New Mascot Decided For Clearwater-Ewing-Orchard Sports Coop

Farewell, Tiger orange and Cyclone green. A new mascot is here.

It’s official— the new sports co-op for Clearwater, Ewing and Orchard has been named the Summerland Bobcats. Their new colors are Carolina blue, black and silver.

After a month-long process — which included several meetings and surveys distributed to all students in grades 6-11, staff and families in Orchard, Clearwater and Ewing — the three school boards confirmed the student’s mascot and color selections at their joint board meeting Thursday night.

Summerland Central was another consideration for the coop; however, Clearwater principal Mike Sanne said the students preferred the shortened version.

“It’s too wordy for a cheer,” Orchard principal Cathy Cooper said with a laugh.

She said the students worked well together to find common ground when they recognized that all of the groups had Summerland, Bobcats and Carolina blue as options.

“I just want to commend our students because I think they did a phenomenal job of  compromising, working together and strategizing,” Cooper said.

The other mascot option was the Panthers. Clearwater school board president Amy Thiele said she was pleased that the students decided to be “a little more original than that.”

“The Norfolk High Panthers are only 40 miles down the road,” Thiele said.

Ewing principal Greg Appleby said the Bobcats were “overwhelmingly the top choice” by the students.

“My opinion is to roll with what the kids chose,” Ewing board president Mark Ramold said.

When it was put to a vote, the three boards agreed and the Summerland Bobcats were born. The sports cooperative will begin with the 2019-20 school year for junior high and high school sports, with the exception of high school football due to the two-year contract cycle. They will remain the OC Cyclones and CWCE Renegades for another football season.

Varsity head coaches for the Summerland Bobcats, include: volleyball-Suz Funk, girls and boys cross country-Jamie Turpin, boys basketball-Brett Kaczor, girls basketball-Greg Appleby, wrestling-Dan Roeber, girls track-Shannon Schumacher, boys track-Jackson Medina and boys golf-Bill Tabbert. The athletic directors will be Shelly Mlnarik-Clearwater, Greg Appleby-Ewing and Jim Schutt-Orchard.

In other matters, the board members:

•Approved Wilkins Architecture Design Planning, LLC of Kearney, as the architectural firm for proposed school construction project;

•Discussed methods for contracting services and named Superintendent Dale Martin as the point of contact;

•Voted on the criteria to be used when hiring a construction manager; and

•Offered input on the reorganization petition, which will be drafted by Steve Williams of KSB. They agreed the new board would consist of six members — two members from each school, one serving a 2 year term and the other 4 years. After that time, the members will be elected at large. It was decided to start forming committees to educate the public about the bond elections. They agreed schools for PK-12 will remain in each community until a new school is built.