Precedent for Mascot Change Involves… Sloths?

In a Council meeting in May of 1986, a motion was brought to change the Hanover High mascot from the Marauders to the Three-Toed Sloths. Although this motion passed, no historical record of the motion passing exists other than the stories told by the members of the body. The motion was repealed during the following meeting.

Michael Richardson claimed credit for the creation of the motion on a recent Facebook recollection of the event. Richardson stated that “the year was winding down, and the Council had slipped from its heyday…Things just seemed dour and flat.” He continued, “the class of ‘86 was just goofy. We had to do something. It seemed like a way to make the world property warped.”

 The motion passing had a great deal to do with a peculiar statement made by Kevin Finney during the deliberation: Finney, when discussing the idea of the three-toed sloth, said that “sloths can go 3 weeks without urinating.” The discussion then closed, and the motion passed.

The next step in the process was for the Student Life Committee to research the student body’s opinion on the change of the school mascot. Then-freshman Andrew Heffernan claimed to remember filling out a poll about the mascot vote. 

The following week, the Council leadership had changed and the new moderator, Jordy Green, led the subsequent repealing of the motion. However, the previous meeting had still left the directive to the Student Life Committee to investigate the student body’s opinion on the change of mascot, which is likely where the survey that Heffernan remembers came from.

Although this mascot change was done partly out of feelings of underachievement and to teach the school a lesson about what Council can do, it does provide historical precedence for how and if Council should and can change the mascot. 

With heated discussions in Council continuing over the past few weeks about the future of Hanover’s mascot, the Council Executive Committee has made and released a survey to poll the interest of the students in the possible change of the mascot. This would be the first step similar to what the Student Life Committee did back in 1986. 

Image: https://tearaway.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Sloth-2-Pixabay-25717-TWA.jpg