Dr. Cloise Williams, BHS principal, presented the BHSMAC report to Dr. Price and the board of education Tuesday night. The committee is recommending that the current mascot be kept. The board will vote on the issue at next month's board meeting.

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — The Baldwin High School Mascot Advisory Committee (BHSMAC) gave its report and recommendation to keep the braves mascot name to Baldwin County School Superintendent Dr. Noris Price at Tuesday night’s board meeting.

Baldwin High School principal and member of the committee Dr. Cloise Williams presented the report.

“Many of you all have probably heard that there has been a lot of concern about Native American mascots and imagery throughout the country at many universities, professional teams, as well as high school teams in terms of mascots,” said Williams.

That concern hit locally when Taryn Four Bear, a Lakota Native American and recent Baldwin High School graduate, addressed the board in March of last year to try and persuade officials to change the mascot.

“When we began to dig a little deeper, and we began to learn a little bit more about the mascots and imagery that Baldwin High School and Oak Hill were portraying — we could see how some could look at some of the caricatures and have some concern,” Williams said.

Williams said that he and the committee learned a lot throughout the information gathering process which included looking at Native American mascot imagery, two public listening sessions, and a survey taken by the public to receive feedback.

A total of 17 forum participants spoke at the two listening sessions and only two were opposed to keeping the current mascot.

The survey taken by BHS alumni, students, teachers, and other members of the community yielded almost 500 responses with over 90 percent in favor of keeping the current mascot.

The Baldwin principal made a total of 11 recommendations on behalf of the committee with the foremost being that the brave mascot remains.

Other recommendations included:

• developing guidelines for the BHS “brand” and making the public aware of those guidelines;
• an internal selection committee be organized for BHS/OHMS to work with internal and external constituents on mascot issues
• selecting pre-approved images to be used as the mascot;
• holding countywide Brave Day to teach the history of merging schools and Native American history and heritage;
• color options for athletic and band uniforms be limited to align with the high school’s colors
• retiring the old Braves costume and ensuring that no costumes be allowed on the football field;

Dr. Veronica Womack, chief diversity officer at Georgia College, was tapped by Dr. Price to facilitate the process of gathering information on the subject for the committee and also compiled the report that was presented Tuesday night.

The committee was comprised of teachers, parents, students, administrators, and other members of the community with ties to BHS and Oak Hill Middle School. Information-gathering sessions such as a meeting with Taryn Four Bear and looking at different ways the mascot has been depicted throughout the years were employed.

According to research compiled in the committee’s report, the state of Georgia currently has 108 secondary schools with Native American mascots with 12 of them being the braves. The report also says more than 4,600 professional, college, and high school teams in the United States have a mascot associated with Native Americans. Over the past 40 years, more than 600 institutions across the country have retired their use of Native American mascots.

Dr. Price will make her recommendation to the board and they will vote on the issue of keeping the mascot at July’s board meeting.