Shawano had its mascot debate 20 years ago

The use of American Indian mascots continues to make headlines — both nationally, with protests targeting the NFL’s Washington Redskins, and statewide, as Gov. Scott Walker considers legislation deemed racist by its foes.

Shawano debated the same issue, in a much more subdued environment, 21 years ago when the high school changed its nickname from Indians to Hawks.

News reports from the time indicate Fred Davel, then superintendent of the Shawano-Gresham School District, proposed the change because he felt the Indians mascot could be antagonistic to American Indians, who at the time comprised around 12 percent of the high school enrollment.

“At this point, we might as well pick a name that is not antagonistic to anybody,” Davel was quoted as saying at a district meeting in the April 3, 1992, edition of The Shawano Leader. “Tradition is nice, but is it worth it to get into an issue when you don’t have to?”

The School Board held a public hearing on the issue a few days later. Around 20 people attended, with five opposing the change. A week later, the School Board voted 6-3 to change from Indians, which had been used since the 1920s, to Hawks.

Jeremy Hodkiewicz, now a teacher at SCHS, was wrapping up his sophomore year in Shawano. He remembers students opposed the change, but they quickly accepted the decision.

“We were all against it. We liked our mascot, to be honest,” Hodkiewicz said. “But it is what it is. No one knows any different now.”

Richie Plass, a 1968 graduate of Shawano High School and a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee and Menominee tribes, dressed as the mascot during some basketball games but stopped after getting harassed by opposing fans.

Plass said he had mixed feelings about the mascot at the time.

“As they were going through that process, I tried to put together my own thought process, I guess is the easiest way to say it,” Plass said. “How do I really feel? … I’m a firm believer that it was probably started with the right intentions. Things evolved, things happened.”

Plass, who lives in Green Bay, said he also has evolved and opposes the use of American Indian names and images by the sports teams. He was involved in the protests of the Washington Redskins that took place in Green Bay and Minneapolis when the professional football team traveled to those areas for games. Redskins owner Daniel Snyder has said he has no plans to change the team’s nickname.

“It’s those people who don’t know us, who somehow feel that they have ownership to make the jokes,” Plass said. “There are some of us who are sick of it.”

Plass has attempted to educate people about the issue by creating a travelling exhibit about how American Indians are portrayed in culture.

In Wisconsin, the Republican-dominated Legislature has passed a bill that would make it more difficult for school districts to change mascots. Gov. Scott Walker has not yet said whether he will sign the legislation.

The measure would largely undo the three-year-old state law that required school districts to justify race-based logos and mascots to the Department of Public Instruction if they received one complaint it was harmful. The Republican-authored bill would require anyone who finds a mascot harmful to obtain signatures equal to 10 percent of the school district population before filing a complaint. The complaint is then investigated by the state Department of Administration rather than the state DPI.

Opponents have branded the legislation racist.

Senate Democrats sent a letter to Walker, warning the governor that allowing race-based nicknames teaches students to tolerate racial stereotyping.

“It is very difficult for our children to learn authentic information about Wisconsin’s tribes and native people when schools have one-dimensional stereotypes of Indian people hanging on their walls and embedded in their gymnasium floors,” the letter said.