SARANAC LAKE — Some members of the Saranac Lake Central School board think its time for its Red Storm sports teams to get an official logo or mascot, and the board will officially discuss considering this potential branding update at its next meeting on Aug. 10.

School board member Justin Garwood, who brought the idea up at a July 6 board meeting, feels it’s “long overdue” for SLCSD to have a unified identity to stoke school pride and sell merchandise.

SLCSD has been the Red Storm since 2001. Before that, school teams played as the Redskins, a name that was retired by the school board over two decades ago for being offensive to Native Americans.

Garwood graduated from SLHS the year before the name change.

Earlier this month, he said changing the name was the right thing to do, pointing out that Saranac Lake was ahead of the curve nationally in eliminating names derogatory to indigenous people.

It wasn’t until 2020 that the Washington Redskins professional football team and the Peru school district Indians ditched their offensive names.

But SLCSD also wasn’t the first. St. John’s University in New York City changed its name from the Redmen in 1995 and also landed on the Red Storm. The university adopted a mascot in 2009 — a bird named “Johnny Thunderbird.”

SLCSD changed its team name in a 6-1 vote with a lot of input from the community, as well as local indigenous people. It selected a new name in a student poll, with the Red Storm earning 39% of the vote.

Visually representing the Red Storm in an image has been difficult, Garwood said. The district doesn’t currently have a mascot.

Garwood said this discussion is still “very preliminary.” All he has now is permission to talk about the potential of a new logo. No decisions are being made yet, he said.

SLCSD board member Mark Farmer was the school’s football team coach when the name was changed in 2001. He said it was a tough transition at first, but the kids quickly “rallied” behind the new name and within two years, the moniker was fully adopted by the student body.

“I think the adults had a more difficult time adapting than the students did,” he said.

The change never impacted school spirit or excitement for scholastic sports, Farmer said. Still, he said, the concept of a “Red Storm” has “lacked definition.”

“The name is a little ambiguous,” Farmer said.

There was conversation back in the day about a logo or mascot, he said, but nothing caught on.

The football team needed something for its helmets, so they adopted a decal of the “SL” letters intertwined. Other SLCSD teams tried hurricane emblems. But the interlacing SL letters became the standard logo for teams.

Farmer said the district’s old logo was actually a copyrighted image by the Washinton Redskins NFL team.

Garwood said this winter, he brought his daughter, 7, to a girls varsity basketball game against Tupper Lake. She saw the TLCSD Lumberjacks logos and emblems on the Tupper Lake team uniforms.

“She was just sort of asking about, ‘Well, what’s ours?'” Garwood said.

He also said a friend had taken his son to a Syracuse University game recently and saw the ‘Cuse Orange. This friend fielded a similar question from their child — “Why don’t we have something like that?”

He said he remembers when he was in school, people were rocking Redskins gear everywhere he went. Now, he feels he sees a lot less Red Storm gear around town. There are shirts with the words on them, but there’s not a definitive image attached to the Red Storm aside from the “SL” logo.

Garwood said has a 7-year-old, a 2-year-old and twins on the way. He wants to see his kids sporting Red Storm gear when they grow up in the district.

SLCSD Superintendent Diane Fox said the district should have students involved in a potential school logo and give them a vote in the matter, but it should not be a student project. She said instead of tying the logo to a student, which can complicate things, the district should get a professional to do the work, with input from the community.

SLCSD board Chair Aurora White said the board should have this conversation with the public.

The board is set to discuss this further at an Aug. 10 meeting.