View Comments
OKEMOS Okemos student-athletes will no longer compete as the Chiefs after district leaders cast a vote 30 years in the making.
The Okemos Public Schools Board of Education voted unanimously Monday to stop using the Chiefs nickname, which an increasing number of students, alumni and residents say is an offensive caricature of indigenous people.
The board hopes to adopt a new mascot by 2024.
The decision comes after decades of discussion surrounding Okemos Public Schools moniker, which was picked for the town of Okemos namesake, Chief Okemos.
Superintendent John Hood was the most recent district leader to consider a name change for the district late last year. But discussions surrounding the nickname and mascot date at least to the mid-1990s, when Katie Cavanaugh, secretary for the Board of Education, was an Okemos High School student.
Okemos school district near Lansing drops Chiefs nickname
May 25, 2021
FacebookTwitterEmail
OKEMOS, Mich. (AP) A Lansing-area school district named for a Native American leader is dropping its Chiefs nickname, following similar changes at other Michigan schools.
The Okemos school board voted Monday to stop using Chiefs or Chieftains and pick a new nickname in a few years. The switch could cost more than $400,000 to remove the name and image from buildings, uniforms and other school properties, the Lansing State Journal reported.
Okemos is an unincorporated community in Meridian Township. It is named for Chief Okemos, who lived in the area and led the Saginaw Chippewas. He died in 1858.