School gets new name, new colors

By NANCY KIMBALL

The Daily Inter Lake

Many people seem to have accepted it as a given for quite some time, but now it's official.

Kalispell Junior High School will be renamed Kalispell Middle School next fall when the doors open to sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders.

That's the moniker that was formalized by a vote of School District 5 trustees this week.

The vote affirmed a recommendation from Kalispell Junior High Principal Barry Grace and his team. It reflects the reconfiguration of the eighth- and ninth-grade junior high to a grades 6-8 middle school.

Also included in Grace's recommendation were the school's new colors: orange and green.

Those represent a combination of both high schools' colors as Kalispell moves to open its second high school next year: Glacier High's colors will be green and blue and Flathead High's colors are orange and black.

"We can show unity and cohesiveness, pride and support for both GHS and FHS," Grace explained, "as we will not be one high school's middle school but a middle school for Kalispell that has two high schools."

It turns out the color choice was pretty much a given, too. Grace said Kalispell Middle School staff received green shirts emblazoned with KMS at an Aug. 29 middle-school gathering.

Next up is mascot selection.

Grace has asked each of the five Kalispell elementary school principals to select one student from fifth grade and one from sixth grade, and asked Linderman Principal Micah Hill for five students in seventh grade. Those 15 representatives will make up the mascot selection committee.

They probably will pare it down to three to five mascots, based on this criteria:

. gender neutral,

. no specific individual as the mascot name,

. avoid mascots from the Flathead Valley and nearby towns (no Pirates, Chiefs, Loggers, Lions, Bulldogs, Cats or Vikings),

. avoid Bobcat and Grizzly (leave them to the universities).

Committee members will discuss appropriate choices to present for a vote by the current fifth-, sixth- and seventh-grade classes - the first group to make up the student body of Kalispell Middle School.

Grace stressed that there will be no adult voting - only students who will attend the school will vote.

Final selection will go to the school board for approval.

He figures the committee process will culminate sometime in October so that student representatives can go back to present the options to their classes, take a vote and tally the numbers.

Grace said the Oct. 25 early dismissal, when staff will continue work on the middle school curriculum, could be an optimum time for the announcement.