High school in Kelowna drops ‘Voodoos’ from name
The Rutland Voodoos, high school sports teams whose name and mascot have long referenced warplanes and witch doctors, have ceased to exist.
Students at Rutland Senior Secondary voted Monday to rename the teams as the ‘Thunder’, replacing a brand seen by some to be offensive both for its perceived militarism and its insensitivity to Afro-Caribbean culture.
The vote, in which the only other choice was ‘Wolverines’, came after a years’-long in-school and community discussion that touched on issues of history, diversity, and inclusiveness, and which provoked some strong opposition to the idea of ditching the Voodoos’ name.
‘Thunder’ has a broader appeal and can be applied in a variety of school settings, RSS Grade 12 grad council vice-president Katrina Graham said Wednesday in an interview.
“I feel like it creates a lot of room for opportunity,” she said. “It’s something that a lot of students can work with, whatever group they’re a part of, whether you enjoy theatre, or sports, or choir, or band.”
Sports teams at RSS adopted the name Voodoos in the ’60s, principal Hugh Alexander said, after previous nicknames such as the Royals and the Knights.
McDonnell CF-101 Voodoos were interceptor aircraft, capable of carrying nuclear missiles, flown by the Royal Canadian Air Force between 1961 and 1984. The aircraft’s direct connection to Kelowna is uncertain, though some have suggested they were frequently seen making refuelling stops at the city’s airport, not far from Rutland Senior Secondary.
Perhaps not surprising, given the name of the U.S.-made jets, the Canadian pilots adopted an insignia that depicted a witch doctor. Such imagery also found its way into various iterations of the RSS Voodoos’ logo, including a particularly garish and cartoonish mascot that was painted on the gym wall in 2007.
It has since been painted over. But other versions of the witch doctor mascot that Alexander said was sometimes referred to as “the pineapple guy” continued to adorn team uniforms, and other school imagery, until just a few years ago.
“Students came to me prior to Covid saying they thought it was inappropriate for this to be representing the student body,” Alexander said.
“That student voice grew louder and louder, about the inappropriateness of this image. We have a much more diverse community now, we have a much more aware community. Our students are the ones who led the learning for me and our staff in this.”
Members of the city’s Afro-Caribbean community have also expressed concern over the years about the use, in a variety of ways at the school, of the Voodoo name and mascot.
“You look back at some very old yearbooks, and there’s some really offside images in them,” Alexander said.
As discussion grew about a possible name change, there was some opposition from people who thought the school was being overly-accommodating to minorities and not sufficiently respectful to its own history.
“I’ve heard a lot of that, actually,” Alexander said, suggesting some of the input was stridently expressed: “Sometimes, people were sharing things that we weren’t all that interested in hearing.
“But I’ve also heard from people who said, ‘Now that I know more, we should do something about it’, or ‘I’ll always be a Voodoo but I also appreciate and understand that you’re wanting to move forward’.”
Now that the name ‘Thunder’ has been chosen in the student vote, the next step is to come up with a new mascot. Students will be invited to submit their proposals, Alexander said.
In a related matter, Rutland Middle School, which also used the name Voodoos for its sports teams, changed the name in mid-March to ‘Raptors.’