By Paul Magnussen, Class of ‘73
During the 1972-73 school year, while Bill Maynard was Principal of Cleveland High School, a contest was organized to let student artists create a new eagle design for the school’s mascot. Bill recalled, “When I came in the year before, I found that of the 12 high schools in Seattle, we had the highest dropout rate, suspension rate, absentee rate, and number of fights per day in the city.”
Chris Kato had joined the staff that school year as Vice Principal. Bill said, “We believed that it was extremely important to find a way to bring our students together.” This belief led to the “We’ve Got Pride” campaign. As part of that campaign, Bill formed the student leadership team, which consisted of students of different ethnic backgrounds who suggested the Design the Eagle Contest.
Student artists were encouraged to submit their designs, which were displayed in a glass case in the main hall with numbers on them. Students voted on their favorite eagle. The winner’s eagle would be featured on that year’s yearbook cover. All participants were allowed to paint their eagle designs on the walls of the main hall. As I recall, Jeff Hanada won the contest with his watercolor eagle design.
Second place went to a cartoon eagle design that was featured on a button for students to purchase (see photo). Karen Craig (Spiel) said she drew that “ferocious little guy. I remember the other eagles in the contest being realistic and very impressive, and I was surprised that the people chose this cartoon fellow!” Chris Kato got involved, too, by painting some words in the main hall (see photos).
My eagle design took third place. I remember spending hours after school for days painting it on the main hall wall at the southwest end outside of Sandra White’s biology classroom. Each day, I would store the paint there and clean the brushes in her classroom sink. As you can see from the photo, I painstakingly painted each feather of the eagle to try to create a realistic eagle design.
Bill said, “It led to ‘Getting it together at Cleveland’ and all the other beautiful artwork that was painted on the walls in the halls. It truly was the beginning of a huge turnaround for CHS, and it started with your class. Over the next two years, we ended up with the lowest dropout rate, suspension rate, absentee rate, and number of fights per year in the district. And at the time, we were actually the most multiethnic high school in the state.” This is something that I greatly appreciated about attending CHS.
Alas, I don’t think my eagle is in the hall anymore, but I was greatly honored to leave my mark on the school at the time, literally.
