Poll picks Wolves as next South Burlington mascot
School Board to vote yes or no at meeting June 7.
Austin DanforthThe students have had their say.
They want to become the South Burlington Wolves.
In 12 hours of polling students from grades 6-12 on Thursday, Wolves beat out two other finalists as the future mascot for South Burlington teams.
The district School Board will approve or reject the proposed nickname at its June 7 meeting. If approved, Wolves would replace the Rebel nickname for the upcoming fall season.
Thursday's was the third poll of the student population, whittling a list of possibilities from 70 to 12, from 12 to three, and from three to one. The other two finalists were Huskies and Pride (a pack of lions).
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"The Wolves came in first in all of those," South Burlington High School Principal Patrick Burke told the Burlington Free Press on Thursday night.
Eighty-three percent of students listed Wolves as either their first or second choice in the instant-runoff-voting format. Huskies placed second. Pride came in third.
"(Wolves) won by a significant margin. There was a fair amount of support for Huskies too," Burke said.
The school's current Rebel nickname has been controversial since it was chosen by students in 1961, when the name was used in conjunction with a Confederate flag. The School Board agreed unanimously Feb. 1 to change the name, overturning a 2015 decision in which the board decided to keep the name with reservations.
The move to retire the Rebel name prompted the creation of an advocacy group, the Rebel Alliance, that is seeking to keep the mascot, and contributed to the defeat of two school budgets.
The mascot selection committee — whose members range from a 1967 SBHS graduate to a student in the Class of 2023 — will present the Wolves nickname to the board at the meeting next month.
One other Vermont high school, Peoples Academy in Morrisville, is called the Wolves. Burke said Thursday night that it's unlikely the South Burlington and Peoples squads have competed against each other head-to-head for some time, if ever.
Contact Austin Danforth at 651-4851 or edanforth@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @eadanforth