Marion school board officially approves ‘Wolves’mascot

The board voted to approve the name on Monday night

May. 24, 2021 6:23 pm, Updated: May. 25, 2021 10:16 am

The new scoreboard used by the Marion High School Indians at the Thomas Park Field on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2006, in Marion.

It’s official: The mascot for the Marion Independent School District will be the Wolves.

The district’s school board voted to officially approve the name change during its Monday night meeting.

In a survey sent to community members, Wolves received the most votes to replace the long-standing “Indians” mascot at 57 percent. The other choices, “Storm” and “No Mascot,” received 21 and 22 percent of the vote, respectively, earlier this month.

The two mascots were finalists in a previous district wide survey in which voters chose “Mavericks” instead.

But in March, the decision to adopt Mavericks as the school mascot was soon overturned after the district learned the origin of the term is from Samuel A. Maverick, an early 1800s Texas rancher and slave owner.

After learning Maverick was a slave owner, the district restarted with its new mascot search.

The process to find a new mascot began back in October, when the school board voted to change the mascot name from Indians.

The initial vote to change the school’s mascot came after Superintendent Janelle Brouwer received a letter from the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa [Meskwaki Nation] in September, requesting a name change.

“Native American people or Indians should not be viewed as ‘mascots for the pleasure of branding sports teams, schools or any other organization,” the letter read.