SARANAC LAKE — Have a good idea for a mascot to rep the Saranac Lake Red Storm? The Saranac Lake Central School District Board of Education’s new mascot committee wants to hear it. They are currently seeking ideas, drawings and input from students, staff, alumni and community members.

School board member Justin Garwood brought the idea of a mascot up at a July 6 board meeting last year. He felt it’s “long overdue” for SLCSD to have a unified identity to stoke school pride and sell merchandise. Now, the process is moving forward.

“It’s exciting,” Garwood said Thursday. “I think a lot of folks’ general reaction to this is ‘This is great … but good luck!'”

He said it’s always been challenging to find a visual representation for the Red Storm.

“The name is a little ambiguous,” interim Board of Education President Mark Farmer said in July.

They hope by putting many minds on the idea, they’ll come up with something to get people pumped about school spirit.

Garwood said he’s unsure how long this will take. The board does not have a timeline set and the process just started Thursday after a board meeting on Wednesday.

“We’re not in a rush. We want to do this right,” Garwood said.

To submit ideas, mascot names, images, questions or feedback, email mascot@slcs.org.

Garwood said the board may check back in a month and see how many ideas they have. If they have plenty, then they can start polling in a ranked choice voting-style to narrow down the list to finalists. He hopes to have a public forum so everyone can have a voice.

“Rest assured, no decisions will be made without multiple rounds of data collection and opportunities to participate in discussions around this topic,” a statement from the committee reads. “There will be plenty of opportunities for interested parties to contribute ideas, share opinions and ultimately vote on a final decision.”

Garwood said it’s impossible to get everyone to agree on something like this, but he wants most people to be excited about it. He said a final online vote will be opened up to anyone who is interested and invested in SLCSD’s mascot.

Garwood said he wants participation — as much as possible. He doesn’t want only 30 or 40 people deciding on a mascot for the district. He hopes for hundreds, or, ambitiously, thousands of votes.

SLCSD has been the Red Storm since 2001. Before that, school teams played as the Redskins, a name that was retired by the school board over two decades ago for being offensive to Native Americans. The district was not the first to make the change, but it was ahead of the curve in terms of replacing offensive sports team names.

“Despite controversy at the time and in the years in-between, the decision proved to be forward thinking, as the New York state Education Department recently released a memorandum officially banning the use of all ‘Native American mascots’ for schools in New York, beginning July 2023,” the committee’s statement reads. “We are not asking to change the name of the team, nor are we interested in a new logo. Both should remain as they are and continue to be displayed by members of our community.”

In 2001, SLCSD changed its team name in a 6-1 vote with a lot of input from the community, as well as local Indigenous people. It then selected a new name in a student poll, with the Red Storm earning 39% of the vote.

But visually representing the Red Storm in an image has been difficult, Garwood said. The district doesn’t currently have a mascot. Sports teams currently sport a logo of interlocking “SL” letters on uniforms and helmets.

The committee encourages people to “think outside of the box.”

“The mascot does not have to be a representation of a storm (although, it could be),” the committee statement reads.

The committee gave an example of the University of North Carolina Tarheels, which has a ram as its mascot.

“The team’s name and the mascot have very little to do with one another, but the mascot is a staple at all UNC events and a source of great pride for members of the UNC community,” the statement reads.

Garwood’s push to find a Red Storm mascot started last year when he brought his daughter, who was 7 at the time, to a girls varsity basketball game against Tupper Lake. She saw the TLCSD Lumberjacks logos and emblems on the Tupper Lake team uniforms and wondered what Saranac Lake’s mascot was. At the same time, a friend told him his son saw the ‘Cuse Orange at a Syracuse University game and had a similar question — “Why don’t we have something like that?”

School board member Joe Henderson said his kids have been excited about the idea of having a mascot.

Garwood said seeing Adirondack Mac getting people excited around town during the 2023 FISU World University Games has been inspiring.

“You got to find something as good as Adirondack Mac,” Farmer said. “That mascot came to the Civic Center and the kids were just going nuts.”

An ad-hoc “SL Red Storm Mascot Committee” of the board has been formed. Garwood is the committee chair. It has student representatives — Ava Isabella and Carter Nicastro; coaches — Girls Softball Coach Gabby Lewis and Girls Basketball Coach Jake Vennie-Vollrath, as well as Athletic Director Forrest Morgan; as well as Farmer and district Superintendent Diane Fox.