We all know voters in the Greene County school district will be asked again to approve a bond issue for construction that will result in a two-school district. The questions are when – it could be as soon as next April or as late as next September – and what will be changed in the effort to put together the 60 percent majority needed to move forward.
There isn’t much in the proposal that could be changed cost-wise. The board of education trimmed the original $30 million proposal before voters ever saw it. But maybe what’s needed to get enough people from across the district “on board” with the proposal is as simple as the color of the bleachers and the mascot in the center of the new gym floor.
It’s time for the Ram to go.
He should go with as much ceremony (or lack thereof) as the East Greene Hawk, the Scranton Trojan, the Rippey Bulldog, the Grand Junction Blue Jay, the Dana Cyclone and the Franklin Consolidated Cardinal. The Ram should be replaced by a mascot chosen by the students of the infant Greene County Community School District, with new school colors, too.
It’s not a startling notion. A pair of nearby school districts did exactly that in recent years. The Southern Cal Mustang and the Rockwell City-Lytton Wildcat yielded to the Titan of South Central Calhoun. The Prairie Valley Warrior and the Southeast Webster Eagle abdicated for the Southeast Valley Jaguar. In neither case did the larger district retain its mascot and school colors.
The option of a new mascot for a new district was visited very briefly in the Jefferson-Scranton district when reorganization talk began. The discussion was aborted quickly because there were brand new red bleachers in the middle school gym and there were Rams on the mats at either end of the basketball court. It would have cost too much to make a switch, according to the administration.
Also, a precedent was cited. When Jefferson and Scranton reorganized, the Scranton Trojan was sent away. That’s the way it was then so that’s the way it should be this time, a longtime board member said.
Well, it might be the hoof of a Ram that’s figuratively kicking the school board and the administration in the backside when it comes to the bond proposal. There’s a Hawk circling and a Trojan ghost watching, with an unadmitted bit of satisfaction, perhaps.
In keeping the Ram, the new district missed out on an opportunity to build a new community, as in Greene County COMMUNITY School District. Had the students been asked to pick a new mascot, they would all feel a sense of ownership of the new one as they all shared the loss of their old mascots. Some lost a Hawk, others would have lost a Ram, but they all got a new mascot. Everyone would be in the same place, moving together into something new. Everyone would have had to purchase new T-shirts and hoodies.
Instead, we’re stuck in an old way of thinking in our smaller communities with residents in the east part of the district mourning for their Hawk and “Jeffersnobs” not even realizing that the reorganization involved a loss for the former Hawks, even without the eventual loss of a school building.
It sounds too easy, doesn’t it?
But it may be an explanation of why there were so few Persons of Influence in Scranton, Grand Junction and Rippey willing to speak on behalf of the bond proposal. People have long memories. Even in Scranton, nearly 25 years after that reorganization, I suspect voters feel the loss of their Trojan and in more recent years, the loss of their school, while Jefferson residents lost nothing.
It’s not fair.
No school board or volunteer committee can provide better crop prices to make the bond proposal financially more palatable for owners of ag land. Keeping two vintage buildings in use as schools is contrary to the purpose of the proposal and can’t be negotiated.
What the school board and/or volunteer committee can do is to nurture the larger community of the Greene County Community School District. Saying “adios” to the Ram and allowing the students to name a new mascot the entire district “owns” would be a step in that direction.
There’s no reason not to do it. Put a moratorium on purchases of new uniforms and equipment. Money spent on the Ram shouldn’t prohibit a change.
When the bond proposal passes – and hopefully it won’t take 102 attempts – there will be a new competition gym that will require bleachers and mats at the ends of the basketball court. The bleachers can be any color and the mats can be emblazoned with any mascot. And new uniforms? Shouldn’t teams from Greene County wear green?
Then, everyone in the new Greene County Community School District can move on to what’s really important – providing the best possible education we can in school buildings we can be proud of. ~Victoria Riley
