"hail to the orange" (along with "illinois loyalty") is the alma mater of the university of illinois at urbana–champaign. it was written in 1910 by two students, harold v. hill '11 (music) and howard r. green '11 (lyrics) as part of a group of songs intended for a skit contest. after failing to find a publisher, they changed the words to "hail to the purple, hail to the gold" and gave it to the national secretary of their fraternity, sigma alpha epsilon, who had it copyrighted in 1915 and published in the fraternity songbook. however "hail to the orange" continued to be played and sung at illinois, and was published several times.