Wacky High School Mascots: Kewpies – Hickman High School (Columbia MO)

A Kewpie is a naked smiling baby created in 1909 by Rose O’Neill, an Ozark, Missouri, resident, as a comic strip character and later turned into paper dolls and figurines. The Kewpie was first printed in Ladies’ Home Journal in December 1909. O’Neill described the Kewpie characters as "little round fairies whose objective is to teach people to be merry and kind at the same time."

So, in another words, a perfect idea to strike fear into the hearts of one’s opponents.

Columbia is a city of 130,000 people, home to the University of Missouri, and almost smack dab in the middle of the state.

Hickman dates back to 1927, and is one of the largest high schools in Missouri. Famous alumni include Sam Walton, Kenneth Lay, various congressmen and a Nobel Prize winner.

Ken Lay, yearbook photo

It’s in the top 5% of high schools nationwide, and has the most presidential scholars in the state. There are no less than 20 Wikipedia pages talking all about it!

Now, for that mascot … It dates all the way back to 1912, when Kewpie dolls were actually a thing. We’ve got two possibilities for this one:

“Apparently, the school secretary owned a Kewpie doll, as they were popular figurines then, and she kept it on her desk. At one of the first basketball games in December 1913 she placed her Kewpie doll in the center of the court, and the entire game was played around it without it being broken. This was somewhat remarkable since the dolls were very fragile. Because it survived the game and brought a victory, it was thereafter considered the good luck mascot.”
“The Kewpie first appeared in the Cresset [the school yearbook] in 1914 in a dedication to the basketball team, whose loyalty to the school and to the Kewpie motto to keep smiling has won the state championship.”

The first one sounds a but much, so I’m goin’ with the latter. Maybe the secretary was involved somehow. I don’t know.

Looks like they’ve got multiple mascots, one smiling and one not.