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http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2013/09/university_of_michigan_athleti.html
EAST LANSING -- University of Michigan athletics paid thousands of dollars for a skywriter to etch "Go Blue" in the skies over East Lansing before Michigan State kicked off against Youngstown State on Saturday.
Suzanne Asbury-Oliver, who runs Oregon Aero SkyDancer skywriting with her husband Steve, told MLive the Wolverines' athletic department hired her business to put Michigan slogans into the air above Ann Arbor then East Lansing on Saturday.
Michigan athletic department spokesperson Dave Ablauf acknowledged his department paid for Saturday's skywriting but said no specific locations were targeted.
"We hired the skywriters to canvas southeast Michigan with slogans and numbers prior to our game last Saturday,"he said in a statement. "There were no locations targeted."
Asbury-Oliver, who has been skywriting with her husband for 33 years, said it was the fourth time Michigan athletics has hired her business, but it was the first time U-M asked her to skywrite over East Lansing.
She declined to disclose the specific price she charged Michigan for the job and also declined to disclose with whom she dealt, although she acknowledged it was "œsomeone who works for the University of Michigan's athletic department."
"It's a multi-thousand-dollar job," Asbury-Oliver said. "First, it's $2 per mile for how far we have to take the plane, then the lightweight oil we use (to skywrite) is expensive, and we use about a gallon and a quart each letter. Then for these kinds of jobs you have to throw in hotels and all that."
Thousands of Michigan State fans looked skyward about 12:30 p.m. Saturday in East Lansing as Asbury-Oliver's skywriting apprentice, Nathan Hammond, spelled out over MSU's campus the phrase most loathed by Spartans. Hammond also skywrote over Ann Arbor on Saturday.
Asbury-Oliver said she noticed from media reports the uproar it caused among Spartan fans, although she had no premonition of that beforehand as she's not from Michigan and didn't understand the nature of the MSU-UM rivalry. Spartans athletic director Mark Hollis on Wednesday called the pro-Wolverines aerial calligraphy "an irritant."
"My husband and I, we're not sports fans. We didn't know what it all was about," said Asbury-Oliver, who lives in Tucson, Ariz.
RELATED: MSU AD says no apology necessary from U-M
MSU Alumni Association Executive Director Scott Westerman channeled Spartan fans' indignation, challenging them Saturday night to put money to a better use than goading a rival by donating it toward ovarian cancer awareness.
Westerman, who is a private pilot, estimated the cost of Saturday's skywriting at $3,000. He asked his fellow MSU alumni to match that amount in donations for ovarian cancer, a disease his wife, Colleen, has battled twice. He also challenged his counterparts at the U-M Alumni Association to equal what Michigan State raises.
Spartan fans and alumni responded emphatically, donating upward of $27,000 by Thursday afternoon, impressing even the enthusiastic Westerman in the process.
"This is taking on a life of its own, an outcome that I could never have hoped for," he said. "I'm feeling very proud to be a Spartan today."
Michigan's athletic department procured Asbury-Oliver's skywriting services months in advance, she said. She didn't think anything was out of the ordinary when the Michigan athletic department official asked for additional skywriting--specifically "Go Blue" near Spartan Stadium--in East Lansing this time.
"He gave me his wish list of what he wanted done," she said. "We just did what we were hired to do.
"He asked me not to say how much it cost if I got questions about it."
University of Michigan athletics is funded independent of university funds, meaning no tuition or taxpayer dollars support it. The department has multimillion-dollar surpluses regularly.
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