Best high school mascot in Arkansas: Top 10 candidates

Alma is arguably the most marketing-savvy high school in the country. By taking on “Airedales” as its mascot, the school has become an international destination for lovers of that dog breed. The student-managed school store, the aire-looms, is part of the curriculum through the Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) and sells its Airedale-themed wares from Australia to Western Europe.

There are lots of Leopards in high school sports, but no campus makes it work nearly as well as the Arkansas School for the Deaf. But according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the school's teams have been called the Leopards since at least 1941, about 40 years before Def Leppard's debut album. No f-f-f-foolin'.

Danville’s "Little Johns" mascot is a translation of the French “Petit Jean,” words synonymous with the local legend of a heroic young French girl. The name “Petit Jean” went to a nearby river, mountain and Arkansas' first state park, and the high school chose the English translation.

We met the Sand Devils in Arizona earlier, and now here are the Sand Lizards of Arkansas. Besides sand, something the two schools have in common is an unstoppably cool logo. Dardenelle’s Sand Lizard is a red beast that you don’t ever want to encounter in the wild. Dardanelle loves its mascot so much that its Sand Lizard Foundation celebrates World Lizard Day every year on Aug. 14.

Workers clearing the land to build a new football field in the 1920s were tormented by chiggers, aka redbugs. The name stuck for a Fordyce football program rich in history (future Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant played there).

Gurdon’s mascot is a purple and yellow devil, but a Go-Devil is a piece of logging equipment from a bygone era. The go-devil was a simple one-horse sled used by loggers to haul trees in the early 1900s.

Harrison became the Goblins in 1926, when the school newspaper started being called the Goblin. The mascot has taken on all kinds of different looks over the past 90-plus years, with a blue-haired, mean-looking version prevailing today.

In the 1920s, after the Prescott football team delivered a thrashing of Little Rock, an Arkansas Gazette news editor wrote the headline, “WE THINK THAT THE BOYS ARE CURLEY WOLVES.” The team loved it, and they’ve been the Curley Wolves ever since.

From the city of Stuttgart website: “Ricebirds are small grey birds that are very fast and are found in rice fields. They survive on the rice crops. This is the perfect mascot for Stuttgart since it is the Rice and Duck Capital of the World. It was said that Ricebirds used to serenade the farmers while they worked. Some kids even used to catch them for pets during the early 1900s. Now the Ricebirds are mostly found on the football field—protecting the tradition that they hold so dear to their hearts.”

Thaden, named in honor of Iris Louise McPhetridge Thaden, opened in 2017. The community chose Barnstormers as the school’s mascot to honor Thaden’s pioneering spirit as one of the greatest aviators of her time. Even better, an Arkansas barn owl is Thaden’s logo.