From now on, signs along Union Street leading to Morris Community High School will read, “Welcome to Warrior Country.”

The District 101 School Board voted 6-1 in favor of adopting the new mascot name on Monday night.

Board member Matt Eber was the lone vote against using the Warriors as the new mascot. He offered a motion to table the vote until a later date, but the motion was not seconded.

Eber said his main concerns were that the Warriors mascot was the closest of the three choices – Mallards and Mules being the others – to the Native American imagery that brought about the retirement of the former mascot.

He also noted that a youth football program in Morris also uses the Warrior nickname, and their logo is that of a spear on the helmet, much like Florida State University.

He also wanted the board to enter into a contract with that youth program stating that the program will keep their logo consistent with the high school’s.

The school board initially voted to retire the former mascot by the end of the 2024-25 school year back in January 2022, and the school has since been removing Native American imagery from the building and athletic fields.

The students, staff and faculty were surveyed in January, with 52% of the vote going toward the Warriors. A survey of people in the community that followed yielded similar results. The community has decided on the Warriors, according to the school district.

In Eber’s motion to table the vote, he also pointed out that the board does not use public polls for most of the decisions it makes, such as hiring or terminating an employee or deciding compensation for teachers and administrators, among others.

For the past few seasons, the school has been represented by a maroon letter “M” outlined with yellow.

A new logo has yet to be chosen. Eber proposed that the board hold a special meeting to discuss what they want as a logo, such as what the design should be and what font or fonts should be used. The board has no plans to change the school colors.

The retirement of the former mascot was decided by a 6-1 vote back in 2022, with Lynn Vermillion being the sole no vote. Vermillion was one of the votes in favor of the name change on Monday.

The changes were made to meet a recommendation of the Office of Civil Rights to remove all references to the mascot on uniforms by December 2023.