Too offensive to stay? Tiny Missouri town splits over school’s ‘Savage’ mascot
An hour’s drive north of Kansas City, a 152-foot water tower displays the sharp profile of an American Indian, two feathers dangling behind his high cheekbones. The name of the tiny town he overlooks is printed at his eye level: SAVANNAH.
Below, in cursive, is the moniker for the town and its high school team, part of this 99% white community for nearly 100 years:
Savages.
“You literally can’t miss it if you drive through town. It’s everywhere,” said Savannah High School alumna Amanda Barr, who thinks that’s one of many reasons it needs to change.
It’s the name of the bowling alley, Savage Lanes, and an auto shop, Savage Service Center. Just days ago, Lisa Gray opened up Savage Nutrition, a coffee and smoothie shop on the town square across from the Andrew County Courthouse.
The Andrew County Museum & Historical Society confirms that the high school’s Savages name, with its black and gold colors, dates to at least 1926. At the school, the Indian likeness and nickname are emblazoned everywhere, with “Savage Pride” on the entrance sign and cut into metal at the football field gate.They can be found on school uniforms and the gym floor. The word “Savages” is embedded into the outdoor track, and “Savage Nation” is painted on the front of the announcer’s booth.
Now — on the heels of nationwide George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests that have put racism, statues and famous team mascots in the spotlight — the Savages nickname and image are under attack. Two competing petitions have split the town, one asking for the name and image to go, another to stay. The issue has so polarized public sentiment that when the Savannah R-III School District’s school board held its July meeting, more than 30 people spoke on both sides of the issue to a crowd so large the meeting was moved from the board’s central office to a gymnasium.
It’s a debate that Barr, a 2002 Savannah graduate, believes is long overdue.
Incensed and embarrassed by the name, Barr in June created a change.org petition saying that it was only as an adult that she came to realize she had been raised in an area whose land once belonged to various Native American tribes, like the Kickapoo, Osage, Kaw and Sioux.
“I did know, however, that the mascot for my school, the one that was painted all over town and used as a logo for so many businesses, made me feel ill. The Savannah Savage,” wrote Barr, 36, who now lives in Missoula, Montana. Her parents still continue to live in town as multi-generation Savannah residents.
“Tomahawk chops at all the sports games. Students in face and body paint, wearing feathers and other native-inspired regalia as costumes,” she wrote. “… I am ashamed to say I went to this high school, that I used to belong to a community that would denigrate people who have been victims of oppression in this way.”
‘I always thought it was wrong’
Barr, in a telephone interview with The Star, said she thought the petition might raise a few eyebrows, anger some. But instead, it has taken off, so far garnering more than 6,400 signatures from across the nation — more than the 5,000 residents of Savannah.
The movement has spawned its own website, standupsavannah.com, calling for the end of the use of of the name, seen as a racial slur and stereotype.
Former students and teachers have offered online and personal testimonials.
Every morning, said former Savannah High School teacher Carl Stafford, he would cringe when he pulled up to the building. Stafford taught there in 2013 and 2014 and now lives in Blue Springs.
“I always thought it was wrong,” Stafford told The Star. He called the town a loving place. “But let’s be honest. I’m a Black man. It (equating Native Americans to savages) is the equivalent of calling me …” and he rattled off a string of racial slurs.
Savannah 2008 graduate David Kozminski wrote online:
“To this day I REGRET that I didn’t speak up more when I had the chance. And now that I’m old enough, mature enough, wise enough to know, I’m going to try to do the right thing. I have a son on the way (my first for my wife and I). And I decided that for me to be able to look him in the eye and encourage him to stand up for the RIGHT thing — to stand up for vulnerable people even when it’s not easy — that I have to start DOING the right thing myself.
Kendra Haag, 29, a Kickapoo tribe member of Kansas, graduated in 2009.
“When I was younger, it was normal, I didn’t feel one way or the other about it,” Haag, now living in Arizona, told the The Star in a phone interview. “It wasn’t until I got older, in high school, when I thought that the mascot makes me feel uncomfortable. The town is 99% white; there was pretty much nothing I could have done about it in high school.”
She said she now knows better.
“Savages is a racial slur against Native Americans” she said. “Redskins, savages, squaw: Those are all racial slurs. And the imagery is a Native American head that plays into racial stereotypes that reduces an entire living culture to one people see on movies and what is misrepresented in media.”
‘No bad intentions’
In response, the call for change has generated a backlash change.org petition of its own, titled Keep the Savannah Savages Mascot.
Its organizer, Jeffrey Hovey of Savannah, whose Facebook page displays Savannah Savages over the decades, couldn’t be reached for comment, but he wrote on the petition page:
“A group of people are signing a petition to change our beloved Savage Mascot. It has been an icon for our community for as long as most of us remember. A savage can be from any race or land. You may hear that it is racist. … but it has no bad intentions towards anyone or any race. Let’s show them that we love, honor and want it to remain!”
The counter-petition has so far generated nearly 2,600 signatures and a host of comments, including:
“It is not racist or intended to harm anyone. Most that are around here that have Native American blood are for the schools mascot and do not feel it is offensive.”
Another: “I’ve been a part of this community for 35 years. I don’t feel the Savage mascot has anything to do with racism. It has nothing to do with any certain race.”
And another: “I believe the founders of Savannah and its school system chose Savages as a way to honor and show respect to the indigenous people/native Americans. What better mascot to have then a strong role model that the founders felt the Savages were.”
At its July 14 meeting, the Savannah school board board took no action regarding a name change, as it was not on the planned agenda. It is unclear if any action will be taken, said district communications director Jess Gillett, who said about half of those who spoke were for changing the name and half were against it.
Currently, the board is “listening with real interest” as a topic that may or may not be discussed in the future.
“It hasn’t ever come before the school board before,” Gillett said. “It has been something that has been talked about unofficially in the community. It gets brought up every couple of years. Somebody will say, ‘Hey, have you ever thought about changing your mascot?’ That’s usually as far as it goes and it stops there.
“This time there is a whole support group, a rally behind the group that brought it to us about changing it, which also started another rally group on the other side.”
On the streets of Savannah
To be sure, the question of whether the Savage name should be retired had been raised periodically over decades in Savannah, just as the names of other teams have been questioned nationwide. In 1981, a high school in Pekin, Illinois, traded its culturally insensitive name, “The Chinks,” to become The Dragons. In Hiawatha, Kansas, the Redskins’ school nickname became the Red Hawks in 2000.
The Cleveland Indians ceased using their grinning Chief Wahoo logo last year. In the National Football League, Washington in June announced it would abandon the name Redskins, leaving the Kansas City Chiefs as the only NFL team whose name evokes Native American imagery. In Johnson County, some are again pushing for Shawnee Mission North High School to be rid of its mascot and nickname, the Indians.
In Savannah, about 15 miles north of St. Joseph, sentiments on the street seem equally split.
“I think it is totally outrageous. Leave history alone,” said Steve Goben, 69, a Vietnam veteran who said he was part Sioux and attended the high school until 1966, three years before he entered military service. “Everybody’s wanting to change history. This political correctness is nothing but a bunch of bull. It’s not offensive to me. What about Africa? Africa is known for being full of savages. You going to change Africa, too?”
“I don’t want to speak for everybody in here, but I’d probably like to see it stay the way it is. Just leave things alone,” said Joe McMillan, owner of Joe’s Barbershop. “Plus, it’s going to cost a lot of money to change it all, too. I think it’s fine the way it is”
The cost was brought up often.
Gray, owner of Savage Nutrition, who has mixed-race children, said, “I don’t think it’s a necessity. I feel they will spend a ton of money changing uniforms and gym floors and wrestling mats, football fields and all the things. And they can take that money and do better things with it.”
“It’s a lot of expense,” said barber Larry Hendrix. “I think there’s a lot more important issues to work on today than school mascots.”
Ashley Akins, 19, who attended Savannah High before leaving to be home-schooled in her junior and senior years, said she sees it as an honor to be called a Savage.
“Like you want to be a Savage, you know? I don’t see an issue with it. There are so many things we would have to change” she said. She stood in front a sports shop, its windows filled with Savage T-shirts.
“They’d have to take all this stuff out of here,” she said, adding that she recently wore a Savage T-shirt her mother made in 1993. “It’d be sad for the town.”
But 16-year-old Jesse Herr, a rising junior and member of the Savannah High football team, said he’s for changing the name. He said he had no emotional attachment to it. The whole issue has become a negative distraction.
“I get why it’s offense and everything,” he said. “But I think it’s taken a lot of attention away from from us high school students being able to play. I think we should just … change it. Get this over with so we can focus on high school.”
Meantime, Ben Gould, a 16-year-old member of the swim team, is for leaving the name for historic reasons, but changing the mascot. Otherwise, he said, he worries other schools will see Savannah High as racist and refuse to compete with its teams. For that reason, keep the name, but replace the image with something less controversial.
“I’m in the middle,” he said.
This story was originally published August 2, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
