What's the Real Story About Richland High School's Mascot and the National News? (Seattle: contractors)

[Mtn. States Resident]

Like many of you, I become very tired of ignorant questions about National Nuclear Labs. Hanover and INL have had probably several hundred, if not more, employees work at both labs. Often families in the Tri-Cities have relatives in the Idaho Falls area and vice versa. The same contractors bid on projects etc. Since I comprehend what the western national labs worked on as "Nuclear Labs," I was surprised to see a National news story about Richland High School's Mascot yesterday.

I haven't seen anything locally or regionally about the story. What are the facts of why the "Bomber" mascot is getting national press? Who or what is responsible for this timing?

MSR

[Mtn. States Resident]

I finally found an article about this. Apparently, this was part of a WA State Education discussion about high school mascots approximately two or three years ago. The article was about WA Dept. of Education not wanting to use Native American names for mascots. Someone brought up the Bomber and Cloud mascot at Richland High School as being "worse."

What happened to make it be discussed on national news in NYC this week, IDK. Maybe the small amount I found will help someone remember something. Or maybe some journalist is now in NYC and isn't going to let the subject drop, IDK.

TIA for anything anyone can link or clarify.

MSR

[j_k_k]

Periodically some reporter runs across it, correctly surmises that it would shock the crap out of his or her readership ("look at these outrageous kooks in this flyover state!"), and brings it up again. The polite fiction they put out in Richland is that it represents the Day's Pay bomber bought by Hanford employees in WWII, and nowadays maybe it partly does by adoption because that was an actual thing, but there's no real doubt that the original refers to Hanford's history of making the plutonium that took Nagasaki and fueled nuclear weapons through the first half or so of the Cold War.

There's a display on it at the Smithsonian, so any reporter wandering past there would get a distorted view of the mascot because the display distorts reality. It is very un-PC in a place that feels misunderstood by the non-nuclear world and reacts with a certain defiance to that, and the Bomber Alumni are a thing in Richland (though it was Columbia High when many of them attended). Short version of community reaction to the idea of changing the mascot: "Touch it and die." You might even say that the issue is radioactive. Any school board member who proposed changing it would find him or herself crapped up, so to speak.

Myself, I found the mascot very amusing and loaded with tradition, even though I think Hanford is a huge goat rodeo and that most of the community viewpoint about it is ridiculous. So I hope they hang onto it just to keep irritating faraway outsiders (and self-righteous Seattleites) who try to tell them what they can name their mascot. It's not a Native American name, so it must really frustrate the PC crowd that they have to improvise their complaint, and that Richland doesn't just cringe and scrape, but basically flips them off.

[Mtn. States Resident]

Originally Posted by j_k_k

Periodically some reporter runs across it, correctly surmises that it would shock the crap out of his or her readership ("look at these outrageous kooks in this flyover state!"), and brings it up again. The polite fiction they put out in Richland is that it represents the Day's Pay bomber bought by Hanford employees in WWII, and nowadays maybe it partly does by adoption because that was an actual thing, but there's no real doubt that the original refers to Hanford's history of making the plutonium that took Nagasaki and fueled nuclear weapons through the first half or so of the Cold War.

There's a display on it at the Smithsonian, so any reporter wandering past there would get a distorted view of the mascot because the display distorts reality. It is very un-PC in a place that feels misunderstood by the non-nuclear world and reacts with a certain defiance to that, and the Bomber Alumni are a thing in Richland (though it was Columbia High when many of them attended). Short version of community reaction to the idea of changing the mascot: "Touch it and die." You might even say that the issue is radioactive. Any school board member who proposed changing it would find him or herself crapped up, so to speak.

Myself, I found the mascot very amusing and loaded with tradition, even though I think Hanford is a huge goat rodeo and that most of the community viewpoint about it is ridiculous. So I hope they hang onto it just to keep irritating faraway outsiders (and self-righteous Seattleites) who try to tell them what they can name their mascot. It's not a Native American name, so it must really frustrate the PC crowd that they have to improvise their complaint, and that Richland doesn't just cringe and scrape, but basically flips them off.

Thanks for the info, j.k.k. I enjoyed your summary and laughed at the end.

It's hard to know how come a journalist in NYC used this reference. It certainly seemed out of context. At least now I know if I hear it again I appreciate your help.

MSR