Leave it to Red Lodge, Montana, a tiny spot on the mountain range that separates Montana and Wyoming, to give Dan Snyder and the other muckie-mucks (Western for rich guys) a clue.
The Red Lodge School Board takes up the issue of the high school’s mascot, the Redskins, during its Wednesday meeting. There have been moves in the past to rid the school of its mascot-name but this year the move has gained momentum so the issue will be take up formally.
Helped along: the fact that Saturday’s basketball game in the new gymnasium is to be played against Hardin High, a predominately American Indian School on the edge of the Crow Indian Reservation.
Internally, Red Lodge is largely divided between older graduates to whom the team is fondly known as “Redskins” and newer curiculates more aware of the meanings ascribed to the title. Today, American Indians are not known as Redskins, let alone by the complete old pioneer white-invented title, “pesky Redskins.”
There’s been talk around town that some title supporters might go so far as to dress up in Indian garb to attend the game!
Whatever the school board’s decision on the name, it is the first time the issue has achieved this kind of decision-making prominence. Many in Red Lodge, not to mention a few further East, would say “about time.”
