MAYFLOWER — The Mayflower School District has a new look for its mascot’s logo.
A new Eagle logo was selected unanimously by the school board on July 11, Superintendent John Gray said.
“What happened around here is when people wanted to get a logo for us, they went on the internet and got one,” he said.
“Various versions of the logo were used across the district. A lot used the Philadelphia Eagle one — that’s a problem, so we’re trying to solve that problem,” he said. “Now we’ll have some consistency — we’ll have our own design.”
Gray said the board had four designs to consider, and it chose one created by Luke White, the district’s technology director, which has an “M” incorporated into the feathers.
When White was told a new logo was needed, he said he decided to design one. “I love computers, and I do some things with websites,” he said.
White said one of the board members “came across something that looked pretty interesting; I saw that copy of that design, and I saw how we could make it our own by incorporating the ‘M’ in our logo. We definitely wanted a logo that was our own. For too long, our logo had been similar to a lot of other logos. I created it and manipulated the logo to make it fit and all that. I have the flat 2-D and one a little bit 3-D with the gloss. The three dimensionals, I thought how awesome that would look on a keychain or a cup or shirts, or something like that. One of my tech guys helped me put the final touches with color into it.”
The new logo is on the school’s website, www.mayflower.school.
Board President Scott Sewell said board members “were wanting to try to put the school’s initial in play with the Eagle head,” so that’s why they chose White’s design. The board originally wanted MHS in the logo, “but that messes it up with the middle school and elementary,” Sewell said.
“We’re going to trademark it,” Gray said. “We’re asking an attorney if we can use a black and white outline as our logo and color it as we like.” He said the idea is to use the logo in either purple or gold, the school colors.
The logo will be placed on the wrap for the new school resource officer’s car, a 2015 Dodge Charger, purchased a few months ago by the city of Mayflower.
The school district will have its first full-time resource officer beginning
Aug. 15. The district previously utilized a part-time deputy with the Faulkner County Sheriff’s Office who was assigned to other duties. Gray said he would like to continue to have a deputy in the district, too.
“We don’t pay for [deputies], but they’ve been extremely cooperative,” he said.
Gray said the district will split the Mayflower officer’s salary, approximately $40,000, with the city.
However, Gray said Monday that he and Mayflower Mayor Randy Holland are working to increase the salary because of the quality of the candidates.
Mayflower Police Chief Robert Alcon said in an earlier interview that he thinks a school resource officer will negate some problems before they start and will promote “a good positive image for the school.”
Interviews for the position have been held, but at press time, an officer had not been selected.
“Ideally, we’d like to have one for each school, as time goes on,” Gray said.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.