Another story from my trip to see Mom

I wrote a story back in May about a bogus election for picking a mascot at our brand new junior high school. Actually, it was two stories: one about a bogus election by NASA about selecting a name for a part of the International Space Station and that story reminded me of our junior high school election. Well, on my recent trip to visit my mother, I drove by the old "junior high school" and guess what? They've changed everything. Well, not everything. The building looks the same but it is no longer a junior high school. It's now a middle school. And now, where it used to be called the Finley Junior High School (located in Finleyville, PA on land donated by, or bought from, the Finley family), it is now named after its school district: Ringgold.

But the worst part is that the Knight mascot is gone! After all the effort the junior high administrators went to, and we students took in voting, it's all been wiped away.The middle school now shares the mascot of the high school called (are you ready for the symmetry?) Ringgold High School (where a fellow named Joe Montana went and was actually known more as a basketball player than as a quarterback for the football team). When I went to that high school (from 1966 through 1969), it was called Monongahela High School and was located in Monongahela, PA. Then it merged with the Donora, PA school district to form Ringgold. The funny thing is, I also got to be part of the naming process for the new, merged high school mascot.

The Monongahela mascot was the Wildcat. The Donora mascot was the Dragon. They had to come up with another name and some students were selected from each school to come up with a list of names that both student bodies would vote on. Of course, the Rebel (see the article back in May for more on that) was suggested for its historical and alliterative qualities and was quickly rejected. The administrators didn't want to invalidate yet another election (I think some of them moved to Florida for the 2000 Presidential Election). The Wild Dragon didn't last long as a suggestion, either. For some reason, speaking of alliteration, it was decided early in the process that the mascot should start with an 'R' like the new high school name. I remember the names "Roadrunners" and "Rockets" (my favorite) being brought up but the loudest, most insistent people backed the "Rams" and that's what went on to win the vote and became the mascot for the new, as-yet-unbuilt high school - and later the mascot of the renamed middle school.

Ours was the last class to graduate from Monongahela High School. After that, even though the new high school wouldn't be ready for 10 years (1979), and the students from each area went to their own high school building, they graduated from Ringgold High School - Monongahela Division or -Donora Division (there's that alliteration again).