College colors
Crayola creates celebratory crayons in honor of Lafayette’s Bicentennial.
Photographs By Jaquan Alston Except Pamela Pearson (Crayola).
This fall, Crayola, a longtime neighbor of the College in Easton, rolled out four new crayons inspired by the Bicentennial: Marquis Maroon, Cur Non Royal, Golden Leopard, and Day on the Quad. The project marks the latest—and most colorful—collaboration between the two entities that have shared a history of growing alongside each other in Lehigh Valley.
When Crayola first began producing crayons near campus in 1903, the College was already established. That same year, the community rallied together in rowboats due to record-setting flooding at the foot of College Hill. Later, they would persevere through the Great Depression, and bleak effects of wartime that impacted both college enrollment and manufacturing.
During Easton’s downtown revitalization in the ’90s, Crayola and Lafayette College were two of the first to invest in the area. When the original Crayola Factory opened in Centre Square in 1996, students were among its new patrons. Now called the Crayola Experience, seniors have been offered a chance to explore the attractions before graduating.
Over the years, Lafayette students have spent time in the production facility from internships to career days. As recently as March, Peter Ruggiero P’20’25, Crayola president and CEO and member of Lafayette’s Board of Trustees, hosted a Policy Studies class there, where students learned about growth strategy for the next quarter-century. Alumni work at Crayola, too, some boasting long and esteemed careers.
“We are grateful to Crayola for joining our 200th anniversary,” President Nicole Hurd said. “Having this cherished Easton company by our side adds to our momentous yearlong celebration.”
1.
“The Birthplace of Crayola” along Bushkill Creek shows where the Binney & Smith mill originally produced slate school pencils in 1900.
2.
The “Crayola” name is Marquis-approved: In French, craie means “chalk” while ola, a prefix for “oily,” refers to the quality of the paraffin wax.
3.
Lafayette’s custom colors are in 64-packs for sale at the College Store (collegestore.lafayette. edu); smaller 4-packs will be available at campus events throughout 2026.
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Pamela Pearson ’94 (pictured, right), director of commercialization specialization solutions at Crayola, was excited to lead this Bicentennial project. She joined Crayola as a staff accountant in 1986 and has held numerous roles in nearly 40 years with the company.
5.
Nearly 3 billion crayons are molded every year in Easton. Crayola engineers (and patent holders) like Eric Silvanage ’95, have improved the process with time: “I never would have thought when I was graduating from Lafayette that my path would have landed me right up the road, engineering the automation powering the future of such an iconic brand.”
