Putting a different face on Colusa High

The Redskins, the longtime mascot of Colusa High School, will soon be replaced by the RiverHawks, RedHawks or Cougars.

The Colusa Unified School District board selected the three prospective names this week from more than 250 nominations.

Colusa could share the name RiverHawks (Spokane, Wash.) or RedHawks (Oklahoma City, Okla.) with minor league baseball teams — as well as the RedHawks teams of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, which changed its mascot from the Redskins in 1997. Cougars is a popular mascot among high schools and the athletic symbol for Washington State University in Pullman, Wash.

District residents, students, staff and alumni will have the opportunity to vote for the new mascot through an election to be held in mid-November, school officials said Wednesday.

"We're starting to see excite-

ment about the change," said district Superintendent Larry Yeghoian. "People are happy to be part of the process."

Yeghoian said the school board spent months deciding whether to change the school's mascot following more than a decade-long, nationwide debate over the use of Native American-themed mascots.

"It was an agonizing decision," the superintendent said. "We had members of the community speak for and against the change. It was hard."

More than 180 public schools in California use, or have used the controversial images, including California State University, Stanislaus, which kept its Warriors name in 2005, but changed the standard-bearer to a medieval character.

In 2002, the Colusa school board reviewed its own mascots — which include the Burchfield Braves of Burchfield Elementary School and Egling Middle School's Warriors — but made no changes.

Since then, two bills demanding schools change Native American mascots were put before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vetoed both, saying school districts should keep the freedom to choose their symbols.

The Colusa board voted 3-2 in April to drop the Redskins name, after more than 80 years of use, when some community members and Wintun and Maidu tribe members attacked the name as inappropriate.

On Tuesday, the board selected the three most popular names submitted during the nomination process, although the names Cowboys, Ducks, Coyotes, Mustangs and Vikings were almost as popular.

"We also got Fighting Penguins and Mosquitoes," acknowledged Yeghoian.

Students in grades 7 to 12, and district staff will vote for the new mascot on campus on Nov. 10. Residents within the district will receive a ballot postcard in the mail during that same week. Alumni living outside the district boundaries can cast their vote online at www.colusa.k12.ca.us.

The final selection will go to board members for approval on Dec. 16 and will be fully implemented by August 2011.

"We will go to work on the new logos right away," Yeghoian said. "The uniforms will have to be replaced by (2011) anyway, so we can't estimate a total cost. The biggest expense will be signage, but that usually comes from class gifts."

Yeghoian said once the new mascot is chosen, Egling and Burchfield will internally select a mascot that is compatible with Colusa High's new theme.

As the decision approaches, the head of Colusa sports fundraising group called the possible new nicknames acceptable, but wondered how much enthusiasm they would inspire among would-be voters.

"The community is still a little mad at the decision (to drop Redskins)," said Perry Taylor, a 1985 Colusa High graduate and president of the Colusa Redskins Athletic Foundation. "The real opposition came from the kids more than the community members, so maybe the kids are behind this compared to the rest of the community."

Nonetheless, he added, residents have continued to donate to school teams whatever their opinions on changing the mascot — including sales of 120 football season tickets at $100 apiece last month.

"The focus is on supporting the kids; that's what it's about," he said.

Contact Tri-County Newspapers reporter Susan Meeker at 458-2121 or at smeeker@tcnpress.com. Appeal-Democrat reporter Howard Yune contributed to this report.