to DePaul University (blue with a red chevron), but DePaul’s blue and red were actually light blue and medium red, whereas Arkansas College’s blue and red were actually dark blue and dark red.
