Some high schools keep mascot names originally given to them a hundred years ago, like the Hoopston, Illinois Cornjerkers, or the quite unusual Hickman, Missouri, Kewpies (a kewpie is an adult sized baby), while others pick a popular, mainstream mascot, like the Eagles or Tigers. While some mascots stay the same forever, some schools feel the call to change their mascot name with the times. Franklin High School did just that, recently changing their mascot name from ‘The Rebels’ to ‘The Admirals’. This is the second change from the school’s original name, both proposed by students.
When Franklin High School began in 1910, it really didn’t have a home of its own. According to the book Franklin High School, written by Shane Pantall, of the school’s 100th Anniversary, principal/teacher A.J. Haun and teacher Miss Nellie Shea taught their 20 students in two rooms on the second floor of the Franklin Institute, which was later named Franklin Grammar School. The county archives now grace the location.
The school yearbook was called “The Pioneer”, and that was the first mascot adopted by the school. Perhaps it is because the school was new, and they were pioneering in the field of education with the adoption of compulsory schooling — to at least age 14 — laws being adopted by many of the states in the US in the early 1900s.
After going overseas to help with the war effort during World War I, Principal Haun came back with some forward-thinking ideas, which he instituted to give his students a better understanding of the world and other cultures. He also opened the first movie theater in Franklin in the auditorium of the new school building that had been built in 1926. The school had grown so much, that it had busted out of its first location, and then its second in the James Harrison home on the corner of Fifth and Main Streets.
The new location gave students the opportunity to participate in sports teams, and the school began developing quite a reputation in football. In his book, Pantall explains that there were no buses, so the players rode to games in Murfreesboro and Mt. Pleasant on a flatbed truck that was pulled by football coach William Overby’s car. All they had to stay warm was straw and blankets, and fall nights could get pretty cold on the long and bumpy ride home.
Haun was a stern-looking white-haired man, but his piercing eyes seemed to look towards the future, and his being ahead of his time set a precedent. By the 1930s Franklin High School was noted as an “A” school, and in 1941 it was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Sports grew in popularity in the 1930s, and in 1931 the school had their first homecoming. As a matter of fact, in the 1930s Franklin High School had the best football team in the county under the watchful eye of Overby, who also taught wood working and mechanical drawing.
In 1937 times were changing and the senior class voted to change the mascot from the original to ‘The Rebel’. According to Wikipedia, “…former principal Willie Dickerson…described the reason for the new mascot at the then-segregated, all-white school saying “there was no animosity of the past … we uphold these ideals and believe them to be right.”” In more recent years, the original cartoon of a confederate rebel was no longer being used in school branding, instead the “Power F” was used to represent the school.
Still, it was under the Rebel flag that one of the school’s best coaches, Jimmy Gentry, took the football team to three championships and two bowl games in the 1950s. Pantall tells of him being a former Franklin High School student, and World War II veteran, who came back to the school to teach and coach after being one of the first soldiers to liberate the Dachau concentration camp.
And it was under the Rebel banner in 1956 that community members ran into the burning school building, then located on Columbia Avenue, to save records, photos, and trophies.
In a new building on Hillsboro Road, built in 1957, the Rebel logo lasted through integration in the 1960s, and the upheavals of the 1970s. They continued to be Rebels for 68 years, even through the building of the fourth facility in 2004. Until this summer. New Franklin High School principal Shane Pantall put together a committee to explore choosing a new mascot in response to the community’s increased focus on social justice.
According to Williamson County Schools, “’The Admirals’ was chosen because Franklin High is touted by the students, faculty and alumni as ‘The Flagship’ school of Williamson County, and it is the oldest high school in the district.”
The list of schools from all over the country changing their names from the ‘Rebels’ is extensive. Five schools in Iowa are changing their names, a number of schools in Texas, North Carolina and Virginia are changing names and the Franklin County (TN) Board of Education is taking up the issue in October.
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I still think EWOK would have been better.
STOP DESTROYING FRANKLIN! LEAVE THE LIBERAL WAYS OUT! THIS IS THE SOUTH! DONT LIKE IT GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM!