the session laws to see if this was put through as a bill - no luck. I checked Memorials and Resolutions, which is probably the closest we would have to something called a decree, and found nothing. Finally, I even checked in the Governor's records to see if this was issued as a proclamation, and found nothing. Doing a bit of googling, I see that this "decree" is mentioned several times, but no one provides any substantive evidence of such a thing existing. My suggestion to you is that you may want to spend a bit of time searching through newspapers to see if you can find information about an event happening in 1939 recognizing the phrase. Could it have, rather than the legislature, been the Arizona Board of Regents? Or a different governing body? Might it be a different kind of document altogether? Unfortunately, we do not have the staff to do this kind of research, but you are welcome to visit us to look at reels of microfilm or borrow them through Interlibrary Loan. You may also want to contact the University of Arizona Special Collections to see if they can clarify this reference, if you haven't already. In 2013 Arizona's football stadium installed a new artificial surface with "Bear Down" etched in the center of the field and running from end to end between the 15-yard lines. Previously the phrase was painted on the field in two separate areas. Before the 2022 season, the artificial surface was renovated and "Bear Down" returned to the painted sideline alongside each 20-yard line. Fight song The song "Bear Down, Arizona!" was written by Jack K. Lee, the university's future band director, in 1952. As related by Lee himself in later years, Lee was one of several applicants for the position of Director of Bands at the U of A. During his visit to the university for his job interview, he was given a tour of the campus and was told the story of the Bear Down slogan. As his flight home to Michigan left from the Tucson airport, it banked over the university campus, and Lee saw the slogan painted on the roof of the university gymnasium. He was struck by inspiration, took an airsickness bag from the seat pocket of the plane and wrote, in pencil, the lyrics to "Bear Down, Arizona." Lee was offered the band director job.