By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org
When the Godfrey-Lee Board of Education announced it was going to host forums to discuss whether to change or keep its Rebel mascot, the goal, according to school officials, was to have an open and honest discussion among students, parents, staff and the community.
According to Board President Eric Mockerman, it is exactly what has happened.
“We are really happy with how the first forum went and happy with the discussion that was generated,” Mockerman said, adding that forum, which was in December, included a mixture of students, residents, and staff with all sharing their thoughts and feelings. “We were hoping for a good, constructive conversation, and that is what has taken place.”
The district is still in the gathering phase as to what the overall consensus of the community’s feelings are toward the rebel mascot, which currently is depicted as a cartoonish figure of a Confederate general.
The next community forum is set for Jan. 17 at 7 p.m. at the high school medial center. Mockerman said the board is tentatively set to review and discuss its findings at its Feb. 11 board meeting.
“There has been a variety of reactions from some saying we want to buy a Confederate flag to everything has to be changed, the mascot, the name of the high school,” Mockerman said.
Controversy has swirled around the Lee mascot for years because of its association with the Confederate south. Recently, the district went through an extensive strategic planning process, according to Superintendent Kevin Polston. Through the process, the district determined its values as Community, Human Centered, Equity, Excellent, and Relationships or CHEER for short.
Polston said the district has three short-term districtwide goals, culture, collaboration and aligning the K-12 curriculum.
“We rebranded the district with a new logo to represented the new values,” Polston said. “After the strategic plan was approved, it was a logical progression to examine the name and the mascot.”
So where did the Lee Rebel name come from? Former Godfrey-Lee superintendent and area historian David Britten provided a 10-minute video on the naming of the school and the mascot. Some highlights from the video:
• Lee Street was an accessory road that ran along the side of the railroad tracks. It was named State Street, but in 1913 was changed to Wall Street and then in the following year, renamed to Lee Street. As to why the name was chosen, Britten said in the video, it is uncertain, but he did note that streets were often renamed to eliminate duplication and/or confusion.
• In 1923, the Lee High School, originally called Lee Street Middle School, opened. It was named after Lee Street.
• In 1936, a newspaper article, the rebel name is first mentioned and the 1936 yearbook had a theme, the Civil War, tying the school’s name to General Robert E. Lee.
• In 1943, the first school mascot, a spartan-helmeted warrior, appeared.
• In 1958, a student penned an article that while acknowledging the school was not named after the Confederate general, that a new connection be formed with the school’s fight song be the tune of “Whistling Dixie” and Confederate flags waving from students’s cars.
• In 1959, the student council announced it would incorporate the rebel name with “all the trimmings” and in 1960, the student council purchased a Confederate flag with an official dedication being showcased in the 1961 school yearbook.
• By 1966, the Confederate flag replaced the Spartan warrior as the school’s symbol.
• By the the 1980s, the school had the Rebel mascot.
• By the 1990s, the Rebel character had been modified to a cartoonish character with much of the other Confederate symbolisms, such as the flags, gone.
• Since 2010, the students and staff have adopted a modern rebel code of Respect, Effort, Be original, Be prepared, Integrity, and Elevate your life, more connected to their futures than some distant past, Britten said in the video.
“This code is visible in the building and has been celebrated in assembles, helping to instill pride in what each and every student is and can become regardless of the obstacles he or she faces each day,” Britten said.
