BY DARRELL HALEN

They came wearing green T-shirts. One wore a wildcat mascot costume. They presented petitions signed by nearly 800 people.

But despite the strong public display by students and parents calling for a “new and fair” vote to decide Windham High School’s mascot and school colors, a majority of the Windham School Board members meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 7, stood by their earlier decision not to allow one.

In 2005, students selected the jaguar as the school’s mascot, and blue and gold for its colors, and the school board officially adopted their choices.

But some students want to continue the tradition of the wildcat for the mascot, and green and gold as the colors, which are used at the middle school.

Recently, several parents and students have argued the vote two years ago was flawed; of three color combinations on the ballot, two included green, so the “green vote” was split, allowing blue and gold to come out on top.

Likewise, because two of the three choices for mascot began with the letter W, the jaguar emerged as the winner, they believe.

Last month, the School Board voted 3-2 not to reconsider the issue. But the students and adults were not deterred. They had T-shirts printed, collected signatures and pleaded their case again on Aug. 7.

“We students recognize that the high school colors and mascot are big decisions,” student Chip Hastings told the School Board. “It’s about Windham pride, tradition and our identity. It means a lot to us kids and the whole town.”

Chip and others wanted a new vote in which students would choose between the combinations of blue and gold and green and gold, and select either the jaguar or wildcat.

He said proponents of a new vote are bringing up the issue now because kids see the high school, which is scheduled to open in 2009, as “more real now.”

“We can see the site, and we can see the trucks coming and going ... We, the students, are seeing the high school as a reality, and our identity is beginning to take shape,” Chip said.

Another student, Mike Donovan, told the School Board that close to 800 people signed petitions calling for a new vote. Chip’s brother, Max, said an online survey conducted by the local soccer association found that 90 percent of the 388 people surveyed support a new vote.

Stephanie Wimmer, co-chairman of the committee that was responsible for coming up with the school’s colors and mascots, characterized the process used in 2005 as transparent and well advertised.

Wimmer said she’s concerned that in a $50 million building project where hundreds of decisions are being made, to revisit the matter would put people planning the school on a “slippery slope.”

It was Beverly Donovan, Bruce Anderson and Barbara Coish who voted against reconsidering the board’s 2005 adoption of blue and gold and the jaguar in July. None of them changed their minds at the Aug. 7 meeting.

Coish said she believed the vote was fair. Donovan – whose own family is divided over the issue – said students brainstormed ideas and the committee took the best ones to come up with ballot choices. She said the outcome should be honored.

“Those kids were thrilled to be part of that,” Donovan said.

Anderson said it was unfair to throw out the committee’s work and that voting results refuted the argument that younger students should not have voted because they didn’t understand the importance of tradition.

The blue-and-gold choice got about 44 percent of the vote of younger and older students and less than 17 percent of middle school students voted for the wildcat – a lower percentage than the two other schools, Anderson said.

Anderson said he was upset about an e-mail sent out by a resident that falsely accused impropriety of two committee members, and a comment made to him that he doesn’t understand the issue because he doesn’t have children. He got up and walked out of the meeting.

Beth Valentine, who along with Al Letizio Jr., supported a new vote and like him, wore green at the Aug. 7 meeting, reiterated that she believes the 2005 ballot was unintentionally flawed.

Noting that the School Board has made changes to the high school project – including switching its architect – she added, “I think it would behoove the School Board to listen to the changes that you guys want to make because it is going to be your school. We’re just paying for it.”

School Superintendent Frank Bass complimented the student’s efforts.

“You’ve stood behind a cause. Whether it ended up in your favor or not, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “You stood behind that cause and you followed it all the way to the end.”