News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Putnam County’s VITAL School has chosen its first mascot after months of planning.
Principal Shannon Pirtle said they will now be known as the VITAL School Trailblazers. He said this is a big step forward for the school because, while they may be online and mostly without large events, they still have many programs that could benefit from a central image.
“We do have all kinds of other participation clubs and organizations that students would be a part of, one of them being our cyber patriots team, another being our esports program, and then beta clubs and other things of that nature,” Pirtle said. “So building that sense of identity and belonging and connecting that back to the school’s mission and vision is very important.”
Pirtle said the school has relied on its colors of red, white, and blue for any sense of identity since its founding in 2009. Now, those colors have been incorporated into the mascot design, and they have a central figure to hold up as a representative.
Pirtle said the process of selection began last semester but took so long because it requires stakeholder and board involvement for suggestions to be made. He said the involvement of the community in the decision-making and design process also added time but was wholly necessary.
“We have two students that submitted works that we drew inspiration from; one being a torch, like you’re lighting the way, and the other was a flame in place of a person being a mascot,” Pirtle said. “So we combined those, so the mascot is a torch with a flame face, his name is Blaze, and his motto is that he lights the way for others.”
Pirtle said they don’t have a physical mascot for events at this time, so Blaze will mostly be appearing with their logo on school sites, shirts, and club banners. He said the future for the school looks much better with this change in place, and they are one step closer to building their ideal community.
“It’s about replicating the same types of expectations you would have for schools in a traditional setting,” Pirtle said.
