See also: Iola City Council considers changing the name of Coon Creek.
The Fillies will be put out to pasture eventually.
The USD 257 Board of Education voted to use one mascot for all district athletes the Mustangs but not yet.
Instead, theyll phase in the change over the next three years. The mascot for grades preschool through eighth grade will change to the Mustangs in the fall of 2021, at the same time a new elementary school is expected to open.
Currently, elementary students are the Colts and middle school students are Ponies.
The change wont take effect until the fall of 2022 at Iola High School, where the boys teams are Mustangs and girls are Fillies.
The delay at the high school is a practical one, board members said. The district recently purchased the girls new basketball uniforms, on which is printed Fillies.
By the time the district is ready to replace them, the Fillies will be no more.
THE MASCOT debate has elicited widespread discussion since the board first proposed making a change several weeks ago. It was hotly debated on social media.
Board President Dan Willis said not since the district decided to move high school classes from the Bowlus Fine Arts Center a couple years ago has he received such passionate feedback.
But now is the time to make a change, Willis said.
Thats because the district is building a new, consolidated elementary school and its design will likely incorporate the mascot in some way.
At a school board meeting two weeks ago, the board voted to name the new school Iola Elementary School.
The debate actually goes back even further than that, Willis said, though its not quite clear when the mascots were named.
Willis said he searched news and school archives and found the issue has come up again and again since the 1970s.
In 1998, high school student council members voted to use Mustangs for all athletes, but community outrage persuaded the board to keep both the Mustangs and Fillies.
