Editorial: Supt. seeks to make everyone a Tiger

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Van Buren Public Schools Board of Education, School Supt. Pete Kudlak ran an idea past the board. He said he wanted all the students from fifth grade to 12th grade to be Tigers with colors of orange and black. The board didn’t object, so Supt. Kudlak set a meeting for parents at 7 p.m. June 7 at the central office building to discuss his plan.
He said damage to Owen Intermediate School’s gym floor pushed him into action. It had to be sanded and redone and he thought this would be a good time to put an orange and black school logo in place. They won’t redo McBride Middle School’s gym floor for now, but when it’s redone in the future, he would like to see the orange and black Tiger logo there, too.
Supt. Kudlak said when he was researching the district, before he even applied for the job of superintendent, he saw that Owen had a Tiger mascot, but the colors were blue and white. McBride had red and white as colors and had the Vikings as mascot. He said he didn’t understand why.
Then he learned that in the past the two schools were rivals called North and South junior highs. But, since the school populations have been changed around they are no longer rivals and both schools can be Tigers with orange and black colors like the high school. There are details to consider, like the school signs and the shirt colors for the bands, but Kudlak said, “This is just to start the process.”