Colville tribes issue letter refusing use of all native terms

MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake High School will have to find a new mascot.

At the end of the Moses Lake School Board meeting on Thursday, Board Vice President Shannon Hintz said the governing council of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation wrote to the Moses Lake School District in a letter dated Feb. 24 “that all schools within the exterior boundaries and adjacent to the Colville Reservation cease from using Native American names, symbols or images as public mascots, logos or team names.”

“I’m very disappointed, but we will abide by this,” Hintz said after reading portions of the letter. “I’m a little sad, a lot of people are really sad about this.”

According to both Hintz and School Board President Kevin Fuhr, the change affects the mascots at MLHS — the Chiefs — as well as Frontier Middle School — the Warriors — and Chief Moses Middle School — the Braves — as well as that school’s name.

Under a law passed by the Washington State legislature in 2021, school districts were prohibited beginning on Jan. 1, 2022, from using Native American mascots and names unless the district obtained approval from the nearest federally recognized tribe.

Under the law, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction is supposed to set up a grant program to help schools cover the costs of acquiring new uniforms and replacing everything from gymnasium floors to school signs.

In anticipation of the law, Hintz had been working with the Colville tribes to establish a land acknowledgement, indigenous peoples’ history curriculum and other efforts to show that MLSD was seeking to honor Chief Moses, whom the city and school district are named for. The current MLHS mascot name of Chiefs is established in his honor and the district has a long history of taking pride in his heritage, she previously told the Columbia Basin Herald.

“A lot of times, people forget that they’re walking on history,” Hintz said earlier this month. “… (It’s important) to bring that history back and make it alive, because those people still live here.”

Fuhr said, however, the state grant program was significantly underfunded, as the new law affects 38 school districts across the state.

Fuhr also said the board was going to form three committees to look at new mascots for the high school and the two middle schools as well as a new name for CMMS.

“That’s the process, and it’s going to take a few months to get this going,” he said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com