LSU engineering students hold sweet potato and rice sale

Two staples of the Louisiana holiday table, sweet potatoes and aromatic popcorn rice, will be on sale once again this year at LSU in time for Thanksgiving. The annual sale, now in its 32nd year, is a fundraiser for the Biological Engineering Student Organization (BESO) and is run by its members. The students will sell Louisiana sweet potatoes and rice from Garber Farms in Iota, La., Nov. 18-22 and Nov. 25-27, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the corner of South Stadium Drive and Highland Road.

The sale is a popular campus tradition that began more than three decades ago when Dale Garber, a past BESO president, suggested the organization sell sweet potatoes from his parents’ farm as a way to raise money. His fellow members liked the idea, and the next day, Garber drove to the family farm in Iota and returned with a load to get them started. The tradition has continued ever since.

Profits from the annual sweet potato and rice sale help send biological engineering students to the annual Institute of Biological Engineering conference. For more information, click here.—Maggie Heyn Richardson