Pittsburg State University’s famous “split-faced gorilla” logo is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year. What many Missouri Southern students may not realize is the creator of the PSU logo and the creator of Southern’s heraldic lion logo are the same man – Mike Hailey of the University’s public information office.

Students reacted with surprise the images of the rival schools shared the same creator.

“I find it ironic that our lion and Pittsburg’s gorilla was designed by the same man,” said Adree Anderson, senior biology major. “I find it humorous that people could attach the two rival schools’ vendetta with this artist’s designs.”

Hailey explained how he came to design PSU’s logo.

“I was working there [PSU] at the time,” he said. “I had come to work there from Leggett & Platt and one of the first things that my boss at PSU asked me to do was to come up with a logo.

“They didn’t give me a set time that I had to have it. They just said ‘as I had time.’ I put it in the back of my head and thought about it for almost a year, trying to decide what was the essence of a gorilla. For me, the essence is in its face, in its eyes. There is no fear in those eyes. So when I did it, I showed just the facial features.”

Hailey said that, aside from the gorilla, the logo that he is most proud of creating is the Southern lion, which will be celebrating 20 years in 2008.

“I am very proud of the lion,” he said. “Dr. León only asked one thing: ‘I would like it to have an Ivy League feel to it.’ What’s Ivy League? When I think of old schools, I think of shields and seals. I started looking into heraldry, and developed one that was rather like the heraldic lions, using the shield.

“Dr. León liked it, Coach Lantz liked it. The only thing that he did that I did not like is that he said that he would like [the sports logo] to have wings on the shield. I never wanted it that way.”

Hailey said that this and other diversions from the original design, such as removing the lion from its shield or transposing the colors of the lion and the shield, hurt the image of the lion.

“I feel that, Like PSU’s gorilla, our lion should be represented as it was originally intended,” Hailey said. “It [the lion] was intended to be a shield. I have an idea of brass enamel shields placed at various places on the campus displaying our lion proudly.

“If you go to PSU right now, you find a gorilla smack dab in the middle of the oval. You’ll find him on elevator doors. He’s everywhere. We don’t do that. We don’t manifest the pride in our team that we need to.”