The Kindergarten class at Geneva Day School lines up to vote. Photo Contributed
Owen Struzzerio, 5, a Kindergarten student at Geneva Day School in Potomac, wanted to know why his school does not have a mascot. Owen said that his “sister’s school has a mascot, the de Chantal Dukes (a dog) that they get to cheer for,” as do many other schools and sports teams. Owen asked his teachers, Ann Hepburn and Debra Lieberman, about the possibility of having a school mascot. School director, Suzanne Funk, thought it was a great idea.
After tallying a vote in class, the monarch butterfly, duck and hawk were chosen as candidates for a school mascot vote. Owen said he thought the “monarch was a little cool” partly because “we have a lot of them at Geneva” — referring to the school-wide monarch butterfly unit. Over the past month, Kindergarten students designed campaign posters for each mascot candidate, made ballot boxes, visited each class at the school and presented to their peers why it was important to vote for a specific mascot. On Election Day, students made their selections and put them in the ballot boxes. The Kindergarten class set up a private polling station and punched their ballots.
After sorting and tallying the votes, the Kindergarten’s preliminary results, excluding absentee ballots, are: monarch butterfly-86, duck-78 and hawk-51. Congratulations to the monarch butterfly. Now, Geneva Day School students will have to work on naming their new mascot.
