No victory for the Wildcat

Faithful and true-hearted,

Let us root for Marion High.

Long before “On, Wisconsin” changed its badger pelt to a Warrior buckskin, athletic events were marked by singing those lyrics to a tune many might recognize.

Just as “On, Wisconsin” became “Onward, Marion,” “Faithful and True-Hearted” was a riff on a familiar little ditty that most hereabouts would recognize as K-State’s “Wildcat Victory.”

And just as the song proved not to be victorious for Marion schoolchildren, the Wildcat as a mascot has proved not to be victorious as Marion Middle School’s mascot and, more important, as one of the last vestiges of what had been Florence’s separate school district.

USD 408 still goes by the name “Marion-Florence,” so there’s some consolation in that. The people of Durham and Lehigh seemed to lose that status with USD 410, which though officially named “Durham-Hillsboro-Lehigh” most often is referred to only as “Hillsboro.”

It’s not as if the change wasn’t foreseen. As soon as a move to drop Wildcats in favor of Warriors began last fall, it seemed assured that the school board would adopt the change as soon as months of protests began to fade. The fading became sufficient Monday night.

A rose by any other name still will smell as sweet, but the excuse that the district couldn’t be expected to be bound by a promise made almost 30 years ago remains troubling. Those of us who don’t have kids in school promised a lot more than 30 years ago that we still would pay for others to be educated. What would happen if we reneged on that promise?

Hopefully, images of the Wildcat mascot in front of Marion High and Middle Schools and on the middle school door will somehow be preserved, but eventually those will fade from memory like the lyrics of “Faithful and True-Hearted.”

What truly keeps spirit alive are actions, and symbolic slights can’t compete with such things as Florence’s annual alumni banquet and the many other community events for which it regularly plays host. Florence will survive. We’ll still root for Marion High — and Marion Middle School. But whether Marion truly was faithful and true-hearted is another matter.

— ERIC MEYER