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Park of Cottage Grove, whose athletic teams have been known as the Indians, will choose a new nickname Tuesday. A school committee met this week and narrowed 50 to 60 suggested nicknames to five.
School principal Walt Lyszak said the issue of a nickname change has been discussed since 1988, when the State Board of Education first urged schools with American Indian nicknames and logos to change them.
"Some student council people said, `We've got to get moving on this,' " Lyszak said. "One basic reason we did is that we have tried not to offend Native Americans through the symbols we've used and found we can use almost nothing. We have no mascot now. We've tried to be sensitive and found nothing left."
Said Park athletic director Mark Porter: "For the past five years we've tried to de-emphasize the Indian logo and Indian names on our uniforms; we have Park High School and a block "P" on them."
At Sibley, the school board has voted to maintain Warriors as a nickname but to change the American Indian logo used on uniforms and elsewhere. Athletic director Dean Verdoes said the student body has narrowed new logo possibilities to six and that a decision would be made before the end of the school year. . . . Brainerd recently took the same action; teams there are also nicknamed the Warriors. Last week Burnsville students voted to change the nickname of their teams from the Braves to the Blaze.
Of the 50 high schools...