University officials are warning students to get ready to party with Sparty.

By highlighting MSU's international and academic reputations while recognizing its lengthy history, those planning the university's 150th birthday, or sesquicentennial celebration, say the year-long soiree will be one to remember.

"The events will showcase our intellectual energy," said Sue Carter, co-chairwoman for the sesquicentennial. "The focus of what we do is teaching and research, but we also take what we do out into the world."

Through MSU Museum exhibits, a three-volume history of MSU, the unveiling of a new university monument and many other panels and celebrations not yet finalized, Carter said she hopes to represent the university's values and celebrate its history.

The sesquicentennial will also commemorate MSU's beginning as a land grant institution.

Land grant legislation, which helped support MSU in its infancy, was passed in 1862. Carter said the sesquicentennial events will honor that history while planning for the future.

"The overriding theme of the sesquicentennial will be land grant in the 21st century," Carter said. "While we certainly aren't the same university we were when we were founded, the core of what we represent now is what our values were back then."

On Friday, university officials will hold the first major sesquicentennial event - the John Hannah memorial statue will be unveiled.

The nearly 7-foot, 750-pound statue with a 26-inch base is a replica of the former MSU president.

The $195,000 statue was funded through private gifts and will be the focus of a new plaza constructed in front of the Administration Building, said Jeff Kacos, Campus Park and Planning director. Crews broke ground near the building this summer, after university officials began a search for the statue's artist in 2000.

Hannah's statue was designed by California artist Bruce Wolfe, who was commissioned because of the high-quality works he's produced, Kacos said.

In addition to the Hannah statue, a 3,000-square-foot, four-part MSU Museum exhibit, displayed in the museum and at the Union, will showcase the university's traditions through artifacts, photos and documents. The exhibit will run from Feb. 20 through Dec. 30, 2005.

"We're showing the history of the university, largely through the student's perspective," said Val Berryman, curator of history at the MSU Museum.

"Life in the dorms and events inside and outside the classroom will be showcased."

A trolley line uniform, worn by a student in the 1920s, will be on display. Back then, Berryman said, students had to take the trolley into and out of East Lansing and Lansing.

Beanie caps, worn by MSU freshmen in the 1800s, will be at the exhibit. At that time, first-year students had to wear beanie caps on campus to designate their lowly status at the university, Berryman said.

A horse-drawn buggy, used to deliver mail in 1904, a timeline of the university's history and card sorters used to register students for classes in the 1990s will also be on display.

A small sample of the exhibit will travel to residence halls throughout its run to entice students to visit the museum or the Union, Berryman said.

Also planned during the sesquicentennial festivities is the release of a three-volume history of MSU. Carter said the books were "the most comprehensive history of any university."

Through interviews, photos, newspaper documents, MSU Museum archives, personal letters and diary entries, the social, academic and political history of the university will be discussed.

Fred Bohm, director of the MSU Press, said the project was started in the mid-1990s and will give people a feeling of how the university got where it is today and what lies in its future.

"It will be a flavor of the past times," Bohm said. "It is a unique opportunity to explain the university's past to people of the 21st century. A lot of times that history gets lost.

"It's hard to know where you're going in the world unless you know where you've been."

The books will be $39.95 each and the first volume will be released in November.

Carter said a Founder's Day celebration will inaugurate President-designate Lou Anna Simon as MSU's 20th president, a homecoming celebration could include tailgating on a nongame day, and plans for a float parade down the Red Cedar River are beginning.

Starting Jan. 1, student athletes will sport a special "S150" patch on their uniforms, Carter added.

"Everybody in the university is pitching in," Carter said. "It will just be a great celebration."