Minutemen mascot headed toward retirement at Concord High School

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At its late June meeting the governing body of the Mt. Diablo Unified School District failed to approve changing the Concord High School mascot from the Minutemen to the Bears due to a tie vote with one board member absent.

But principal Julene MacKinnon has requested the item be placed on the Aug. 16 board agenda when trustee Cherise Khaund, who in the past has spoken of approving such a change, is expected to attend. The school is confident she will join the board’s newest members, Keisha Nzewi and Erin McFerrin, in passing the resolution.

Trustees Linda Mayo and Debra Mason each voted against the change last month.

Should the board approve the mascot change, MacKinnon says it will be implemented immediately with the most public difference being all Concord High fall sports teams will be the Bears, starting Aug. 25 when the football team travels to Salinas for its first game of the season.

CONCORD MINUTEMEN

FROM 1966

By voting to retire the Minutemen mascot, which goes back to the school’s opening in the fall of 1966, the board, which has faced budgetary challenges in recent years, including talk of closing schools, will approve $200,000 in district funds to make the change.

That is the estimated cost to remove all vestiges of the school’s Minutemen mascot name and image, and produce new Bear signage on campus. This includes the gymnasium floor, scoreboards, football/soccer turf field, Concord Boulevard school marquee and staff parking signs.

All school uniforms (P.E. bands, athletic teams, school SWAG) will need to be changed, although that is expected to be phased in. MacKinnon believes winter and spring sports teams will be able to replace any uniforms that feature Minutemen with Bears this year.

The mascot change will be the second recently at a MDUSD high school after Ygnacio Valley switched from the Warriors to the Wolves a year ago. Warriors had been tied to Ygnacio Valley since the Concord school opened in 1962.

When the subject of changing the two school’s mascots first became public, Khaund was MDUSD board president. She cited AB 30, the 2015 California Racial Mascots Act, which states that “the use of racially derogatory or discriminatory school or athletic team names, mascots, or nicknames in California public schools is antithetical to the California school mission of providing an equal education to all.”

Khaund said, “The Mt. Diablo Unified School District Governing Board is committed to providing equal opportunity for all individuals in education. We as a school district should listen carefully to student concerns, especially if they feel unwelcome or unsafe on our campuses.”

She also cited MDUSD board policy 0410 which states that “District programs and activities shall also be free of any racially derogatory or discriminatory school or athletic team names, mascots, or nicknames.”

Honors Revolutionary Warheroes

At Concord High, the name Minutemen was chosen as the mascot in honor of the men who formed the Minutemen militia in Concord, Massachusetts as the American Revolution was beginning in 1775.

The artwork of a Minuteman on the school marquee and parking lot signs shows him holding a rifle. The gender specificity of the name and having the Minuteman holding a

Insurance, from page 1 policies in the very high-risk areas.

Janet Ruiz, spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, denied reports that none of the 115 stateapproved fire insurance carriers in the state would write new policies but declined to name any specific companies that are doing so.

Fenner’s experience contradicted this insurance industry claim. After her policy was cancelled because she and her husband live in a what is known as an urban/wildland interface area, she contacted various insurance carriers and independent brokers looking for coverage.

None of them could find any insurer willing to take on the fire insurance risk for the five-acre wooded property.

“When these fires hit now, they burn down whole cities,’ she said. “The further we got

Fire, from page 4 into with no results, it got a little scary.” weapon are reportedly what are concerning to those wishing to change the CHS mascot.

Pioneer answered in Contra Costa County in the past month. In June, fire personnel responded to three incidents in a span of nine days where batteries were linked to fires in homes or garages.

Lithium-ion batteries supply power to many devices, including smart phones, laptops, escooters and e-bikes, smoke alarms, toys and even cars. If not used correctly, or if damaged, these batteries can catch fire or explode.

Fire officials remind the public that they should stop using a battery if any of the following problems are noticed: odor, change in color, too much heat, change in shape, leaking or noises being emitted.

Users should charge an ebike battery in a flat, dry area away from children, direct sunlight, liquids, tripping hazards and in a location where the ebike is not at risk of falling.

They lucked out with AAA who got them coverage with the California FAIR PLAN. It included a higher deductible and a little higher premium, she said.

The Cal FAIR PLAN is an association started by property insurance companies to provide fire insurance in high-risk areas where people cannot obtain coverage from other carriers.

Another group financially impacted by the fire insurance crunch is the insurance brokers, Antioch Farmers Insurance agent Curtis Holzer said.

Farmers is also not writing new policies for fire insurance and that is costing agents their commissions on the new policies. It’s also preventing them from collecting their shares when those policies are renewed, Holzer said.

Former Concord High principal Rianne Pfaltzgraff during the 2020-21 school year said she had a discussion with some teachers when the idea was brought up that “Minutemen” refers to only one gender and the symbol holding a rifle is not reflective of the school in the 21st Century.

Although former Concord High principal Pfaltzgraff and a new teacher at Ygnacio Valley played the key roles in advocating for the respective mascot changes, each school had current students select new names. From all reliable reports to the Pioneer neither school had much feedback from alumni or the public, although each did some outreach.

When Pfaltzgraff first brought up the Concord High change student votes selected Crocodiles as the new name. With the pandemic still greatly impacting schools in 2021 the subject was placed on the back burner until this January.

Besides campus meetings with administrators, teachers and students, Concord High held a sparsely attended community meeting on Feb. 15.

Student discussions sought the attributes they wanted their new mascot to embody. Strong, spirited, inclusive, cool, perseverance, “one to be proud of” and “creates a community” were cited in a report to the MDUSD board.

Crocodilesmissedout

THISTIME ARO0UND

After a process of elimination, mascot name suggestions were whittled down to 10 in the first vote and then five during the second. From that second vote the three finalists were Bears, Crocodiles and Chargers (Lightning Bolts like the San Diego Charger NFL team). Bears won the final tally with 38.2% of the 500 votes.

Locally, the University of California has had the Bear as its mascot since 1895. The Chicago Bears are one of the original NFL teams. There are 235 high schools and 32 colleges in America with Bear mascots.

There will be 29 high schools and the University of Massachusetts still carrying the Minutemen nickname if MDSUD does away with it next month.

Interestingly, Warriors is the fifth most popular high school mascot in the US.

NNO, from page 1

Clayton will have a citywide NNO 6-9 p.m. Aug. 1 in the upper lot of Clayton Community Park, 7411 Marsh Creek Road. Police Chief Rich McEachin says the event will include a DJ and food trucks, along with a patrol car and police motorcycle for viewing. Kids can also play in the newly remodeled playground.

“We’re really looking forward to getting the community back together. We haven’t had a National Night Out here in Clayton in a few years,” McEachin told the Pioneer.

“We used to do it more traditionally where each neighbor organized their own and we would just drop in and answer questions, have a hot dog. But it slowly dwindled down to just one neighborhood doing it, and then it just kind of fizzled out.”

Pleasant Hill is also hosting a NNO celebration 6-8 p.m. Aug. 1 at City Hall, 100 Gregory Lane. The festivities will feature a BBQ, DJ, drone and police K9 demonstrations, tours of a police car, fire truck and ambulance – plus a bouncy house and face painting.

While the key to NNO is community-building, each gathering is unique. A favorite part of Dana Estate’s annual event is the Cake Walk. This year, Mt. Diablo High School students also created balloon animals while collecting donations for Health Occupations Students of America, which promotes careers opportunities in the health-care industry. For more on National Night Out, visit https://natw.org.