Jack C. Hays high school, located approximately 20 miles south of Austin in Buda, TX, has long been
known as the Hays Rebels. However, as of July 16, 2020 the school’s slogan of “Rebel Pride Never Dies”
was no more as the Hays CISD school board voted unanimously to discontinue the Rebel as the Hays
mascot.

The desire to change the school mascot from the Rebels has been brewing in the Hays community for years. In 2000 the school retired the Confederate flag as the official school flag. In 2012 the Confederate flag was banned from campus. In 2016 the school retired Dixie, a Confederate battle anthem, as the official fight song and now as the fall semester of 2021 is set to start, the Hays Rebels are now the Hays Hawks. This change was brought on not only by the influence of societal events at the time, but also by the growing population and increasing diversity that occurred in the county as the cities of Austin and San Marcos grew.

On Feb. 23, 2020 Ahmaud Arbery was killed by police while unarmed. This was yet another instance of unjustified police brutality against a person of color in the United States. Following this event Hays high school educator Billy Norton knew that something needed to be done about the school’s mascot. He decided to post an open letter on Facebook on June 11, 2020 about why he thought it was time for a change.

“I wrote the letter on Facebook and for me it was a fairly direct response to the death of Ahmaud Arbery.
The thought I had was, something like that could happen in our town and when it does, when you look at
our town with scrutiny, you’ll have to confront not just a legacy of racism but a sort of persistent
unwillingness to do anything about it. I just sort of decided that I was going to bring it up,” Norton said.
His post garnered community interest with many in agreement with him. Now it was up to the Hays CISD
school board to decide what to do next. Norton knew the cause had a fighting chance when school board
member Meredith Keller commented on an opinion piece written by Ronald Angelo Johnson, Ph.D., who
at the time was a Presidential Fellow and Associate Professor of History at Texas State University, which
was in favor of retiring the Rebels as the school mascot.

“When Ron wrote his post and Meredith commented on his post, that was when I knew something was
going to happen. Once she did that I felt like she had taken a side. She pushes the rule on the school
board, so if she’s behind something it often happens,” Norton said.
On July 16, 2020 the Hays CISD school board voted unanimously to retire the Rebel as the school’s
mascot.

Tom Ray graduated from Hays high school in 1987 and taught at the school for 26 years. Ray said, “I’m
excited that the mascot is changing. I think it was time to change. As I’ve gotten older and stepped out of
the bubble of the Hays high school community I’ve realized how harmful that mascot is and what the
connotations are and I think it’s really easy in the community to overlook.” However not all Hays high school alumni were initially in favor of the change.

Crystal Dixon graduated from Hays in 2000, the year the Confederate flag was retired. Dixon said, “I was
mad because it’s Dixie and it’s our Rebel flag and all this but I think that it’s probably appropriate to
change as time goes on. It’s clear why people take offense.