Andrea Diaz
Reporter
Pocatello High School has both made history and caused controversy with its decision to change its Indians mascot. The board of trustees for the Pocatello/Chubbuck School district voted to retire the mascot after the 2020/2021 school year. The Indians have been the school’s mascot since the 1950s and has had a long and not so pretty history.
According to the Idaho State Journal, the first known instance of the mascot was in a 1946 yearbook cover featuring a stereotypical Indian with a mohawk hairstyle and a spear. Then in 1951, the Indian was featured again, but this time as a representation of school spirit with a cartoon Indian that called himself Oske with the caption, “Hi! My name’s ‘Oske-ow-ow!’ I represent your school spirit.”
The Indian mascot was then taken on by the school and it wasn’t until 1972 that the school faced significant backlash over their mascot. The American Indian Movement (AIM) was an organization that focused on protesting the unfair treatment of Native Americans by the United States government. Dennis Banks, the co-founder of AIM, arrived in Pocatello in 1972 at the request of the Native American Students Association at Idaho State University and was very critical of the mascot saying, “If they’re willing to go out there and be Indians for that one hour it takes to play a basketball game, let them come out and live on the reservation.”
The general relationship between the local tribes and Pocatello High School has been both a positive and negative one. According to KTVB a school board meeting was held and multiple testimonies were heard. Many testimonies were for the mascot and others against. One of the testimonies being Michelle Dan Hernandez, who said that she was a descendant of Chief Pocatello. Her thoughts towards the mascot were positive where she doesn’t feel like it is offensive and gave the school her blessing to move forward with the Indians mascot.
However, Louida Benally, a member of the Tribal Youth Education Program, felt that the mascot was offensive after she watched an “Indianettes” performance, which is the school’s dance team. She described the performance by saying, “I felt shame, and embarrassed – it just creeped up my back,” she said. “That’s when it hit me… there’s something wrong with this if I’m going to feel this [way,] there’s something terribly wrong with the way they are portraying us.” The dance team came out to the sound of stereotypical “Indian sounds” and “music that would fit a black-and-white Western movie,” according to Benally.
Overall the school board members reached a decision of 4-1 to retire the Indians mascot. The list of possible new mascots has now been narrowed down to nine possible candidates. Most of the possible candidates allude to wild animals such as the wolves, the eagles, the bison, the mountain lions, the falcons and the mustangs. Another possible option is the phantoms which is a nod to the many rumors of the schools being haunted, with the last two options being the stampede and the thunder.
I am a graduate of Pocatello High. Lived here in Pocatello off & on, mostly on, for 30 years then left to California. After 30 yrs away I return to this!? Are you people crazy? I used to cry everytime the drill team did the ceremonial dance. I’m not a native american indian but man-o-man did I and still do take so much PRIDE in our mascot. To walk down those halls & read the motto & spirit of the school. To the respect I felt for the fact that the town is named after a Chief, and we carry the title of the tribe for our namesake. Why is it all actions that happen are instantly turned into negativity instead of positivity. If I were a native amercan indian, a people of the land, I would stand tall & proud for all the namesake opportunities that are shown. Everybody names their children, their pets, property, everything is named for SPECIAL, PERFECT, memory reasons, and they are proud to let any & everybody know the reasons why those names were given. If an occasional, unfortunate, interpretation was presented, wouldn’t it have been better for the offended to try and explain the errors of our ways, so that they could be corrected or changed to a mutual understanding, instead of leaving it to continue incorrectly. That is what should be considered as LEARNING, FROM, each other, not MAKING FUN OF, TORMENTING, RACISM, or any of that. They say if you don’t register to vote then don’t complain about the outcome. If you dont learn how to cook, stay out of kitchen, but don’t get upset if you cant get what you want to eat, the way you want it. You can’t teach your children things YOU didnt learn. So who is in the wrong? We couldn’t change if we weren’t told it wasn’t presented properly. What is the United States made of & known for? THE MELTING POT, for ALL ARE WELCOME HERE, no matter religion, race, creed, color, heritage, sex, financial status, whatever. I’ve been to an Indian PowWow & at that time I wanted to join the women in the shawl dance and learn about it, but I didn’t have a shawl and couldn’t bring myself to ask about the dance so, that made ME at fault. I still regret not learning about it, so it’s still my fault. If something doesn’t seem right OR isn’t right then learn & fix it. BUT don’t just throw it away. Progress would never happen if we could’t accept and learn from it. Please, please don’t just throw the Indian away. They were here before we were. Over 100 yrs we have represented our towns namesake. The native amercan indians are THE PEOPLE. Show your spirit and take some pride in what we’ve been doing for this long.AND remember childish ways in competition. Its not meant negatively it’s a mental issue to psych out the opponent in a challenge. If you throw things away, it just becomes trash & then forgotten. Stand UP for tradition, everybody has some, loves them, & wants to share & pass them on. That my friends is PRIDE. Leave the school mascot alone, just change or fix whatever is PROVEN to be offensive to some. A principle is not a president and we don’t live in a bossy bureaucratic country. We are independant. Keep us that way.
I am hoping this gets out and causes people to think. The future of a school is at stake. In the future when these students have grown & go back for their class reunions how are they suppose to feel and what are they going to remember and say. ” I was a PHS INDIAN & THEN I WASN’T.” It’s like you learn later on in your life that your family isn’t your family because you were adopted.