Tusk I (1997–2004) came about when Keith Stokes, then president of the Arkansas Pork Producers Association, was approached by local Razorback personality David Bazzel to find a wild hog to be the live mascot of the University of Arkansas in 1994. Stokes found a wild hog near Greenbrier, Arkansas which became Tusk I and started the Tusk lineage beginning in 1997. Tusk I then served as the Razorback mascot for eight years, spending his first four football seasons at the Little Rock Zoo before being moved to the Tyson Foods Farm in Springdale, Arkansas in 2001. Tusk I fathered Tusk II in 2002, and died in December 2004.