Alumni of the former Tecumseh High School are concerned about plans to remove the totem pole in the lobby of the now elementary school on McNaughton Avenue in Chatham and are circulating a petition to gather support.
Spokesperson for the alumni group, Dan Foster, said he has spoken to many other alumni and former staff members, all of whom would hate to see the totem pole leave the school. The totem pole in the two-storey front lobby of the school is more than 40 years old now, and was built by students Richard Gosnell, Andy Ramsz, Eric Stang and Clare Wiersma.
“The Totem was designed and crafted in house by four of our students and dedicated in 1972 when Tecumseh was a high school, where it has remained a fixture for over 45 years. The wood from which this Totem was crafted was sourced from a local tree that the artists estimate dates back to late 19th Century,” it states in the change.org petition.
He said the issue started last year when the Lambton Kent school board announced it was integrating the students from John N. Given School into Tecumseh Public School.
Foster said a naming committee and transition committee were set up, and the name “Tecumseh” was kept after many submissions asking for the name to stay, including one from the alumni committee.
“If I remember correctly from the minutes, there were 119 submissions, and 112 were in favour of keeping the name ‘Tecumseh,’” Foster said. “We didn’t really know at that time that there was a transition committee that was doing some other work, including looking at guidelines for naming and mascots.”
Foster said the main focus of the committee is integrating students from both schools into one homogeneous group, but they also wanted to look at the Indigenous aspect so one of the things they looked at was the name of Tecumseh teams, the Braves, and the mascot, which is a side view of a Native man with a full feather headdress.
The opinion, he said, of the consultant was that the name the Braves and mascot were offensive to the Indigenous community and the name and logo was changed to the Tecumseh Timberwolves. At that time, Foster said one of the high school alumni was approached about taking the totem pole, which was installed in the school’s two-storey lobby back in 1972.
“We were there when we put up the totem pole,” Foster said. “When we did our reunion in 2011 and we brought those four guys back together for an after photo, with the before photo from our year book.”
He said part of the that reunion included installing a plaque on the front of school giving details about the totem pole and when it was installed.
The totem pole is an important symbol in the hearts and memories of the school alumni, Foster said, and they would like it to remain in the school as a tribute to Native culture and the school’s namesake, Chief Tecumseh, who was instrumental in helping the British during the War of 1812.
The four totem pole artists were to speak at a transition committee meeting April 16 in the school gym.
Foster said he is grateful to the transition committee for the opportunity and has been told while the RFP for renovations to the school have gone out, the design could still accommodate the totem pole.
“The petition got over 500 signatures in the first few days, and there were 961 names as of Friday morning,” Foster noted on April 6. “We are disappointed in the lack of engagement of the broader public and we want to show our solidarity and the huge support there is in the community for this. We are going to advocate that the totem pole stays.”
For more information, Foster said you can go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/Tecumsehreunion/ or sign the petition at https://www.change.org/p/save-the-tecumseh-ss-totem-pole
