In a society that continually elects representatives who are more interested in getting reelected than paying attention to US citizens, I find myself becoming more and more disgruntled. I am as guilty as the next voter who continues to vote for representatives who don”t represent me. Whether right or wrong, by exercising my right to vote, I do reserve the right to complain about any issue; whether it is taxes, my water bill, or why the name of the KHS mascot was stripped from the community.
Why was the “Indian” taken from us? The members of the Kelseyville school board unanimously decided in March of 2006 to take it from us. They stripped the high school of their history, their heritage, their pride. They took the powerful symbol of the Native American Indian and replaced him with the raping and pillaging Knight of old. What were they thinking? Were they being sympathetic to a few loud voices? Were they worried about future lawsuits that may sap the coffers of the school district? Were they being politically correct; or worse, were they afraid of being labeled politically incorrect?
Whatever their reasons were, their actions both saddened and angered me. Don”t they have a responsibility to represent me too ? a voter in this community? Don”t they have a responsibility to represent all members of this community? Am I alone in thinking this? It is my belief that the “Indian” of the Kelseyville Indians represented the Elem Indian, Big Valley Indian, the Scotts Valley Indian, all of the many proud Indians that live in this county. The mascot, “Indian” stood for all of them; both past and present. The “Indian” is a symbol of strength, spirit, power, hardiness, tenaciousness. It is a symbol of both the history and present makeup of this area. I know as an alumnus of the Kelseyville Indians I felt proud to be an “Indian”. I had a respect for this area that maybe the Clearlake Cardinals or the Lower Lake Trojans could not conceive.
I can”t speak for the rest of the town, or for the local Indians, or for other “Indian” alumni out there, but I was disenchanted by the change. I was furious at the loss of our great representative. Lake County was inhabited by Native American Indians for thousands of years and now the mascot for the county was taken away. I seem to remember a consensus of anger two years ago when the change actually happened. I believe that anger still lingers. I think there is an undercurrent of that unhealed anger that has not been addressed. Am I wrong?
Elections are coming up in November. We have a duty as citizens of our communities to let our representatives know how we feel. The present Kelseyville board members failed to keep the “Indian” safe from annihilation. Because of this failure, the local Indians have lost a source of respect and pride that stretched into households they could never reach otherwise. If the school boards choice to remove the Indian was made for moral reasons I cannot fault them. If their decision was made under duress for fear of being labeled, or for financial reasons, I do fault them and would ask for their positions of authority as my representative. Either way, they do not represent my belief that the Indian should still be standing proud at the high school and should still be represented around the County. I am going to vote in November to let the school board members know that they have a responsibility to the “whole” community.
Eric Rixen
Kelseyville
