To the editor:

This letter is written in support of reaffirming the Wampanoag logo to represent the spirit of the students, faculty, and staff of Dartmouth High School who pay homage respectfully to the local Wampanoags, a tribe of which some them are members. An iteration of the current logo was designed by a Dartmouth High School graduate and Wampanoag tribe member.  

As an alumna of DHS Class of 1968 and the youngest of three daughters who all attended I can attest to the positive impact of the noble warrior, whose image reminded us every day then and every day now that we must be honest, strong, respectful, and hard-working in caring for our planet, our families and friends both human and animal, and ourselves.  Those influences have made me who I am today and contributed to what I have accomplished through my hard work to remain a lifelong learner.  

I would hate to see future DHS students losing access to that kind of support.

There are two major reasons why I believe keeping the logo is a good thing.  

First, as it says in the paragraph above, is that thanks to that influence I have had a life I never dreamed possible. My sisters and I were the first girls in our extended family to be allowed to graduate from high school and go on to additional training in a family whose annual income was probably less than $10,000 a year.  I was able to support myself in an apartment within six months of my 19th birthday in the position of Secretary to the Department Chair of the Brown University Chemistry Department.

By the time I was 25 I had earned an ASBA summa cum laude with a concentration in organizational behavior from Bryant College. At 45, I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology magna cum laude as part of the Class of 1995 at Dartmouth College, and went on to complete all the coursework for a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies also at Dartmouth. All of this college-level work was completed while employed full-time (the last two programs as Dartmouth staff with 100% grant-in-aid for my tuition). My day-job workload precluded completion of my MALS thesis and thus the degree, but the coursework is something I’ll always remember:  gender studies, addictions, and memoir and oral history writing.  

All of this was hard and a lot of work, but none of this would have been possible without the support I gained at DHS to be the proper example of Wampanoag strong.

The second reason I believe that we need the logo is a comparison of what is being suggested by a culture-cancelling situation and what happened when another warrior was lost to Dartmouth students.  

I researched the time at Dartmouth College when the Dartmouth Indians became the Big Green. That situation was vastly different from what the high school is going through now, and yet DHS could end up with the same result.  

Dartmouth College was founded to educate the sons of the local tribal chiefs, but by the 1960’s there were indications of failure to achieve that goal. There were only a small number of Native American students enrolled, and they had already noticed that the weathervane atop Baker Library was the silhouette of a Sioux tribe member, not a tribe of the Northeast.  In addition, the small group of Native American students, as they walked to class on campus, were constantly being bombarded with the war whoops that the rest of the students heard at the athletic games plus bad Indian jokes from TV shows.  In its one positive step, the College agreed to do what the students asked, and that’s how they became the Big Green.  

In the 1970’s, the College initiated a very successful (both academically and supportively) Native American Program, and the number of enrolled Native American students has continued to grow since then. 

It’s possible that had they done their research, accurately depicted Northeast tribes in their images, and started the Native American Program much earlier, the Dartmouth Indians might still be there.  

Dartmouth Public Schools honors the local natives and has begun formal discussions with the federally-recognized Wampanoag Tribe of Gayhead (Aquinnah) to establish a partnership.  

This should be a model, both state- and nation-wide, like Florida State University. 

Finally, kudos to the parents, students, teachers, and the Wampanoag tribe, who not only have written and voiced their desire and commitment to retaining the traditional and respectful logo, but also have been considering new and wonderful ways to share cultural traditions, knowledge, and activities.  

Dartmouth is a special, unique situation where the Wampanoag-designed logo is used honorably and respectfully and is supported by the Dartmouth Wampanoags.

Thank you for allowing me to share these words with you. Whatever the vote turns out to be, in my heart and soul, I was, am, and always will be a Dartmouth Indian, grateful for the confidence, strength, and successes that have come to me as a warrior. 

Kathleen (Botelho) Savage,

Dartmouth High Class of 1968