Maniacs – Orofino (ID) High School

NOTE:  We’re a little short of 100, so I’m adding a few more to get us to that magic number.

No, this has nothing to do whatsoever with the Idaho State Hospital, located right in town. Nothing to do at all. Why ever would you think that?

Instead – at least according to the Idaho Statesman – it seems that some opponents “decided the Orofino players played and looked like a bunch of maniacs [and the name stuck].” Further, it “is not intended to depict a hospital patient enduring shock treatment.” Nope, not at all.

In addition to the hospital, Orofino also has a prison! So, I guess they could have been something like the Convicts, or the Felons, or the Criminals as well (hey, didn’t Yuma already take that last one?).

I guess “Offenders” would work as well
(especially considering the alliteration)

Orofino, which means “fine gold,” is in the panhandle. It’s also in the very northeast corner of the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, and right on the Clearwater River. The town dates back to 1895, and today has about 2,700 inhabitants.

Some other areas of interest include a Lewis & Clark site, a big dam, and Boomershoot, an “annual precision rifle event.” The place looks genuinely beautiful.

The high school has about 240 students. They offer 8 sports, and have won 4 state titles, including 2 in basketball.

Luckily, there is a physical mascot:

Even more fortunately, he sure beats the last one they had:

Hatters – Hatboro-Horsham (PA) High School

NOTE:  We’re a little short of 100, so I’m adding a few more to get us to that magic number.

We’re mad, I tell you!  Mad!

Hatboro and Horsham are just to the norhwest of Philadelphia, which they serve as bedroom communities. They both date back to 1715 or so. Together, they now have more than 23,000 people.

Hatboro’s the bigger of the two, about about two time the size of Horsham. Hatboro has two claims to fame:

• The Battle of Crooked Billet, during the Revolutionary War
• Being where Jill Biden grew up

Horsham’s home to a Air National Guard base, as well as an air museum.

The high school dates back to 1950, and today has 1,300 students. Sounds like they’re very proud of their robotics team, TV studio & channel, and band.

Sports-wise, they’ve notched 6 state championships, in softball, hockey, x-country & swimming.

Oh, about those hats … Sure enough, Hatboro was once known for making the things (oh, in the early 1700s, that is).

No real mascot, unfortunately. Though I did find this guy:

Cheesemakers – Monroe (WI) High School

NOTE:  We’re a little short of 100, so I’m adding a few more to get us to that magic number.

So, this is Wisconsin, right? I would imagine any high school in the state could be called the Cheesemakers. So, what’s so special about Monroe? 

Well, it is known as the “Gateway to Cheese Country,” as well as the “Cheese Capital of the US.”  The town also features a biennial festival called Cheese Days, which dates all the way back to 1914. You’ll also want to check out places like the National Historic Cheesemaking Center, as well as several cheese stores, including Swiss Colony. Well, then – Cheesemakers it is!

Monroe’s right on the border with Illinois, about halfway between Iowa & Lake Michigan. It was settled in the 1830s (with many settlers coming from Switzerland), and officially incorporated in 1882. In addition to cheese, other industries have included lumber and lead mining. Today, it’s got about 10,700 people.

The town claims over 40 famous citizens, though I haven’t heard of a one. I do, though, feel like I need to at least call out the following: 

• “Evelene Brodstone, one of the highest paid female executives of the 1920s
• Edwin Copeland, botanist and founder of the University of the Philippines Los Banos College of Agriculture
• G. Fred Galli, cheesemaker and legislator” [Wikipedia]

For some reason, they’ve also produced 8 generals. Must be something in the cheese.

Evelene would later become Lady Vestley

The high school claims 5 famous alumni (including 1 general!), but no one I’ve ever heard of. It has about 700 students total.

The school features 22 different sports, including all-time faves bowling and girls hockey. They’re 3-time state champions … back in the 1970s … in cross-country.

I feel like their color should be orange

I was wracking my brains thinking about what their actual mascot should look like. Wouldn’t you know – they picked the perfect one:

Beetdiggers – Jordan High School (Sandy UT)

NOTE:  We’re a little short of 100, so I’m adding a few more to get us to that magic number.

Sugarbeeters, meet Beetdiggers!

Yup, once again, we have a high school turning to the lowly sugar beet to provide themselves with a mascot. Just in case you’ve forgotten, sugar beets are the main source of sugar in the US.

The town of Sandy is just south of Salt Lake City. Settlement dates back to the 1860s, with incorporation coming in 1893. Today, the place has 97,000 inhabitants!

The town’s main claim to fame is being home to America First Field, host of MLS team Real Salt Lake. 

Wikipedia lists 27 “notable people.” The only one I’m familiar with, though, is kidnapping victim Elizabeth Smart.

The high school takes its name from the Jordan River, which flows through the west part of town. The school dates all the way back to 1907, and currently has a whopping 1,800 students. Wikipedia lists 12 “famous alumni,” none of whom I’ve heard of.

It looks like they offer 15 sports, with nothing too out of the ordinary. They do, though, have a drill team that’s been at it for over 100 years.

And, yes, they do have a physical mascot – the dour, somewhat scary Digger Dan:

Clockers – Ashland (MA) High School

NOTE:  We’re a little short of 100, so I’m adding a few more to get us to that magic number.

Somehow, I don’t think this is what they were after:

Noun, informal, US English: a drug dealer, especially one who sells cocaine or crack.

Instead, this mascot celebrates Ashland’s own Henry Ellis Warren, who invented the first synchronizing timer, in 1916. This handy little device “made synchronous electric clocks possible by keeping alternating current flowing from power plants at a consistent sixty cycles per second” [Wikipedia]. A little obscure, but hey …

Ashland is about halfway between Boston and Worcester. It was settled in the early 18^th Century, and was incorporated in 1845. Today, it has 19,000 people, and operates mostly as a bedroom community for Boston. Wikipedia lists 5 “notable people,” none of whom I’ve heard of.

The high school has 880 students. That’s a very diverse population, with Whites at 60%, Latinos at 20%, and Asians at 14%. The actual physical plant is pretty new, dating back to 2005.

Note big clock

As for athletics, they appear to have all the standard sports. In addition, we’ve also got skiing, equestrian, water polo & mountain biking.

Thankfully, there actually is a real, live, on-field mascot:

By the way, there are a lot of Ashlands out there. Here’s a special call out to the one in Wisconsin, whose high school mascot is the equally weird and wonderful Oredockers:

Zizzers – West Plains (MO) High School

Zzzz … What a snoozer of a mascot.

Hard to believe, but “zizzer” once had a much more lively meaning. According to the school website, a “zizzer” is a:

“N. 1. an expert in any activity - adj. (colloq) FIRST RATE; 2. a person of the highest caliber, ability, or reputation. 3. One who is victorious; (syn) A WINNER! Because to be a ZIZZER means to be the BEST at WHATEVER you do!”

Unfortunately, that bit of slang dates back to 1908. Seems an English teacher used it to describe one of the school’s first yearbooks.

West Plains? The town of 12,200 dates all the way back to 1832.  They’ve got no less than 6 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s right on the border with Arkansas, so was the scene of lots of guerrilla warfare in Civil War. The town’s last brush with history came with an explosion in a dance hall that killed 37.

It claims several notable sons & daughters. These include actor Dick Van Dyke, C&W singer Porter Wagoner, and baseball players Bill Virdon & Preacher Roe.

Porter & friend

Finally, it has a very unique flag. I’m a big amateur vexillologist (realfunwithflags.blogspot.com), so I was happily surprised to see this one.

Couldn’t find out much about the high school except that it has 1,145 students.  I did count 13 sports, as well as 38 state titles (29 being in cross country). 

This just in … They now have a real, physical, on-field mascot, one Bolt.

Zeps – Shenandoah (OH) High School

Yes, it’s weird. But would knowing that it commemorates a disaster that took the lives of 14 people help make it any less so?

I thought not. Sure enough, the mascot was named after the crash of the airship USS Shenandoah nearby in 1925.

The Shenandoah was the first airship that the US created, being commissioned in 1923. It was also the first airship to use helium (instead of the much more flammable hydrogen). Apart from its service with the Navy, it also undertook a memorable flight across the country (the first, for a dirigible).

As for the accident, the ship was caught in an updraft that took it to a height where the gas bags burst. With that, the control cars and engines became detached and fell to the ground. It’s kinda amazing that 28 people actually survived.

The high school is actually just outside the small town of Sarahsville (pop. 150), a couple of miles east of the crash site. We’re talking Noble County here, in the rural southeast part of the state.

The school dates back to 1963, and today has 215 students. It appears to emphasize STEM. I actually had a hard time finding much about it. I do know, however, that their yearbook is called the Zeppelinian:

As for athletics, they feature 10 of the more standard sports. Couldn’t find much about those either, though I did uncover a list of colleges recent grads had gotten into. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard of any of them – Walsh, Finlay, Otterbein, Muskingum …

Muskingum are the Muskies!