Students who enter Arcola Elementary School this fall will be known as the Dragons and on school spirit days they will dress in red and silver.
At the beginning of the month, students who will be transferring to the new elementary school voted on what they wanted to their school colors and mascot to be.
Since the school is being reopened, Principal Clark Bowers did include the former school colors purple and gold and the former mascot, the bulldog, on the ballots, but the new students chose red and silver as the school's new colors with almost three-quarters of the vote.
"The dragon was chosen pretty overwhelmingly as well," Bowers said.
Also on the mascot ballot was the mustang and the trailblazers. The color ballot also included the color combinations purple and black and green and black.
While the students did have an image of each mascot to choose from, Bowers said the red dragon on the school's Web site is only a mock up. He said he is looking to see if the dragon can be designed to include both of the school's new colors.
"I have two people who are interested in designing our mascot, which is really nice," he said. "I want to get something that is unique to Arcola."
<1b>— Erika Jacobson