The Skowhegan School Board needs to realize that, though the matter of the use of the term Indians as mascots by Skowhegan schools, has come before it formally only once or twice, it perpetually roils below the surface. The board members have refused to comply with the Nativess request to cease using the mascot, but the issue will certainly come up again.

And again.

And again, until the change is made.

And the change eventually will be made.

As with other human rights and civil rights issues that we as a society have grappled with over the decades, this issue is not going away until the superior grievance, in this case the Natives’, is recognized.

Happily, once the change in mascot is made, whether to an animal or to the Skowhegan Lumberjacks or River Drivers or whatever, the issue will never reappear again.

The board should have done the right thing now, and simply changed it. We need to move forward. Delay only increases the acrimony and dysfunction.

Ernie Hilton

Starks