Alumni bring Norton the dino to the Hilltop

In the 1980s Cornell students established a tradition of taking pictures with Sinclair dinosaurs around eastern Iowa. So when a group of alumni noticed a Facebook post about a gas station removing one of the green dinosaurs, they set out on a mission to try to buy it.

“It started six months into COVID lockdown as a silly conversation of ‘What if we could put that dinosaur on campus!’” says Mandy Landuyt ’99. “It gave us something to focus on that was fun and exciting, and was a very uniting thing for those of us who wanted to be involved.” 

What began as a diversion ended after a two-year journey during which the alumni learned that Sinclair Oil and law enforcement were looking for the exact dinosaur they were in line to purchase.

Months and many phone calls into this saga, they discovered they couldn’t legally purchase the dino. But after helping Sinclair locate the dinosaur, Landuyt says the company donated one to the group to thank them for unintentionally solving the puzzle of their missing dino.

“I say we’re like the Scooby Doo gang—that we pulled the mask off the villain and revealed the truth of the situation, even though we initially had no idea what we were really involved in,” Landuyt says.

The alumni named the dinosaur Norton, after Norton Geology Center. In July 2022 Norton was installed in Cole Library, where its director, Greg Cotton, says he’s amused and more than happy to have it: “I like that vibe that it’s going to give off that we are not stuffy, and we’re fun and approachable.”

Alumni who supported this project are excited to take new pictures with the dinosaur and see the next generation of Cornellians experience some of the fun they had as students. One of those new students is Landuyt’s daughter, Emma Landuyt-Krueger, who arrived in August with the Class of 2026.

“She’ll be able to say, ‘Hey, my mom and her friends brought that dinosaur here!’ It’s extra awesome to think maybe she’ll have as much fun with it,” says Landuyt.