What’s next for Bellefonte’s ‘Raiders’ logo after school board election, rebranding options?
After hearing three ideas for what could become Bellefonte Area School District’s next logo, the board may take a pause on rebranding to allow the community to take it in and give feedback, all amid a board transition.
Superintendent Tammie Burnaford gave a presentation to the board during Wednesday’s meeting on behalf of the rebranding committee. Previously, BASD was known as the “Red Raiders,” but the board voted this spring to drop the “Red” and Native American imagery after years of controversy and debates about the name and logo.
The rebranding committee was charged with coming up with nicknames and symbols that are not centered on any one group’s race, ethnicity, or national origin. The word “Raiders” will still be used regardless of the imagery.
On Tuesday, candidates with the Win 4 Bellefonte ticket — which formed in response to the “Red Raiders” change — swept the school board election. The candidates — Andrea Royer, Jeff Steiner, Jack Bechdel II and Jon Guizar — have voiced opposition to the changes to the name and logo, with incumbents Steiner and Guizar voting against changing the name.
Steiner said Bellefonte had a high voter turnout and the candidates who won did so by significant margins.
“I think it would behoove this board before it move forward on this issue, to seat the new board members so that they can play a role in whatever decision making and discussions that we have on this matter moving forward,” Steiner said.
Board member Donna Smith said regardless, the students should have a significant say, as it’s their image. Board member Julie Fitzgerald agreed that students need to be proud of what it becomes.
What are the rebranding options?
Burnaford said each idea that the rebranding committee was to include the word “raider,” have different ideas of imagery, contain local significance and an explanation of how it ties back to “raider.”
One idea was the Iron Raiders, or just Raiders, with the imagery being a miner or pickaxe, as “the iron ore was raided from the ground,” Burnaford explained.
The local significance with iron is that much of Bellefonte’s early industry was in the mining of iron ore. The school’s crest has an iron furnace on it and the school’s football team at one time played the Iron Kettle Series with State College.
“We could use the ax as the letter ‘T’ in Bellefonte,” Burnaford said.
Keeping the name Raiders, another imagery idea was “knights” with the Bellefonte “B” on the knights’ shield or helmet. Though there is no local significance, it was tied back to raiders as “the knights would raid their opponents.”
The final imagery idea was a hawk. “Hawks raid the nests of its prey,” Burnaford said, and the hawks’ talons could be used to show that. Local significance is that hawks are plentiful in the area; there are eight species in the state.
If a human mascot were to be used, the face would be covered to be gender neutral, as outlined in the board’s motion, Burnaford said.
Kenneth Bean, director of fiscal affairs, gave an overview of the rebranding costs during the Oct. 5 board meeting.
Items that were discussed for rebranding included the floors in both the main gym and the auxiliary gym, scoreboards in the main gym, the marquee sign in front of the high school, painting in the main gym and a wrestling mat. Painting over the logo in those areas could cost nearly $100,000, he said.
The gym floor would not be done until next summer, Bean estimated. It would be included in a future budget.
“All the other costs are minimal, I would say, depending on what it is. ... I don’t believe we have many uniforms that have Red Raider on them. We have some that might have an Indian, I know there’s a couple wrestling singlets, at least one has an Indian head on it. I believe those would have to be cycled out,” Bean said.
Some sporting event items, like track and field hurdles, will need to be painted or stickered over.
What happens next?
Board member Mark Badger said the board should keep moving forward to bring it to some resolution, rather than dawdle on it.
But Guizar, the board president, said the community is “stalled” over the issue and doesn’t want to push forward “for the sake of pushing it forward.” Rather, the community should have time to digest it and give feedback. He stressed the entire community should be involved.
“I can’t tell you how many years I’ve been to board meetings and we see teachers and staff, we don’t see community at board meetings. We do now. Because I think we’re pushing too hard. And I just think that we need to take a strategic pause in it,” Guizar said. “We’re in the middle of a board transition. The community just spoke very loudly (Tuesday) in the elections. And ... I don’t want to see the hard work of everyone who volunteered on this issue go to waste. I think we do need to make progress, but I just think we need to take a pause in that progress, let these ideas settle in the community and see where it goes from there.”
Moving forward, Guizar said he doesn’t want to see this be an “all consuming topic” for the board.
No vote was taken on the matter, but multiple board members suggested having a work session to discuss it further. An artistic piece might be added, so people have a better understanding of what it might be.
This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 2:32 PM.
