TURNERS FALLS — The decision to review whether to keep the Turners Falls High School “Indians” mascot arose from public comment at a spring Gill-Montague Regional School Committee meeting.
The issue was raised at the May 24 meeting by several community members who called for a name change. As a result, school officials this week put the issue on the table – in the form of a proposal that lays out how the committee would go about reviewing the appropriateness of the mascot name, if it chooses to.
A half-dozen Montague and Gill residents called for the committee to change the mascot name at the meeting, which was not reported on at the time, but recorded by Montague Community Television.
Committee members noted that their job is to listen during the public comments part of the meeting but did mention the possibility of their examining the issue in future meetings.
David Detmold, a longtime Montague resident, said during the meeting that there is a need to change the mascot because of the history of the area. He said he originally wrote about the issue in an editorial for the Montague Reporter about 15 years ago. The community members who spoke didn’t offer a specific reason for bringing up the issue now. They spoke for about 15 minutes.
“We should not pretend we are honoring the bravery of the people who were so brutally eliminated from this area.” Detmold said. “We should be honoring them by bringing them, the descendants of these tribes, into our schools and letting them teach our children what the true values of the Native American culture were.”
Detmold and several others who did not speak but indicated they supported the idea to change the mascot came to the meeting and recommended a year of education and outreach to the schools and Turners Falls community.
Detmold said that naming a mascot after a race of people is offensive and can be detrimental to Native American students in the schools.
“We try to say, ‘we’re honoring them, we’re honoring them.’ But would we name a swim team “The Turners Falls Hispanics?” Detmold said.
He said it was not honoring Native Americans specifically because the high school and the village are named after Capt. William Turner, who led the English militiamen who carried out an attack on a village near present day Turners Falls and Gill during the early hours of May 19, 1676, killing about 300 Native Americans.
“When you think about it, it’s sort of like, what would you name a sports team in the town of Auschwitz? Would you name it the Hitler Jews? It’s a very similar situation,” Detmold said.
This proposal comes at a time when local officials and others in Gill and Montague are conducting a study of the so-called King Philip’s Battle, including historical narratives from local Native American tribes. The project, which was funded through a $60,000 grant from the National Park Service, finished its first phase in March. The goal of the project is to eventually create a cultural resource center about the battle.
Since the School Committee first discussed the proposal on Tuesday, alumni of the school have begun speaking out and created an online petition to send to the School Committee in support of keeping the mascot.
Jeremy Dillensneider, who started the petition and graduated from the high school in 1992 and currently has a daughter there, said that he started it because he felt the need to do something when he saw the news. The petition had over 500 signatures by Thursday afternoon.
“We are trying to get a measuring of how many people are interested in it and show that to the School Committee,” he said.
Dillensneider said he welcomes a discussion about the issue and hopes that the committee will hear both sides.
School Committee Chairman Mike Langknecht said he looks forward to receiving the petition. The proposal will be reintroduced as old business, with the possibility of discussion by the board, during the next meeting on Sept. 27.