As many students know Northtown has been around for over 80 years and has a long interesting history but what many students don’t know is the history of Northtown’s mascot, Henry the Hornet. Henry has changed a lot since northtown became the hornets in 1925 after the football team was told they looked “like a swarm of angry hornets.”

The word mascot comes from a French word ‘mascotte’ meaning lucky charm. In the late 1800s mascots were real wild and domesticated animals that would be brought to sporting events. These mascots eventually ended because of the high cost of caring for the animals and also the animals were dangerous. The move to the current type of mascot happened in the 1960s and was triggered by the invention of muppets.

“Northtown is known for its history.” Said former North Kansas City High School assistant principle Robert Hiatt who helped me find most of this information. Robert Hiatt was an assistant principal at Northtown for about 25 years and also graduated from northtown so northtown is a big part of his life. Mr. Hiatt is also known as “Northtown’s historian”. Mr. Hiatt has helped put up all the display cases in the school showing some old artifacts of Northtown’s past and wants students to embrace Northtown’s history.

“For many years, all English students had to learn five new vocabulary words per week and they were called the Henry Hornet Words. This was done until the 1980’s.” Said Mr. Hiatt. The students had to learn five words a week and had to be able to use the word in a sentence, know how to spell it and know the meaning of the word. The hornet mascot did not become muppet-like until the 1990s. Before the muppet-like mascot, Henry was just a simple boring costume, with a big hornet helmet with antennas. This mascot was kept until around 2006 when it changed again and then again in 2009 to the current mascot. The change to the current mascot happened because in 2006 it was determined that the logo we were using was the Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket so northtown had to get a new logo. All high schools in the district got a new logo and all were copyrighted. Henry’s has received numerous upgrades and has been redone a number of times.

Henry the Hornet has been around for as long as the school has and has changed a lot over the years. Northtown has been around longer than any high school in the district and thats what makes northtown special. Northtown has a long interesting history and its important for students to know some of it.