It’s hard to miss St. George’s Dixie D.
The giant white letter painted onto a black ridge has been a fixture of the city's skyline for more than a century. Residents have used “Dixie” to describe the region since early settlers tried growing cotton in the 1800s.
It was also the moniker of Dixie State University, until two years ago when the state decided to change the name to Utah Tech University. The shift hasn’t come without resistance. Even so, the community has held onto its annual tradition of repainting the D despite the concerns about the word’s racist connotations. It’s an example of how the school is trying to balance its heritage while updating its image, said Utah Tech professor Kyle Wells.
“There's been a little bit of argument back and forth about what should be preserved and what shouldn't. But I think we're at a point where if you're on the outside, we are Utah Tech. But when you come here, we want to share with you the history.”
On a sunny Saturday morning, several dozen students and alumni made the trek up to the 75-foot-wide set of boulders that make up the D. Some used power drills to stir the lime and water mixture in industrial-sized trash cans. Others fanned out across the letter, filling up small buckets and pouring a fresh coat on the already-white rocks.
“My hands are definitely super dirty, but I can wash that off,” Utah Tech student Allison Park said with a laugh. “It’s exciting to be a part of something that's been around for such a long time. … I can look on it and say, ‘I helped paint that up there.’”
Like many here, it’s the first time 20-year-old Melody Godinez has joined the messy ritual, but she said it won’t be her last.
“I really like to be part of traditions because … history plays such an important role in human society. So I really, really enjoy doing stuff like this.”
The letter was first whitewashed into this hillside in 1915 as part of a friendly rivalry between the school’s early graduating classes — it’s the same series of events that added the word Dixie to a red rock formation known as Sugarloaf in nearby Pioneer Park. Now owned by the university alumni association, the Dixie D’s annual paint job has been a key part of the school’s spirit week, or D-Week, for decades. For alumni like Connor Shakespeare, the mountain monogram means more than the sum of its rocks.
“Honestly, when you come into southern Utah, you come around the hill and you see the D … you just see that symbol and you're like, ‘I'm home.’”
As people filled their buckets, Shakespeare walked to the center of the D with a megaphone to lead the group in another part of the tradition: singing the Dixie State University fight song, which specifically refers to this hillside letter as a “cherished emblem.”
He has been part of this ritual for two dozen years, ever since his own time as a student. The D means more when you understand the story behind it, Shakespeare said, and how early residents found pride in establishing their version of Dixie in this isolated, unforgiving landscape.
“It's not just the school. It's a symbol of our region.”
But the history of Dixie in southern Utah has been controversial. The Utah Tech name change in 2022 marked the culmination of a long, heated debate. Some residents still want it changed back — restoring the school’s old name has continued to come up in local elections.
Others, like junior Natalia Cervantes, believe the school should do even more to distance itself from the Dixie name and its associations with slavery and racism.
“Even though the community doesn't really currently feel like it represents the Confederacy or has any ties to it, it's more that [the term] is rooted in racism. … It just further pushes the idea that St. George is a secluded area and it's more closed-minded.”
Growing up here, Cervantes grew accustomed to hearing people saying Dixie to celebrate the town’s pioneers. As she spoke with friends who moved from other parts of the country and learned more about the term’s ties to the Confederacy, she saw it in a new light. Then she researched the college’s history, which included decades of students wearing blackface and holding mock slave auctions. Even though Utah’s Dixie existed far from the Deep South, residents didn’t always shy away from drawing that connection. The Confederate battle flag became a school symbol in 1959 and continued to be flown until the mid-1990s. The school also had a rebel soldier as its mascot until 2005.
Cervantes feels like continuing to use the term misrepresents the community since people are generally friendly. It also contributes to an attitude of cultural insensitivity — something she’s experienced first-hand as a Latina. As St. George grows more diverse, she said that’s not the message the city should send.
“When we hold so tight onto a name like Dixie, just because it's a part of tradition or it’s part of the city's past, it really holds us back. … It's going to be harder for people to feel like there can be change or there can be inclusivity in our city.”
Traditions constantly evolve, she said, so there’s no reason why this one couldn’t change. Perhaps someday students might repaint a giant U and T to honor the school’s new name.
“Because this [D] is tied to so much emotion for people, it will be a harder change. But I think it will still change.”
Even though it’s no longer part of the university’s name, Dixie remains a prominent fixture around town — from a major road to an electric utility to the convention center. Within a couple of miles of campus, there’s a technical college, a high school and a middle school named Dixie. Roughly two million acres of public land in southern Utah goes by the name Dixie National Forest.
The list is growing, too.
At the 2024 State of the City address, Mayor Michele Randall announced St. George will soon launch an annual Dixie Days festival.
Back at the freshly whitewashed D, Wells gazed across downtown, where the fast-growing community sprawls out in every direction. Traditions like this honor the settlers whose hard work made St. George what it is today, he said.
“Imagine looking on the valley below this D and seeing nothing but sand. It had to be really tough to say, ‘We're going to make a community out of this place.’”
Dixie has a different meaning locally than it does nationally, he said, and he believes the D can continue to be part of the university’s new era. That’s why around the same time the school changed its name, Wells helped write the application that got the D listed on the National Register of Historic Places. He hopes people will keep hiking here to freshen up the paint for many more years to come. But ultimately, he said changing the university’s name was the right decision.
“At best, it's just confusing when you're called Dixie and the location is in the western United States — at best, right? At worst, it does conjure up some history that we want to put behind us. But locally, that term Utah's Dixie was a rallying cry for the community to get together.”
