Students in Janet Cary's third-grade classroom at Oak Grove Elementary have written letters and designed new t-shirts for a new mascot at Montrose High School. Their suggestions are Western Slope animals, from black bears to mountain goats.
(Compiled by Anna Lynn Winfrey/Montrose Daily Press)
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Students in Janet Cary's third-grade classroom at Oak Grove Elementary have written letters and designed new t-shirts for a new mascot at Montrose High School. Their suggestions are Western Slope animals, from black bears to mountain goats.
(Compiled by Anna Lynn Winfrey/Montrose Daily Press)
As the mascot committees are meeting for the second time this week to discuss concrete discussions for the mascot replacement, a third-grade classroom at Oak Grove Elementary School has brainstormed ideas of their own for the new Montrose High School mascot.
“As a teacher, we’re always looking for opportunities for the students to have some authentic, purposeful writing. When I saw that they were looking for community input for the new mascot, I thought that that would be a really good fit for the students,” classroom teacher Janet Cary said.
Her students submitted a hand-written letter and an accompanying t-shirt design to the high school committee, which is meeting on Tuesday night.
Cary said that students started off by generating a list of animals that live on the Western Slope, then students did more research on their chosen animal.
The black bear was the most popular animal among the students. Multiple students also wrote letters in favor of mountain lions, fox and elk, while others proposed deer, hawks and mountain goats.
The students then came up with attributes of some of the high school sport teams that align with the animals, a process similar to the work that the mascot committees brainstormed at their first meeting at the end of November.
“I think it should be a mountain lion. They are fast runners and also they like to eat,” Oliver, a student in Cary’s class, wrote in his letter.
Rowdy, another third-grader, vouched for black bears because they’re fast like the track and cross country athletes, strong like the football, basketball and baseball teams and good swimmers like the swim team.
Cary said that some of the students had older siblings and already knew that the mascot was going to change, but added that most of her students will be attending the high school themselves eventually.
“It was really fun for them to be part of the process, and it really made them feel important and like their opinions mattered,” Cary said. “That was just really neat for the kids.”
A new law enacted in June 2021 outlaws Native American mascots at public school in Colorado. Montrose County School District officials have been working on a process to change the Indians mascot at MHS and the Braves mascot at Centennial Middle School since the summer.
Anna Lynn Winfrey is a staff writer for the Montrose Daily Press.
Anna Lynn Winfrey is a staff writer for the Montrose Daily Press.
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