ST. GEORGE —  The basketball floor at Burns Arena and the football field at Greater Zion Stadium have new logos and signage.

Meanwhile, the rebranding and rebuilding of other Utah Tech University facilities continues on campus during the summer.

Assistant Vice President Sherry Ruesch has worked in facilities management for the last 26 years. She has seen the university go through four name changes and three mascot changes in that time.

“All of those have been since I’ve been here,” Ruesch told St. George News in her office on campus Friday afternoon.

The name of the school has gone from Dixie College to Dixie State College of Utah to Dixie State University and now to Utah Tech University.

Along the way the athletics mascot has changed from Rebels to Red Storm and then to the current Trailblazers logo with the bison mascot.

“I think that one will stick around,” Ruesch said. “It’s very well liked. It’s a good fit for us.” 

Ruesch’s perspective on the name changes is grounded in her facilities management experience.

“Everyone outside of the university kind of looks at it as this big huge deal,” she said, “but because we’ve done it before we know it can be done again.”

Ruesch described herself as a “can do” person who would never think, “Oh, there’s no way that can be done.”

In other words, for facilities management, the name change represents just another project.

“We know that the sign change has to be bid out and we use local contractors to do all of the work,” Ruesch said. “But name change as far as signage goes is not that big of a deal. It can be expensive but it’s all very doable in the sense of a construction project.”

The nature of the work, she added, is not complicated.

“Taking down actual signs and putting up a new sign doesn’t really affect the architecture or structure of the building,” Ruesch said.

The basketball floor at Burns Arena was sanded and repainted with the Utah Tech logo planted squarely on center court.

Similarly, the Utah Tech logo is now emblazoned in the middle of the football field at Greater Zion Stadium and the end zones are freshly painted.

Both playing surfaces have logos representing the Western Athletic Conference.

Walking around the concourse at Burns Arena, it’s obvious that not all the signage from the Dixie State era has been replaced by Utah Tech logos. Ruesch said that’s consistent in the interior of most campus buildings.

“If you walked all the buildings you’d find places where the name change has not occurred, just haven’t got to it yet,” she said. “We still have some summer left.”

As rebranding continues, anticipation grows for Sept. 10. Utah Tech will open its home football schedule against Chadron State and Ruesch said construction of the new press box at Greater Zion Stadium is expected to be complete.

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