Eight new picnic tables may appear in the Memorial Oak Grove this spring.
The grove, located south of the Student Union, was dedicated in 1926 to 30 fallen soldiers, including one oak devoted to the unknown soldiers who died in WWI.
Student Government passed a bill in November to allocate $24,180.60 from the Student Government surplus account to purchase the tables.
The idea for the bill began when constituents of Senator Nathan Grotte pointed out the beauty of the University’s campus in spring and the lack of outdoor seating near the Student Union.
Senators Grotte, Drake Boudreaux, Katherine Latham and Renzi Terrebonne planned to put the tables near Middleton Library, but after a meeting with the Office of Facility Services, the head campus architect and the head campus landscape architect decided on Memorial Oak Grove.
“They took off with our idea,” Grotte said.
What started off as a plan to add tables to deter seating problems in the Student Union turned into a total redesign of the area.
“They want to put new lighting in,” Grotte said. “They want to put these tables in. They want trash cans, new landscaping, everything — so it’s not just eight picnic tables going in.”
Facility Services’ Department of Planning, Design and Construction wants to remove the circular structure in the Memorial Oak Grove and replace it with a new structure.
History junior Emily Horan said she may use the added seating.
“That sounds great, weather permitting,” she said. “The oaks are really one of the prettier places on campus.”
Norm Clark, a veteran and doctoral student, is happy to see the grove made useful in a way that will honor veterans.
“Anything that honors veterans is a good thing,” Clark said. “Giving people somewhere to relax and enjoy the area that also honors veterans is a fantastic idea.”
Clark said the need to acknowledge veterans is crucial.
“We lost more veterans last year to suicide than we’ve lost in the entire war in Iraq and Afghanistan together,” he said. “Part of that is because they’re basically forgotten. This is something that I think really helps with that. Giving them a place where it just shows that somebody does care, that’s what really helps them.”
The bill recognizes the grove as “a high-traffic area that is underutilized and unrecognized by the LSU community.”
“They want to make that an actual dedication spot, make it a spot on campus that people want to go to and that people want to sit at,” Grotte said.