She's sure most students want to keep the current mascot — it's just a question of the margin of victory and the number of students who select a "I have no opinion" choice on the ballot.

"Some seniors know they're going to graduate with the 'imp,'" Cathy Manion, 17, Lindhurst High School student body president, said of the school's mascot and the likelihood he's secure through the school year.

Counting of votes cast Friday by students is expected to be completed Monday morning, Principal Bob Eckardt said.

"I don't want to have another Dewey-Truman," Eckardt said of seeking a complete vote count and the 1948 presidential election when winner Harry Truman held a Chicago newspaper mistakenly proclaiming challenger Thomas E. Dewey the winner.

Eckardt said most of the nearly 1,400 students who attend Lindhurst marked ballots Friday on the fate of the mascot that's been described as a mythological imp — and also as a little devil.

The image has represented the Lindhurst High Blazers since the school opened in 1975. Eckardt said a slow buildup of momentum over years led to the current look at whether the imp embodies the school's qualities.

Students could vote to keep the mascot, consider options to replace him — as well as the third "I-have-no-opinon" choice.

Their vote, along with community meetings starting at 6 p.m. Dec. 1 and 2 at Lindhurst High, will be crucial.

"It really is going to come down to what the data tell us," Eckardt said of reaction to the proposal to replace the current image.

He said he understands the strong reaction to the possibility that the Olivehurst school would adopt a new mascot.

"It's a symbol — very much like the flag," he said.

Gay Todd, superintendent of the Marysville Joint Unified School District, said trustees would not be involved in the issue.

Schools in the district are free to decide on mascots, Todd said. If a great controversy arose involving Lindhurst or another school about its mascot, she would make the final decision, the superintendent said.

Asked why such images often provoke passion in the public, Todd said, "It is probably more nostalgia than anything." "That was there when they went to school," she said of alumni and a school's mascot.

No other schools have ever raised issues with Lindhurst's mascot, she added.

"Lindhurst High School represents a good friend of ours in the GEL," said Todd Jacobs, principal of Capital Christian High School in Sacramento, among schools that Lindhurst plays in the Golden Empire League.

"I would definitely leave any issue regarding their mascot in their judgment," Jacobs said. "That would be their business."

Bernie Rechs, re-elected Nov. 4 as a Marsyville school district trustee, said of the Lindhurst mascot, "I'm not sure the community's ready to accept the change."

"It's not meant to be a controversial mascot," he said. "I don't see anything wrong with it all."

Three years ago, McKenney Intermediate School in Marysville replaced its Rebel with Mustangs and went well, Rechs recalled.

McKenney's mascot had been a mounted Rebel soldier, he recalled.

"I could see where there might be opposition to that," Rechs said.

Yuba City High School has a distinctive mascot, the Honkers, named for the Canada geese that fly over this region.

"We like our Honker," student body president Lawrence Mendoza, 17, said. "We've grown fond of it."

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Ryan McCarthy at 749-4707 or at rmccarthy@appealdemocrat.com.