Wichita North High School names its new mascot

Wichita North High School has a new mascot — the RedHawks.

USD 259 announced the new name on Wednesday as the district moved away from what a district committee called the “racially and culturally insensitive” Redskins name. Students — current and future — alumni and staff were allowed to vote on one of four possible mascots: Wolfpack, RedHawks, North Stars and Red Storm.

“We are now the North High RedHawks,” principal Stephanie Wasko said.

The school had been without a mascot for nearly two years.

“We waited this long, not because we had to, because people had to mourn,” she said. “They had to let it go. They had to get over the fact that it was done. I felt it was wrong to simply remove it and then replace it with something immediately.”

The process of choosing a new mascot began last summer at the end of the school year. Students were asked to make suggestions on what they would like their next mascot to be, Wasco said.

The school opened it up to voting for students and alumni.

Votes came from nearly 3,000 alumni, around 700 students in middle schools that feed into North High (Horace Mann, Marshall and Pleasant Valley) and over 1,000 current students — whose votes counted for two.

Wasko said 58% of voters chose the RedHawks.

North High graduate Bill Gardner with Gardner Designs will design the new logos. He’s agreed to do it for free, Wasko said.

“This is his donation to our school,” Wasko said. “It is a huge opportunity for a true professional to create a logo and to take us into the next 100 years of our building.”

Wasko said it will be at least a month until Gardner has a mock-up design of the new logo.

The Wichita school board voted unanimously in February 2021 to do away with the Redskins name over a two-year period. School sports uniforms had the sole word “North” on them.

A committee created by Wichita Public Schools to study the mascot determined: “the term is offensive to Native Americans and the Native American Culture. The term is racially and culturally insensitive.”

Wasko said alumni had a hard time coping with the mascot change.

“In reality, it doesn’t change the memories, pride, friends or education they got here,” Wasko said. “We’re simply changing the mascot, not anything that was important to them.”