Belle Plaine to replace variety of unofficial mascots

BELLE PLAINE — In an attempt to unify The Plainsmen, Belle Plaine Community School District has approved a new mascot logo. No longer will use of a mascot be like the wild west.

“We have a mascot that we’ve had for a long time,” said Superintendent Chad Straight, “but none of our coaches were using it.” They were using different versions of a different mascot, said Straight.

Over the course of about two years, the district has moved toward a new official mascot. People can still use the old Plainee if they want to, said Straight. “He’s a real rustic looking guy that has a hat on.”

The new Plainee will look a little different, and he’ll have a horse.

“We started with the process of sending information out to students and staff,” said Straight. The school also reached out to the community through Facebook.

The school district sought a local artist to design a new mascot but couldn’t find anyone interested in doing it, said Straight. Later, the district hired a company, but the company eventually backed out and didn’t finish the project.

So the district went to BSN Sports, an athletic clothing company that has a branding department.

The school board approved a couple of options and put them before the community. The final mascot was chosen by about 70% of residents who responded to the school survey, said Straight.

“We probably finished that process a month ago. They were just working on the stylebook.”

Straight expects to have the stylebook any day. The book will have several variations of the new logo that school staff can use.

The logo may be used on team uniforms in the future, said Straight, “but we’ll probably do it gradually. We won’t do anything all at once.”

Straight said many people are excited about the new mascot and logo while others don’t want to change. People who have lived in Belle Plaine a long time want to keep what they remember.

But most people didn’t use the official mascot anyway, said Straight. Even the Plainsman painted on the gymnasium wall is not the official version, he said.

“Right now we don’t really have an identity with the mascot we currently use,” said Straight. “A lot of younger people were more interested in getting a mascot we would use.”

School Board President Val Coffman said during an August school board meeting, “It’s a harder process than we anticipated.”