A Call to Change the LCHS Mascot

Today, Deirdre Dillon (LCHS Class of 2009) and I (LCHS Class of 2010) have begun a petition to change Loudoun County High School’s mascot. Here is what the petition says:

 

We, the undersigned, call for the Loudoun County High School mascot to be changed.

In 1954, the segregated white Loudoun County High School student body chose Mosby’s Raiders as the school’s mascot. Mosby’s Raiders were the 43^rd Battalion of the Virginia Calvary for the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. Like confederate monuments, choosing the Raiders as the mascot was a result of the Lost Cause Movement to commemorate the South and rewrite history.

A mascot gives a community an identity, and glorifies its chosen entity. As long as Loudoun County High School’s mascot is known as “Mosby’s Raiders” or simply “The Raiders,” no matter what positive traits come with the association, the school will be promoting slavery, the Confederacy, racism, and white supremacy. These are values we believe future generations of students should not uphold.

We, the undersigned alumni, students, teachers, parents, and concerned citizens, believe that Loudoun County High School can do better. We challenge the current student body and staff to reevaluate the mascot, and change it to better reflect the 21^st century in which we live.

 

Let’s talk about being a Raider.

The Raiders mascot is everywhere in the school. From morning announcements “Good morning, Raiders and Raiderettes!” to murals on the walls. From the names of the athletic teams, to the student spirit section Raider Riot. Raider Rally, Raider Rhapsody, the Marching Raiders, it’s even the name of the student newspaper, The Loudoun Raider. This mascot has joined thousands of students together across decades. There is pride in meeting a stranger and finding out they are a fellow Raider.

As the decades have passed since 1954, Loudoun County has changed. Our schools and movie theaters are integrated. Major suburban growth has brought new people from all different backgrounds to Loudoun County. Yet the oldest high school in operation still proudly cheers on the Confederacy, whether intentional or not.

Today, I take a stand and say no longer. I do not want to celebrate and glorify the Raiders anymore. It is time for a new Loudoun County High School mascot. I call for this in honor of Gene Ashton and Blue Oliver.

This resolution was not an easy one for me to reach. I have identified as a Raider for over a decade now. I’m proud to be a student of Loudoun County High School. I’m passionate about it. I wrote a history of the school for its 60^th anniversary. I somehow inspired the restoration of an original school architectural feature that mysteriously disappeared in the 1970’s. One day, I’m even going to nominate the school to be on the National Register of Historic Places. Its history and layers of tradition mean a lot to me. So for a long time, I hemmed and hawed about the elephant in the room – the mascot, the Raiders. I knew as a student what it was and what it stood for.

But as time has passed, it has become clear to me that my personal feelings are not what matters. In my sentimentality, I have been complicit in letting this mascot define me and future students. No matter how simplified the name is, the original intent was Mosby’s Raiders. It will always be a symbol of slavery, of white supremacy, of racism.

I have been proud to be a Raider. I would be even more proud if we could retire the Raider, and become something with less-racist baggage.

So, I personally challenge the student body of Loudoun County High School: You are the current owners of our spirit and school. You have a deciding voice in this matter. What does it mean to be a Raider? And what does it mean to be a student of Loudoun County High School? Are these two things the same? Or is it time to find a new mascot that better reflects us?

I want to leave you with a quote by my fellow LCHS classmate Christian Williams. She wrote this while attending Harvard Law in 2015 in reference to changing their school’s shield. I feel these views can also apply to the Raider:

“Advocating to change a symbol does not indicate a lack of love for our school. Quite the opposite; we push for change precisely because we do care - because we are invested in the school and desire its best.
It may seem trivial to push for a symbol to be changed. It may even seem overwhelming because so many symbols in our nation glorify terrible things. But to me, there is a simple rationale: “when we know better, we do better”. While the ubiquity of slavery symbols in America is deeply disturbing, it should not be surprising. The repercussions of slavery marred every aspect of American life. Moving to change these symbols now does not deny affection to our school. Rather, it affirms it. In doing so, we refuse to pass on symbols of oppression to our children. We take the time we have been given, and we use it to make things right.”

  

 Disclaimers: 
    - I am a white cis-gendered male. I recognize there are far too many white cis-gendered male voices involved in issues of race. My hope and intent is that by adding my voice to the mix, I help to create a positive change in race equality.
    -This act should not be seen as a be-all, end-all for racial justice reform. Rather, it is but one visible spoke in a wheel. The more spokes we take out, the closer we are to a more just and equal community.

Interesting Odds and Ends

"Horace Mann" greets me every morning to work!

 
 Over the past two summers, I've managed to find a lot of notable gems throughout old files, boxes, and right in front of me. Here are some of my favorites:

• "Horace Mann," painted by Elaine Nunnally in 2005 for the Horsing Around Loudoun public art project, is probably the most public of the odds-and-ends here. It featured all the schools in the county at the time (68 schools in 2005. Seven years later, there are now 82!). Schools were grouped by their 2005 school clusters. There's a couple of dirt patches on the top saying "Under Construction." I believe the space is only an allusion to the fact of LCPS's continuing fast growth, not a space to update the horse in the future. Horsing Around Loudoun was a similar project to the Cow Parade.

• The Office of Support Services gets copies of facility use forms for their files. It was quite exciting to see the "Obama for America" LCHS rally one.

• In construction files, there were some blueprints for an Islamic Saudi Academy campus. It was dated late 90's. This was not being planned by LCPS but a group that had two campuses in Fairfax County. A quick google search led me to this article from 2004. Apparently, the Academy decided not to use the land, and it was sold to the county with schools in mind. According to this Washington Post article preview, the site would have been in Ashburn on Farmwell Road. Currently, there are only warehouses near/on the property. Broad Run HS is unrelatedly close by the site.

• I've collected many hats working here:
  
  
  

  
  

     The hat on the left is a regular hat. The hat on the right is almost a regular hat, except it also has a built-in flashlight under the bill of the hat! The center hat is a marching band hat from Park View HS. They recently got new uniforms, so the old ones were auctioned away. I was the only person there who knew what the different uniform pieces were (I have four years of high school marching band under my belt), so I really helped them out. We found 119 hats and plumes the first time, but after the auction, they found an extra hat, and you can't really sell one hat by itself, so it was given to me.

• While going through possible auction items, a CD Player had a CD in it. Testing the CD Player out with it, I realized this CD had all the songs that were played during my Elementary School P.E. class. What a blast to the past!

• This mug:
  

• There was a report on Round Hill Elementary School (Now the Round Hill Center/Support Facility) and the reasons why they decided to get tear down the original 1911 wing of the building. I don't remember exactly what it said, but it made sense and I appreciated the justification.

• High School Prototype Poster:
  

  

  In my cubicle from last year

  
  This was hanging in the old Douglass Support Facility. Between when the Fire and Rescue Squad practiced on the building (breaking holes through walls and ceilings) and the start of demolition, I saved this. Good thing too, because the next day it rained. The paper was very frail, so I had it laminated. It has proudly hung in my cubicle for two summers now. As you can see, it's a very wide poster. It doesn't match any school in particular, but I've been told it was printed before Stone Bridge HS.

• And, probably my favorite find, Stage Curtain Samples for the 1939 Arcola School.
  
  

  

  Regrettably the only picture I have is of the folder it was in.
  I was too in awe to remember to take any pictures of the samples.

   These were small curtain sample squares sent to Superintendent O.L. Emerick to pick out the curtain color. Now that duty would fall to the construction department; it just shows you how small the school system was. There were many different colors to choose from and at least three companies sent samples. I don't know which curtain sample was chosen. I didn't find this in any other school file, so for it to last as long as it had was quite impressive.

   As a final of final favorites, I have been lucky to have the opportunity to work with many wonderful gems of coworkers these last two years. They all work hard and do their jobs pretty well (as far as I know). But it wasn't all stiff and serious, I have many fine memories of small pranks and jokes. As much as some of them might not believe it, I enjoy all the unique personalities and will miss them.

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   This is my last week on the job. I do have a couple more posts I will be working on, so they will come out for the next few weeks (hopefully). This week will be more me-personal history stuff.

Update: Whoops!

Locked out!! (Emerick Elementary School)

   So I've been gone for a week! Lots of work happened last week (and jet lag), so I didn't have much time. Last week I was transcribing four of the interviews done so far. When I wasn't doing that, I was helping out filming at this year's new teacher orientation.

   Regarding transcribing, It's amazing, you know, all the ticks people have, you know. All the umms and unintentional word repeating, thinking of what to say next. I think that's really interesting. But if I could describe transcribing in one word, it would be 'Painful.' It's hard, and people can talk really fast. I go half speed and I still have trouble keeping up. And with talking, you don't have to follow perfect sentence structure, so you can never predict what people will say. I have full sympathy for transcribers for the TV. It's tedious and it feels like it never ends.

I will be back with new articles this week!

Personal Note: Timelines

   I've been fiddling around with a new timeline recently.

   One of the first things I did when I started working here was to make a timeline of when schools opened up.
 

Small sampling of the timeline (and current future school plans)

   It's a great visual aid, especially seeing the school system's growth. Beside it is a timeline chronicling the many renovations over the year. It works fine and dandy, but only for current schools that are still open. It can show if a school is currently a support facility (grey background) or not apart of the school system (no color background), but it doesn't show when a school closes. How do I catalog that?

   The next step was to make a stat chart for schools. I had tabs for when schools opened, closed, original square footage, important history moments, etc. Both the timeline and stat chart work well together, but I still wanted something visual to communicate what the stat chart stated. I needed one place, a "consolidation of schools" of sorts.

   So, you could call this new one Timeline 2.0. It's official name is "Fun Timeline," because I made it for fun, but I think it'll be helpful too.

A sampling of the left side of the chart

   In this one timeline, each school has its own small timeline where I can jot down notes on its history. The colored parts indicate when they were in operation as a school. When the color ends, the school has closed. Their timeline of events still continues on, unless they burned down (like that one school in blue that was only open two years) or were demolished.

   You can highlight a year and scroll across to see how many schools were open that year (right now, my graph is correct up to the 1961-1962 school year!). It would probably give you a headache if you scrolled across it too fast, but I digress.

   The old timeline is still helpful. It's quick to look up. It's also easier to print out (If I've learned one thing about working in an office, it's that Excel is a pain to print out)

   2.0 is still a work in progress. I only realized today I didn't have the old Waterford School on there. Many renovations and important points in time are still missing. It'll get up to par with the other lists soon.

I'm Coming Back...!

Guess who might be getting an intern position again at Loudoun County Public Schools? THIS GUY!!

I haven't gotten a 100% confirmation, but they are interested in having me back. That's half the battle right there!

I hope you can't wait for more content, more history, more everything!! This summer, we will follow the finishing of the new Frederick Douglass Elementary School, see the new John Champe HS open, as well as maybe look at my day-to-day jobs. I also plan to cover some Aldie history, as I can see people continue to search for history on the school, yet there is none here.

This year, I also hope to not get sick for 3 weeks. Before I started my blog last year, I got strep and it was pretty bad.

Finally, I hope to finally bother the food department, the only department I didn't bother on the Admin Building second floor.

Of course, this is all IF I do indeed get it again. Here's hoping!!

North Street Update

North Street, picture from July 25, 2011

   Being 3-4 hours away, it's hard to stay in-the-know on things. Luckily, there's this thing called the internet.

   I am really looking forward to North Street reopening. The last word I heard before summer ended was that it was opening "this fall." There hasn't been much buzz online yet. BUT I contacted Parks and Rec, and they said "The grand opening will be held on Saturday, October 22, at 10 a.m. The building will be operational beginning Monday, October 17."

   Exciting times! I'll be going home for Thanksgiving, so I will have a full report of North Street when I'm back!

Auditorium under construction
Picture from July 25, 2011

Last Day

   Today was my last day of my internship. It was very bittersweet. I met a lot of nice people, had a lot of fun, and, of course, learned a lot. I hope everyone who has read this blog has as well.

   And now, it's time to let the stats roll!

   In total there were 121 page views. My second blog post "Frederick Douglass Elementary School" actually had the most page views. People stumbled onto my page from search keywords such as "frederick douglass elementary school leesburg va," "layout for new frederick douglass elementary school leesburg," and "frederick douglass elementary school location leesburg"

   Most of the viewers were from the USA. 3 people from Germany visited the blog (Guten Tag!), One person from South Korea found the page, and then one day, five people/views from the UK stumbled onto my page for some reason.

   The most common operating system was Windows (85%). Mac was in second place with 8%, while the rest (Mac, Blackberry, Other Unix, Android, and iPod) were under 10% each. The most common internet browser was Internet Explorer (57%). Firefox was at 28%, Chrome was at 10%, then Mobile, Safari, and Mobile Safari made up less than 3%.

    I do have a couple of blogs in draft, and they will (hopefully) be posted, just not on a schedule. Again, thank you for joining me.

Whoops!

I took a very relaxing break from the blog.

Unfortunately, I'm going back to college next week, so this is my last week at LCPS, and the last week I'll be posting regularly. I don't know what my plans are, but I might have a few blog posts that I'll post at a later date. It's seemed like it's been such a short time!

In other news, Borders Bookstore is closing:

 And... their Invisibility Cloaks are 20% off.

Musing on 100 years

Round Hill School, 1940

Round Hill Center, Today

1911, Round Hill and Middleburg open. Now, 2011, they are turning 100. Middleburg is receiving a centennial celebration (Check it out). Round Hill has retired, now being used as a support building, so it's getting the shorter end of the stick with no celebration. To honor Round Hill, I would like to pose a question, how ever ridiculous or rhetorical it ends up to be.

After 1911, Round Hill recieved two additions, 1931, an auditorium, and 1963, a one story wing. In 1968, the 1911 original two story building was demolished for a new wing. Now, the oldest part of the school is the 1931 auditorium. Does this mean the school's still 100 years old?

There have been schools demolished (or burned down) and in the same space another school will spring up, but people say "The school's 1 year old," not "The school's 29 years old."

There seems to be a technicality. The Round Hill building was (probably) continuously opened. Schools that have burned down (I guess) are considered to be "closed," even though school might continue in a temporary location while they rebuild.

Another twist (I just found this out/put this together). In 1885, The Stove Pipe Academy opened in Middleburg in 1885. In 1911, on the same property, the four-room brick Middleburg School (at the time, it served all grades) was built. In 1927, the Stove Pipe Academy building was demolished for Middleburg's Auditorium expansion. The Academy and Middleburg were not touching, but they were very close. It is possible Middleburg used the Academy building when Middleburg was overcrowded (I don't have a confirmation on this). Yet Middleburg's first year is said to be as 1911. How does this fit in?

Just a musing.

Sources:
Blueprints
"Middleburg Elementary School Centenary Milestones"
CIPs
Round Hill School Yearbook 1940

Date rant

Plaque in the Carver Center

   There is a plaque I took a picture of at the Carver Center saying the former school was the "first modern school for African Americans in Loudoun County." I check my Excel records. Right now, it says Carver ES opened in 1947, the same year as Banneker ES, another African American school. Then...it's not the first, right? It tied? I check other sources. I received some information yesterday from a Eugene Scheel book on Banneker. It says (twice) that Banneker opened in 1948. Another source, a pamphlet says Carver opened in 1948. Another source, an online timeline says Carver opened 1947, Banneker 1948. And so on.

It makes you question everything. When did this actually happen? What is misinformation, what is the truth?

Even school records themselves aren't always the most reliable. While newer school's information is easily accessible and very accurate, older schools can have an error or two. Right now, LCPS records say Douglass opened in 1940, while every other source tells me the school opened in fall 1941, that construction didn't start until spring 1941, that the School Board didn't even have the property until December 1940.

Newspapers can be wonderful or horrible. If you search back in the microfilm (one of my best friends at Balch Library), you can find announcements when some schools opened. Loudoun County HS had much fanfare with its construction, opening, and dedication through 1953-1955. But if you look at information printed today about yesteryear, journalists have deadlines and might provide wrong dates (Some so ridiculously off they're laughable).

Blueprints only have the dates when they were drafted, not when the school opened. Carver's blueprints, for example, say its plans are from 1942. Banneker used the same plans as Ashburn Elementary School (Now the Staff Training Center) which opened in 1945... Or did it?

Yearbooks are written by students. Lord Loudoun 2010 had a two-page spread (pg. 148-149) on LCHS history, with many many errors. ("In the beginnning, our school was a mix of four different schools: Lovettsville, Ashburn, Lincoln and Loudoun County." The correct mix of schools was Lovettsville, Aldie, Lincoln and Leesburg. Another quote: "We were the first high school in Loudoun County." Again... no).

We try to keep our records straight, but it's a lot of work. One unintentional typo or not closely looking into it can mess us up. I guess this is a universal issue whenever you are researching history. I'll just have to accept that, move on, and keep looking.

Sources:
Loudoun County African American Timeline
Carver Center plaque, information pamphlet/booklet
blueprints
CIPs
LCPS Construction Dept. Data Sheet (Aug. 1, 2010)
"The History of Middleburg and Vicinity" by Eugene M. Scheel

Update 12:57pm: Looking through notes I have previously written from another source, they say Carver opened approximately 1945-1946, and Banneker opened approximately 1947-1948. Still no definite.

Intro

Loudoun County Public Schools' Administration Building
This is where I work!

Let's start this out. This summer, I'm an intern for Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS). I'm researching its school buildings' histories, and I thought I would share some of that. Sure, the summer's halfway done, but that doesn't mean it's over!

A little about myself, school-wise. I moved to the area in the middle of kindergarten. I attended Catoctin ES that half year. The next year, Evergreen Mill ES opened, and I was moved there. Middle school was at J. Lupton Simpson MS, and high school was at Loudoun County HS. I'm now in college at Christopher Newport University, 3-4 hours away, majoring in theater.

It's been pretty fun so far. Ask a question, I'll try to find out the answer!