It’s GM ‘Grizzlies’ as students vote for new mascot

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC

The polls have closed, the votes have been counted and the result is in. Green Mountain Union High School’s new mascot is the grizzly bear.

GM Principal John Broadley told The Telegraph on Sunday that the 200 plus students who voted to chose from five candidates picked the formidable brown bear by about 52 percent with the other four making up the remainder of the ballots. The bobcat came in second. Other candidates included lions, goats and eagles.

Broadley said that a great cheer went up at the announcement on Friday.

“When we come back (from winter break) on Monday” Feb. 24, said Broadley, “students will get down to designing a logo.” He noted that there would be parameters for making it “readable” and that the school’s two art teachers are “up for the work” of helping students to prepare their designs, which will then be voted on by the student body.

The process began last fall with a student survey that yielded 140 responses, from which more than a dozen candidates were identified. A committee that included GM teachers, administration, staff, parents, members of Broadley’s Community Relations Committee, the student council, alumni and a few members of the public winnowed down the number to five. The students were then given until midnight on Thursday Feb. 13 to vote, and the announcement was made the following day at the school’s Winter Carnival.

Broadley said the school is shooting for using the new mascot and logo for sports in the spring.

The school has been without a mascot since December of 2023, when the GM board voted to drop the 50-year-old Chieftains mascot after it was determined to be in violation of school policy against discriminatory branding. You can read the article here.

Selina Meisenhelder, president of the Chester High School/Green Mountain Union High Alumni Association, said on Sunday,”The alumni association is happy to hear that the student body of Green Mountain has chosen a new mascot, and we’re excited to see it in the future.”

Lorien Strange contributed to this article.