Kids back the Wolfpack

The Daily Inter Lake

Any way you count it, Wolfpack is the students' top choice for mascot at Glacier High School.

After a week of voting, sixth-through ninth-grade students from public and private schools within Flathead High School District boundaries decided they want to be the Wolfpack when the new school opens in fall 2007.

It was a contest among the Wolfpack, the Bears and the Wolverines.

The students sided with a mascot-naming committee's initial recommendation, but against the school board's unofficial preference for Wolverines.

"I'm glad we decided to go with the students' choice," Superintendent Darlene Schottle said Friday afternoon after the ballots were counted.

"I think it's important that students have a voice in what their mascot is in coming years."

And, coupled with the deep blue and green already chosen for school colors, Wolfpack "has some great potential for logos," she said.

The final tally Friday afternoon was done in two ways:

First, a simple count of how many first-place votes each mascot received came up with 871 for Wolfpack, 769 for Bears and 529 for Wolverines.

Second, a weighted tally awarded one point for each first-place vote, two points for each second-place vote and three points for each third-place vote. The low score won. The ultimate outcome was the same - 4,128 for the Wolfpack, 4,334 for the Bears and 4,701 for the Wolverines.

Included in the vote were the outlying public elementary districts of Evergreen, Helena Flats, West Valley and Olney-Bissell, and the Kalispell elementary schools of Russell and Edgerton.

All the city's seventh-graders at Linderman and the eighth- and ninth-graders at Kalispell Junior High, whether they will be within Glacier High or Flathead High boundaries or not, got the chance to vote.

Private schools were polled as well, but simple logistics meant home-schoolers could not be included.

The student vote will go to the school board as an informational item at its Feb. 14 meeting.