The Lyon College Scottish Heritage Program will host an old campus tradition this month to pay homage to one of Scotland's most beloved sons.

The college’s annual Burns Night is set for Jan. 26 in Bevens Music Room. Cocktail hour begins at 6 p.m. with dinner at 7 p.m. The Lyon College Pipe Band will play at 8 p.m. and country dancing begins at 9 p.m.

Burns Night is a tribute to Scottish poet Robert Burns. Ralph Graham, who began the Scottish Heritage Program at Lyon, established the first Burns Night tradition in 1981. Graham, then vice president for development, also started what is now the Arkansas Scottish Festival.

Lyon's Burns Night celebrations ended after Graham left Lyon in 1988 but was revived in 2005.

Burns Nights, or Suppers, have been part of Scottish culture for over 200 years. Close friends of Burns started the ritual a few years after his death in 1796 as a tribute to his memory.

Robert Burns was born Jan. 25, 1759, in a tiny village on the West Coast of Scotland, and died July, 21, 1796, at Dumfries in the South of Scotland at the age of 37. At 27, his first work was published by John Wilson at Kilmarnock in Ayrshire, titled "Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect."

The cost of Burns Night is $30 per person and includes a dinner of roast beef or chicken, barley and mushrooms as well as assorted vegetables, rolls and dessert.