Clovis South high mascot and colors chosen after community input. Check out new logo

Clovis Unified revealed the mascot and colors this week for its new high school as the Longhorns and the colors as navy, orange, gray, and white.

The mascot and colors are now shared by the Clovis South High and Phillip V. Sanchez Intermediate schools that are part of the new Terry P. Bradley Educational Center and set to open in 2025. Other Clovis school groups arranged as educational centers follow the same routine.

The board of trustees voted unanimously to approve the mascot and colors.

The decision was based on community input, said educational center Principal Sonia Torossian, who has been engaged in the process for nearly a year and a half, she said.

Top mascot ideas gathered from the community were bulls, knights, lions, panthers, sentinels, and sharks, among others. “We were quickly able to eliminate the lions, the panthers and the tigers because they already existed for Clovis Unified,” said Torossian at a school board presentation.

The Longhorns stood out for its uniqueness, she said. There are no other in-state schools using Longhorns as mascots. There is a history of longhorn cattle in California in earlier centuries, but mostly they are gone now and more commonly associated with Texas.

Torossian met with students and families from the Clovis South area and conducted two community meetings last month. Web-based surveys also were sent to future school staff and families in the area to gather feedback.

The mascot was chosen based on a number of considerations, including reflecting on the Central Valley’s agricultural roots, said Torossian in a presentation at the May 22 school board meeting.

When deciding the school colors, Torossian said the team wanted to make sure the colors were recognizable to represent Clovis South’s identity and different from other schools in the district. They shouldn’t be too dark or too light and practical enough to be printed on various school accessories.

“We wanted the colors to evoke pride in our community and our students and of course, our staff,” she said. “So we’ve considered digital art versus print art. We wanted to also ask ourselves, ‘Do you think people are going to wear our colors?’ and to avoid overly complex color schemes”

A scheme of the mascot and the colors was shared at a school board meeting, but it was not finalized, said Torossian.

“This is just a mock-up or a rendering; that’s not even close to where we will probably land, just to give a vision to start of this process,” she said. “Ultimately we will work with our communications department ... and have that available for you to view in the near future.”

The team will proceed to finalize the project, including generating an artwork sample and finalizing the exact color palette.