The Olympian

Issue date: 2/27/08 Section: News

After two public forums, a petition and months of discussion, it seems likely that the Olympic College mascot will remain the Ranger.
In the first open forum on Feb. 11, Leslie Miller, associated students of OC president, started the discussion by explaining the events that lead to last year's ASOC decision to change the mascot to the black bears. Miller said the ASOC officers put the decision to a vote a number of times before making their proposal to the OC Board of Trustees in the spring of last year.
When Miller discovered there were a number of people on and off campus that did not want to see the mascot of 60 years disappear, she put together the forums in order to give everyone a chance to voice their feelings on the topic.
At the evening forum on Feb. 11, Bob Summers, OC student from 1960-62, said how he imagined the founders of the college choosing the name and the mascot.
"On a clear day, if you look to the west, you see a beautiful mountain range, and below that mountain range you see some great forests," Summers said. "It only makes sense to me that our founders of this school therefore came up with the mascot of this college 'The Olympic Rangers.'"
Among the small crowd that gathered in the Bremer Student Center were previous OC students, members of the Athletic Department and Trustee Peter Crane.
Not one of them said the thought of changing the mascot was a good idea.
"I honestly couldn't come up with a good reason to change the mascot," said Lane Dowell, an alumnus of Bremerton High School and good friend of Summers's. "Rangers, that fits this school."
With no debate to keep the forum going, it ended less than 30 minutes after it began. But that wasn't true for the afternoon session of the forum on Feb. 13.
With the BSC packed with students eating their lunches and studying, Miller again took the stage and explained to everyone that the purpose of the forum was to allow anyone to voice their thoughts. This time there was a noticeable presence of people who said they wanted to see the bear become the new mascot or that they didn't think the traditions of the previous OC graduates should take precedence over the wishes of the current OC students.

Continued...

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