Crop circles and Cougar pride

An oddly specific crop circle has appeared just off the old Moscow-Pullman highway where it intersects with Brown Road. On a hilltop just south of the road, the phrase "Go Cougs!" has been etched into the rolling wheat fields of the Palouse in enormous, surprisingly uniform letters - easily viewed by incoming aircraft.

Brady Boone, the man behind the stunt, said he tilled the phrase into the field Tuesday largely unaided by GPS and with the help of his father, Mike, and friends Armando Escareno and Samuel Adams. The other men stood in the margins and edges of the letters while Boone drove a chisel plow, tilling the letters into the earth. He estimated each letter to be at least 50 feet in length, with the entire message spanning between 10 to 15 acres.

"The intention was so people flying in could see it," Boone said. "We put it on a hilltop for that reason - we could have put it in a draw and you would have been able to be in the field from above and looking down, but as it is now, you have to be in the sky."

Boone said the project is located on his family farm, which he works with his father. He said both sides of his family have been living and farming in the area for well over a century and have been die-hard Cougs for generations. Boone said he and his wife never miss a home football game and are often accompanied by friends.

"Both Mom and Dad went to WSU (and) graduated from WSU, I went to WSU, my sister went to WSU - one of the guys that works for us, he went to WSU - so we're all rooted, big-time Cougs," Boone said.

Boone said he has had the idea to write "Go Cougs!" into one of their fields for years and this weekend's game seemed the appropriate time to do it. He said whenever he flies out of Pullman, he tries to find his parents' house, and the project is located fairly close.

Considering the quality of the work, it is unsurprising that this is not Boone's first time tilling words into a field.

"That's actually how I proposed to my wife," Boone said. "I put her initials and then wrote 'Marry Me?' in the field, and then actually we took a plane ride and she saw it and said yes."

Scott Jackson can be reached at (208) 883-4636, or by email to sjackson@dnews.com.