Greetings Herd,

My name is Ebony, and I serve as the Order Fulfillment Chair for Last Bison Standing for the 2026–2027 academic year.

As we prepare for the upcoming season, I want to provide an update on our apparel and fulfillment operations.

Going into 2026–2027, we have entered into agreements with new vendors and fulfillment partners who have already helped us make significant progress in addressing issues within our apparel operations.

Today is the final day for undergraduates to register for or withdraw from classes. Beginning Tuesday, we will begin interviewing Bison who are interested in working on the apparel operations side of our organization.

We have a lot of work to do.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of apparel that our team will be responsible for sorting, organizing, inventorying, and potentially shipping. As we build out our new team, we will also continue addressing outstanding orders and fulfillment matters from previous academic years.

Since my appointment as Order Fulfillment Chair, I have been working to address and rectify outstanding issues that occurred prior to my tenure. I have intentionally worked backward by academic year to close out these matters. This approach has allowed my team to be thorough and intentional as we move through each phase of the resolution process.

In previous communications from my predecessors, some customers were informed that issues involving certain collections later became part of a legal matter that required restitution to our organization.

Since stepping into this role, my position has remained simple:

We will replace what we can and refund what we cannot.

Where merchandise is available or can reasonably be reproduced, we will work toward replacement. Where replacement is no longer possible, refunds will be issued in the form of postal money orders due to changes in our payment-processing systems and the implementation of new payment processors.

Resolving matters that predate my appointment while simultaneously rebuilding apparel operations for the 2026–2027 academic year is a significant undertaking, but the work is moving forward.

Thank you for your continued patience, understanding, and cooperation as we work to bring these outstanding matters to a resolution and build a stronger fulfillment operation moving forward.

Ebony

Order Fulfillment Chair

Last Bison Standing

2026–2027

It’s important that we define the term Vintage and Discontinued Apparel Collections as it relates to our organization.

We have been operating officially since August 2014. Long before Last Bison Standing existed, many of our alumni ambassadors and supporters had been collecting Howard apparel from various decades.

As it relates to our Vintage Collections, vendors who have long since closed their doors have passed items on to us. We have also acquired pieces through estate sales, thrift purchases, and apparel obtained from fellow Bison.

As it relates to our Discontinued Collections, for more than 12 years we have produced our own apparel collections for which the appropriate royalties were paid during a time when licensing guidelines were not what they are today.

There are designs and garments that have become staple pieces and will never go out of style.

There are also designs that have been retired but remain available because we still have surplus inventory to sell through. In some cases, the stock photos still feature members of the Class of 2018, who were freshmen when this journey began and are now approaching 30 years old. That should give some insight into just how old some of these collections are.

As it stands today, following a series of thefts—both internal and external—the majority of our vintage and discontinued collections have been relocated to out-of-state storage facilities for safekeeping.