February 11, 2025 • 30 mins
Since our last episode, we've heard rumors coming out of Boone County: there WILL be a new mascot; there definitely will NOT be a new mascot; the new superintendent wants to know what's going on; there are meetings happening. We've tried hard to get anyone at the school district or the high school to talk with us, so we can find out what's real and what isn't, but nobody will. And so this episode Akilah asks: is there another way to find out what folks are saying?
To view a selection of the open records we received from the school, along with bonus content for other episodes, visit our new website: https://rebelspiritpodcast.com
If you have a racist mascot at your high school or are an alumni of a high school with a racist mascot and want to share your own experience, please email us at rebelspiritpodcast@gmail.com.
We would love to talk to you!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
My own black of Dollar has gone on underland.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I know, I know, Ninth Planet Audio, we're overlanding, You're
no mining.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Friends. It's been a minute since our last full episode,
but I'm happy to say that we're back for the
two final episodes of the season. Since it's been a
few months, let's just have a quick review. I'm Akuila Hughes,
and I'm from Florence, Kentucky, where my high school team
name was and still is, the Rebels. The Rebels was
(00:36):
the nickname not only of my high school, but also
of the Confederacy, you know, the folks who lost the
Civil War.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
The historical context of the term rebel is so interesting.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
That's historian doctor Brandon Render. We spoke with him in
episode two.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
During the Civil War and then immediately after the war,
Southerners Confederate sympathizers referred to the war as the War
of Northern Aggression, Northerners referred to it as the War
of Southern Rebellion. Rebel actually changes immediately after the Civil
War from a symbol of shame as people who caused
(01:10):
the Civil War to more of a point of pride.
And so we see this in high school mascots.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Folks from my high school have claimed for years that
they're actually named after the movie Rebel without a Cause,
But well we prove that wrong with a short trip
to the library. To this issue is October seventh, nineteen
fifty four, and they have an article.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Boone County High School.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
The athletic teams were dubbed the Rebels by the student
body in a recent school wide vote conducted by the
journalism class. The Rebel football team made its first home
appearance on the new Boone County High School field Thursday night,
September thirtieth. It's right here in black and white in
print in nineteen fifty four. So they Lion, They Lion.
(01:59):
The movie came out in nineteen fifty five, but the
school became the Rebels when it opened in nineteen fifty four.
You know what else happened in nineteen fifty four, Brown
versus Board of Education and the start of desegregating schools
in America, which it turns out was the catalyst for
a lot of schools to name themselves the Rebels.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
We have this dual system, and the dual system was
separate but definitely unequal.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Doctor Caleb Smith is the preeminent researcher of rebel schools.
We spoke with him in episode five.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
And so what school districts and cities and states decided
to do was, instead of being separate but unequal, if
we make the African American accommodations comparable to the white ones,
they're less prone to won't integrate. And so let's merge
all the white schools in our county or in this
area and form a new school. And then we'll do
(02:49):
the same thing with the black schools in our county
or in our city. And so from that we'll have
separate and equal and they'll be less want to try
to integrate the schools. And so the white schools would
merge together and they would become the rebels of Boyle
County or whichever county it was.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
While learning more about all of those other rebel schools
and how some of them successfully changed, I traveled back
to Florence three times, where I spoke to the school
board and my high schools school based decision making counsel. Hi,
I'm Aquila Hughes. Good evening, I'm Aquila Hughes. Hi, I'm
Aquila Hughes. And we got nowhere. Our last full episode
(03:29):
aired a week after election day, and we left it
on this note. I think it really comes down to
the push and pull of tradition versus progress, about the
clash between moving forward and turning back. All right, so
you know what happened next. That clash isn't working out
(03:51):
so great right now. We've got a long way to
go on that front. But there's one other thing I
said on that episode. Done yet, this podcast is not over.
We've been given a little more time in a few
more episodes to continue to pursue this change wherever it
takes us. And so guess what. Okay, no, not that
(04:13):
they are still the rebels, but we have news. I
was a lady rebbel, Like, what does that even need?
Speaker 6 (04:21):
The Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels,
But the image of.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Us right here in black and white and friends.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Amien figures is a flag or mask off.
Speaker 7 (04:30):
Anytime you're trying to mess with tradition, you get to
be ready for a serious backlash.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
From Ninth Planet Audio. I'm Akhila Hughes and this is
Rebel Spirit, Episode eleven, Open records. Okay, enough catchup, let's
move forward. Since we wrapped our last episode. We have
reached out to the school repeatedly. We've asked for simple comments,
(05:04):
we've offered an open mic, we've offered to speak off
the record. No matter how we've boarded it, we've gotten
no response whatsoever. And yet every now and then over
the last few months, we've heard various rumors a change
was happening, a change was not happening. The new superintendent
wanted to know what was going on. It was clear
just through these little threads that made their way back
(05:26):
to us that there were conversations happening. We just weren't
privy to them. Listener, if only there was a way
to know what they were saying.
Speaker 8 (05:34):
There is a presumption of the government that the things
that it does, especially because it's spending taxpayer money, should
be available to the people, And so I file open
records requests all the time to get information that the
government is keeping but doesn't necessarily proactively make open.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
That's Stephen rich an investigative data reporter from the Washington Post.
Speaker 8 (05:55):
This can be documents, that can be data sets, It
can be video, it can be whatever you can sort
of imagine. You can request it. Now, they don't always
have to give it to you. There are various exemptions
that they can cite, but you can always ask. It
doesn't actually hurt to ask, and that's sort of how
I approach open records.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Steven has asked for all sorts of government records and
his investigations of police shootings, school shootings, and many other
non shooting related investigations. He's been on teams that have
won two Pulitzer Prizes thanks in part to his fearless
use of FOYA.
Speaker 8 (06:28):
FOYA stands for the Freedom of Information Act, and it's
a law on the books for the federal level where
you can request anything that you want documents wise from
the federal government. Every state has their own laws and
so you'll often hear people refer to them as open
records laws, and so we use them to get what
we believe should be open from the data.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
I wanted to talk to Stephen to see if open
records requests were something we could utilize to get a
view into the conversations happening at the school and the district,
since nobody would talk with us.
Speaker 8 (07:00):
While most people sort of associate FOYA with journalists, anybody
can use it, and I am usually the person that's
telling people when they want to find something out in
their own community, to file the requests with their local
government agencies, because there is nothing that says that it
has to be a media organization that files this. It
can be any person off the street. And honestly, I
wish at some level that we taught this in schools
(07:21):
because I think it's hyper valuable for people to know
that they are owed the information from the government on
things that are important to them.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
I know some information I'd love to get from the government,
So how do I go about asking for it?
Speaker 8 (07:34):
So my approach is always go in real nice, real
appreciative of what they're doing, especially because most of these
FOY officers are working with limited resources and are actually
trying their best, and see what I can do. But
you also have to know when to sort of turn
it on and go I have a legal right to
this and start to really push.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Of course, part of this, like anything, is knowing what
to ask for.
Speaker 8 (07:57):
Part of what we do in all of this is
we try to do a lot of reporting upfront. What
is it that we should be asking for, how specifically
should we be asking for it, because a lot of
times we'll get denied or get the wrong documents because
we just didn't ask in the right way. And in
every FOYA that I put in, I'm like, if you
need any explanation of what it is that I'm looking for,
just talk to me, Like, let's not go back and
(08:19):
forth with responses after the fact, Like let's figure this
out before while you're doing it, because I'm not here
to make trouble for you and for the you know,
I never really approach it with FOYA officers that are
trying to make trouble for me. It's just that, you know,
if I don't ask right, then they don't know what
I need. I mean, half the time I send a
(08:40):
request and they're like, this is voluminous, and then I
explained to them what I want exactly, and it's like, oh,
this will take us two hours. Yeah, okay, great, that's
I don't want you spending hundreds of hours on this thing.
That's not what I'm asking for. I'm actually asking for
what you have.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
All this talk got me thinking about our new president
and what it would mean for people like Steven who
are trying to get that information out.
Speaker 8 (09:03):
My approach has been the same throughout all of the
administrations that I've covered, which is that every new administration
makes it harder to get information because nothing ever tends
toward openness. Nobody ever gets into office and says I
want to open things up more because it's not a
priority for them, And so you know, we just sort
(09:24):
of prepare, We file foyas, we use our lawyers to
push where we can. I personally donate to a lot
of the lawyers doing work for smaller outlets out there
because they needed a ton and don't necessarily have that
legal representation. So I just prepare myself. It wouldn't have
mattered who was president. It was going to get harder.
It maybe it get harder by a different degree, yeah,
(09:46):
under a President Trump, but it was always going to
get harder because the government tends toward hiding what it's doing.
And one of the things that I will say is like, look,
you can pull back on records and the government and
the executive branch especially can make it much harder to
get records. But I know a lot of journalists, and
journalists are relentless people. You tell me I can't have something,
(10:07):
and I want it more, and you know the truth
is it might not be anything. I think the government
tends to fight us on things that don't actually reveal
any wrongdoing. They just fight us as a reflex. And
so I lean on the fact that there's a lot
of good FOYA officers out there doing really great work
and helping us get things, and I make sure to
(10:28):
let them know when they're doing great work. And no
matter who's in power, you'll always have those people who
want the public to know what their government is doing
with their money, in their name, what have you. And
so I just think that even if or as FOYA weekends,
we will continue to have a lot of good information,
(10:50):
whether that's from journalists at places like the Washington Post
or journalists who are working off their couch using whatever
platform they have, whether that is just social media platform.
Anybody can do this and anybody can be a journalist,
is sort of how I feel about this, which means
that anybody can file a FOYA, which is what I
want people to do. I think that every person should
(11:12):
file a FOYA at some point in I just want,
at least want see what it's like, see how hard
it is to get information out of your government.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
And so listener, that's what we did.
Speaker 9 (11:23):
I'm walking the FOYA request for Boone County Schools.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
That's Janis or intrepid researcher.
Speaker 9 (11:29):
Walking it to the post office because they definitely don't
have like the online version. We're going old school.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
Here.
Speaker 9 (11:38):
I printed out a form, filled.
Speaker 10 (11:41):
It out, and I'm walking it over to.
Speaker 9 (11:43):
The post office right now. It is going to the
Open Records Department superintendent's office, and then they will physically
mail me in theory the documents we're looking for, hoping,
hoping we see some results. But yeah, it's night time,
(12:03):
walking over to the post office, going old school.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
We took it old school to send two requests, one
asking for what they were saying about me in this podcast,
and the other what they were saying about the rebel
team name and mascot. These were largely fishing expeditions. To
be sure, we didn't know if we'd get anything back,
but it did feel worth a try. Our two requests
went in the mailbox together, so we waited and waited
(12:34):
and waited, and finally we heard back more on their
response after this break, Well, we heard back on one
of our requests, the one about me. It was ninety
four pages and well it was mostly the emails me
and my producers had sent to the district and the
school over the last year, which well played. But the
(12:57):
other request, the broader one about discuss sessions about the
rebel team name and the mascot, went unfulfilled, so we
followed up in About a month later it arrived. It
was a single pdf containing three hundred chaotic pages of emails.
There was no order to any of it.
Speaker 11 (13:14):
Mister Melching, Hi, missus Black, thanks so much for getting back.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
You may not remember me so hello. Hi mister Melchich,
you're my fine arts teacher for half. Some emails from
July were next to ones from a year earlier.
Speaker 11 (13:27):
Hi, miss Black, before the holidays get the best of us.
I'd love to follow up on this obviously. We'd love
to talk with you.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Hello, miss Bird. I'm Akhila Hughes, a writer, comedian, and
podcast host who is, fun fact, the first student representative
to the Board of Education in Kentucky history. Mister Melching,
hope you're well. I'm a producer with ninth Audio. External
communications were mingling with internal communications.
Speaker 11 (13:48):
We're very eager to get an update on the committee
you told us about, and would also still welcome the
opportunity to talk with you.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
There were our emails again, and their responses to our
emails with our emails attached at the bottom, and then
so someone went forwarded in the chain would just start
up again.
Speaker 11 (14:02):
Miss Black. I wanted to follow up on the email
I sent one week ago. Miss Black. I wanted to
follow up on the email I sent one week ago.
Miss Black, I wanted to follow up on the email
I sent one week ago.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
It was endlessly maddeningly repetitive, but even looking at it briefly,
it was clear that we were getting much more than
what they had originally sent. I mean, if nothing else,
there was an enormous collection of emails from people complaining
about well me Hello.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
Miss Black.
Speaker 12 (14:32):
As an alumni from Boone County High School, I am writing,
like so many others, to voice my opinion on changing
the rebel name. It is absolutely unthinkable that because some
crazy liberal trying to make waves as a career move
would be able to create such a stir, she is
not part of our community and is in fact, two
thousand miles removed from this issue. Please do not cave
(14:55):
to the aspirations of one to cause problems and make
a social statement about something we hold dear.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Our rebels dare stay sye.
Speaker 13 (15:04):
I have been following the quest of a Killer Hughes
to change the history and name of the Rebel at
Boone County High School. She seems to be a self
serving individual, just wanting her fifteen minutes of fame and
increasing her podcast success. I am a nineteen seventy one,
proud graduate of BCHS, lifelong resident of Boone County and
(15:27):
totally against the change. I am a pall that this
is even being discussed. Please let me know how this
nonsense can be stopped.
Speaker 14 (15:34):
I have lived in Boone County all my life and
still live here. It would be a shame to change
the school name from Rebel to something unknown. The person
making the request hasn't lived here for years and probably
doesn't have her heart in this county or school. As
many other people in this county would find it offensive
(15:55):
to us to change what we are proud of and
have respected for years.
Speaker 15 (15:59):
I was a proud little reb as were my two sisters.
Two of us met our rebel husbands in high school,
and I am currently married forty seven years to my rebel.
Our best man and maid of honor were both rebels. Together,
we raised three rebels one of which was a Rebel
Athlete of the year. They are currently raising four Rebels
(16:20):
and little reps. This name is our history and never
had racial meaning to us. I hope when you make
your decision you not only think of the past, but
that you don't need to follow gen Z.
Speaker 6 (16:31):
When I attended BCHS over fifty years ago, one black
family lived in Boone County, the Webbs. They were around
when the name Rebels was selected reference in the movie
by the same name. I'm sure you have been made
aware if he want some name change, he is still
living in Burlington. I will stand by his decision, but
not by a list of Californians who have no idea
(16:54):
about our mascot.
Speaker 14 (16:55):
I feel strongly that the name should stay and the
image be changed. However, as much as many may be
offended by the Johnny Rebel reference, we can't deny that
the Civil War happened, and this can be a reminder
for future generations.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Listener, there were dozens of these emails strewn across the PDF.
It was clear that a Facebook group of alumni from
sixty years ago had banded together, created a few templates,
and had let it rip. The whole document was a mess.
While it was clear that there was something there, finding
it felt nearly impossible. So we did the one thing
that would make it easier. We printed it out. It
(17:37):
took twenty minutes, nearly a ream of paper in an
entire toner cartridge, but we got it all, all four
hundred pages across both documents they'd sent stack up. It's
over three inches high, and then we collated it, stapled it,
put the whole mess into chronological order, and then arranged
(17:58):
it all into folders and subfolders. And through all that
effort we were able to see past the old cranks
and the ccs and the endless, endless repetition and find
the signal in the noise. This isn't just a good
strategy for dealing with these documents. This is a good
strategy for everything at this moment in time. Organize, prioritize,
and work, always work to find the signal through the noise.
(18:23):
Suddenly we were seeing our reporting of this podcast, but
through the looking glass of the other side. There were
sixteen emails from our first trip to Florence in September
twenty twenty three. There's the journalism teacher willing to help
us before we shut down. There's board President Karen Bird
and Principal Stacy Black coordinating with who would say what
to us, And then there's Barbara Brady, the district's calms person,
(18:46):
shutting it all down.
Speaker 13 (18:47):
Hello, Karen, I'm sure you've been following the emails. I've
just tried to keep you in the loop. Even though
I've diplomatically tried to kill the issue with kindness, this
woman is still coming for us. We have determined after
talking with her that she is still trying to make
trouble for Boone County High School and the district. She
(19:08):
is still angry about the word rebel. It wasn't enough
for her that the rebel mascot Mister Rebel was removed.
She wants no mention of the word or the mascot
connected to the school. We've learned she plans to come
to homecoming tonight to try to stir up old wounds
about it. On her podcast, she will be interviewing students
(19:28):
to try to elicit anger about the nickname and former mascot.
She will still pursue a comment from Boone County School Board,
even if she has to talk to another school board member,
as our school board president, I didn't want you to
be blindsided.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
When we went back to Florence in December twenty twenty three,
there was a similar flurry of about a dozen emails,
But this time there's a twist. After I spoke at
the board meeting, board President Karen Bird told.
Speaker 10 (19:54):
Us continue to work with the council because that's where
that change has to happen. Us to do otherwise would
be in violation of the law.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
So I reached out to the Kentucky Department of Education
to find out what the law was tying their hands,
And here in our hands was a polite but verily
sternly worded series of emails between the district's lawyers and
the lawyers from the Kentucky Department of Education over who
actually has jurisdiction over school mascots. The verdict, of course
(20:28):
the school district can step in, but neither side really
wanted to see that, and for the record, neither would we.
We love the school to just do the right thing.
When we were back again in June of last year,
once again more emails from Barbara Brady, this time running
block on reporters asking about the mascot. It's fascinating to
(20:50):
see the last year and a half of my life
played out through this lens, to see what people were
saying to each other while avoiding, ignoring, or just blowing
me off. But digging for they're into these documents, there's
something else. It's hard to see it first because it's
strewn across many disparate pages, but connect them all and
you can see a series of teachers and administrators at
(21:11):
Boone County High School meeting last spring to discuss the mascot. Yes,
this appears to actually be the committee that Stacy Black
told us about. Now, granted it seems to have not
happened at the time she told us it was happening,
but here it was in black and white being planned.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
As coaches, you are well aware that BCHS has been
without a mascot for the past several years. Mss Black
would like to form a committee of teachers, coaches, parents
and students to discuss ideas for bringing a mascot back
to BCHS, and we would like to invite you to
be a part of this small committee.
Speaker 13 (21:45):
Can I suggest we invite the varsity cheer coach to
the committee. She is very passionate about building our school
spirit and all the traditions that go with it, and
she has some really great ideas.
Speaker 16 (21:56):
Next year is our seventieth anniversary. I feel like we
could do a lot with this, including but not limited to,
having a new mascot tradition meets the future. Can everyone
do Thursday?
Speaker 9 (22:07):
Will someone send an invite?
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Someone sent an invite. To the best of our knowledge,
there were two meetings, March seventh and April second, twenty
twenty four, But there was also something else in and
among these emails was an email inviting the recipients to
access a Google slideshow. You've gotten these a million times,
auto generated from Google when you hit share. It's so
(22:29):
boring and forgettable that we just missed it. At first,
it was just a single email, a loan sheet of
paper in our three inch thick pile. But here we
were staring at a document we could not click, entitled
BCHS Mascot rebrand Final Options Listener. I wanted to click
it so so badly, but alas it was unclickable until
(22:53):
it wasn't. We'll be right back after this break. Here
we were staring at an email we couldn't open that
seemed to contain a slideshow of new mascot ideas in
a rebrand for Boone County High School. The change we've
been working for all along. Was it coming true and
what would the mascots be? We needed to know, and
(23:18):
so we did what we've done countless times in the
last few months. We filed an open records request for
the slide show. This one was not a phishing expedition.
It was a simple request for a single thing, that
slide show. We knew the name of the document, we
knew the day it was sent out, we knew who
sent it. It should be the simplest of requests to fill
(23:39):
and listener for the first time. It was three weeks
after we sent in the request. At this point, perhaps
because of us, they'd changed their system from having to
physically mail things to submitting a digital request. We got
an email with the slide show really okay, BCHS mascot
(24:00):
brand April twenty twenty four. The options stay with the rebels,
decide on a mascot that would fit that brand. Change
rebels to something that fits a chosen mascot. This is
a real, basic, real basic PowerPoint. Option one is just
keeping the rebels and making it into a bison. The
(24:23):
second option is a bison and it's the same kind
of generic bison logos. Oh god, they have the mascot
ideas for the bison, and it's like a bunch of
just very cheaply made looking bison costumes. The rebels, but
it's more of a bull generic bull logos. They could
(24:43):
be the Boone County bulls, really really goofy looking bulls.
One of those is just a cow that's not it
just looks like a cute cow costume. And wow. The
school Life TIETS student section could be the Herd School
Spirit Award, the Spirit Horn.
Speaker 10 (24:58):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
They're high school. It's call to action as a stampede
bison country or bull country and then students doing finger horns.
I don't know. I mean, look, it's better than rebels.
I think we listener. It feels so close now, except
the slideshow was from last spring and there's not a
(25:20):
single mention of it in any email sent afterwards. And
those two meetings, well, we sent an open records request
for any minutes from those meetings or of any follow
up meetings that happened after and were told they had
no records. But there's more. When we printed it all
out and stacked it all chronologically. There was a glaring
problem with the document. The most recent email in the
(25:41):
huge stack was from August second of last year. We
made the request for these documents in early December and
asked for everything from January twenty twenty three to that date,
but we didn't get that. We only got documents through
the very start of August, which means that while we
have most of their emails from while we were doing
our reporting, we have nothing once school restarted in the
(26:02):
fall and our episodes actually started coming out. It's hard
to believe that everyone just stopped talking about the rebels
at that point, and so we filed yet another open
records request for everything since August second to Right now,
we're still waiting for them to acknowledge receipt, but we
expect to be able to fill you in next episode.
We've also reached out to people involved in those mascot
(26:23):
meetings last spring and to the person that created the slideshow.
So far as you might expect, nothing. Pouring through four
hundred pages of emails is exhausting. Doing it at a
time where Donald Trump has regained the White House and
on day one began an assault on exactly what we've
been talking about for the last six months. About creating
spaces where everyone feels welcome, about accepting our history even
(26:46):
when it's hard, About understanding how racism of the past
can still have ripple effects today. And DEI and birthright
citizenship and dread Scott and the Civil War, and and
and about our fundamental right to exist against the attempts
to write us out of the present and the past.
That part has been really exhausting. But there's one more thing.
(27:09):
In all those emails we got, there's one that I
keep thinking about. It's from March twenty twenty three. That's
before we showed up in Florence, before we started work
on this podcast, before the old cranks started writing in
to complain, before anything. It's an email from a student.
Their name is properly redacted to Principal Black in it.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
They right here, missus Black. I believe we should try
and get the school rebranded as of the fact that
we have no mascot and the gym feels very bland
without a big face or Boone County on the wall,
and a lot of other people believe that we shouldn't
be the rebels anymore, we don't have a mascot. Also,
the school spirit needs to be revived with this, it
(27:50):
actually may be revived. I have talked to teachers at
Boone County and they believe that we should rebrand or
just get a new mascot. I have talked to a
principal and he said we should. So is there anything
we the students can do to possibly get a new
mascot or a brand?
Speaker 3 (28:06):
In light of everything going on in the country right now,
changing a mascot might seem very small, because right now
everything seems so big and insurmountable. But this email, sent
before any of this began, by a student who is
just asking for the simplest thing to feel proud about
their school, about where they live, is a reminder that
(28:27):
small change is important too. Because if the seventy year
reign of the Confederacy could finally end in Boone County
and the seventy year rain of the Boone County Bisons
or the Bulls or yes, even the Biscuits could begin,
if that change could happen, for this kid who wrote
their principle almost two years ago, for all the kids
(28:48):
at Boone now, for those of us that still live
with the sting of the legacy of the past, then
maybe a small change is worth it, because if you
can change one small thing, if that is possible, then maybe,
just maybe the big things are too. Rebel Spirit is
(29:09):
a production of Ninth Planet Audio in association with iHeart Podcasts.
Reporting and writing by me Akila Hughes. I'm also an
executive producer and the host. Produced by Dan Sinker, edited
by Josie A. Zahm Additional editing on this episode by
Jennifer Dean. Music composed by Charlie Sun, Sound design and
mixing by Josia zahmb Our theme song is All the
(29:31):
Things I Couldn't Say, performed by Bussy and the Bass,
courtesy of Arts and Crafts Productions, Inc. Our production coordinator
is Kyle Hinton. Our clearance coordinator is Anna Sun Andschine.
Production accounting by Dill pret Singh. Additional research support from
Janis Dillard. Email reads by Nicole Thurman, Frank Garcia Hile,
Hal Lovelin, John Tynan Am, Jenna Goosch, and Mason Smith.
(29:56):
Executive producers from Ninth Planet Audio are Elizabeth baquett In
Jimmy Miller. If you'd like to see that Bison's presentation,
along with the selection of other documents we got from
the district, we've put them up on this episode's page
of our new website, Rebelspirit podcast dot com.
My own black of Dollar has gone on underland.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I know, I know, Ninth Planet Audio, we're overlanding, You're
no mining.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Friends. It's been a minute since our last full episode,
but I'm happy to say that we're back for the
two final episodes of the season. Since it's been a
few months, let's just have a quick review. I'm Akuila Hughes,
and I'm from Florence, Kentucky, where my high school team
name was and still is, the Rebels. The Rebels was
(00:36):
the nickname not only of my high school, but also
of the Confederacy, you know, the folks who lost the
Civil War.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
The historical context of the term rebel is so interesting.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
That's historian doctor Brandon Render. We spoke with him in
episode two.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
During the Civil War and then immediately after the war,
Southerners Confederate sympathizers referred to the war as the War
of Northern Aggression, Northerners referred to it as the War
of Southern Rebellion. Rebel actually changes immediately after the Civil
War from a symbol of shame as people who caused
(01:10):
the Civil War to more of a point of pride.
And so we see this in high school mascots.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Folks from my high school have claimed for years that
they're actually named after the movie Rebel without a Cause,
But well we prove that wrong with a short trip
to the library. To this issue is October seventh, nineteen
fifty four, and they have an article.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Boone County High School.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
The athletic teams were dubbed the Rebels by the student
body in a recent school wide vote conducted by the
journalism class. The Rebel football team made its first home
appearance on the new Boone County High School field Thursday night,
September thirtieth. It's right here in black and white in
print in nineteen fifty four. So they Lion, They Lion.
(01:59):
The movie came out in nineteen fifty five, but the
school became the Rebels when it opened in nineteen fifty four.
You know what else happened in nineteen fifty four, Brown
versus Board of Education and the start of desegregating schools
in America, which it turns out was the catalyst for
a lot of schools to name themselves the Rebels.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
We have this dual system, and the dual system was
separate but definitely unequal.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Doctor Caleb Smith is the preeminent researcher of rebel schools.
We spoke with him in episode five.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
And so what school districts and cities and states decided
to do was, instead of being separate but unequal, if
we make the African American accommodations comparable to the white ones,
they're less prone to won't integrate. And so let's merge
all the white schools in our county or in this
area and form a new school. And then we'll do
(02:49):
the same thing with the black schools in our county
or in our city. And so from that we'll have
separate and equal and they'll be less want to try
to integrate the schools. And so the white schools would
merge together and they would become the rebels of Boyle
County or whichever county it was.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
While learning more about all of those other rebel schools
and how some of them successfully changed, I traveled back
to Florence three times, where I spoke to the school
board and my high schools school based decision making counsel. Hi,
I'm Aquila Hughes. Good evening, I'm Aquila Hughes. Hi, I'm
Aquila Hughes. And we got nowhere. Our last full episode
(03:29):
aired a week after election day, and we left it
on this note. I think it really comes down to
the push and pull of tradition versus progress, about the
clash between moving forward and turning back. All right, so
you know what happened next. That clash isn't working out
(03:51):
so great right now. We've got a long way to
go on that front. But there's one other thing I
said on that episode. Done yet, this podcast is not over.
We've been given a little more time in a few
more episodes to continue to pursue this change wherever it
takes us. And so guess what. Okay, no, not that
(04:13):
they are still the rebels, but we have news. I
was a lady rebbel, Like, what does that even need?
Speaker 6 (04:21):
The Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels,
But the image of.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Us right here in black and white and friends.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Amien figures is a flag or mask off.
Speaker 7 (04:30):
Anytime you're trying to mess with tradition, you get to
be ready for a serious backlash.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
From Ninth Planet Audio. I'm Akhila Hughes and this is
Rebel Spirit, Episode eleven, Open records. Okay, enough catchup, let's
move forward. Since we wrapped our last episode. We have
reached out to the school repeatedly. We've asked for simple comments,
(05:04):
we've offered an open mic, we've offered to speak off
the record. No matter how we've boarded it, we've gotten
no response whatsoever. And yet every now and then over
the last few months, we've heard various rumors a change
was happening, a change was not happening. The new superintendent
wanted to know what was going on. It was clear
just through these little threads that made their way back
(05:26):
to us that there were conversations happening. We just weren't
privy to them. Listener, if only there was a way
to know what they were saying.
Speaker 8 (05:34):
There is a presumption of the government that the things
that it does, especially because it's spending taxpayer money, should
be available to the people, And so I file open
records requests all the time to get information that the
government is keeping but doesn't necessarily proactively make open.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
That's Stephen rich an investigative data reporter from the Washington Post.
Speaker 8 (05:55):
This can be documents, that can be data sets, It
can be video, it can be whatever you can sort
of imagine. You can request it. Now, they don't always
have to give it to you. There are various exemptions
that they can cite, but you can always ask. It
doesn't actually hurt to ask, and that's sort of how
I approach open records.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Steven has asked for all sorts of government records and
his investigations of police shootings, school shootings, and many other
non shooting related investigations. He's been on teams that have
won two Pulitzer Prizes thanks in part to his fearless
use of FOYA.
Speaker 8 (06:28):
FOYA stands for the Freedom of Information Act, and it's
a law on the books for the federal level where
you can request anything that you want documents wise from
the federal government. Every state has their own laws and
so you'll often hear people refer to them as open
records laws, and so we use them to get what
we believe should be open from the data.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
I wanted to talk to Stephen to see if open
records requests were something we could utilize to get a
view into the conversations happening at the school and the district,
since nobody would talk with us.
Speaker 8 (07:00):
While most people sort of associate FOYA with journalists, anybody
can use it, and I am usually the person that's
telling people when they want to find something out in
their own community, to file the requests with their local
government agencies, because there is nothing that says that it
has to be a media organization that files this. It
can be any person off the street. And honestly, I
wish at some level that we taught this in schools
(07:21):
because I think it's hyper valuable for people to know
that they are owed the information from the government on
things that are important to them.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
I know some information I'd love to get from the government,
So how do I go about asking for it?
Speaker 8 (07:34):
So my approach is always go in real nice, real
appreciative of what they're doing, especially because most of these
FOY officers are working with limited resources and are actually
trying their best, and see what I can do. But
you also have to know when to sort of turn
it on and go I have a legal right to
this and start to really push.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Of course, part of this, like anything, is knowing what
to ask for.
Speaker 8 (07:57):
Part of what we do in all of this is
we try to do a lot of reporting upfront. What
is it that we should be asking for, how specifically
should we be asking for it, because a lot of
times we'll get denied or get the wrong documents because
we just didn't ask in the right way. And in
every FOYA that I put in, I'm like, if you
need any explanation of what it is that I'm looking for,
just talk to me, Like, let's not go back and
(08:19):
forth with responses after the fact, Like let's figure this
out before while you're doing it, because I'm not here
to make trouble for you and for the you know,
I never really approach it with FOYA officers that are
trying to make trouble for me. It's just that, you know,
if I don't ask right, then they don't know what
I need. I mean, half the time I send a
(08:40):
request and they're like, this is voluminous, and then I
explained to them what I want exactly, and it's like, oh,
this will take us two hours. Yeah, okay, great, that's
I don't want you spending hundreds of hours on this thing.
That's not what I'm asking for. I'm actually asking for
what you have.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
All this talk got me thinking about our new president
and what it would mean for people like Steven who
are trying to get that information out.
Speaker 8 (09:03):
My approach has been the same throughout all of the
administrations that I've covered, which is that every new administration
makes it harder to get information because nothing ever tends
toward openness. Nobody ever gets into office and says I
want to open things up more because it's not a
priority for them, And so you know, we just sort
(09:24):
of prepare, We file foyas, we use our lawyers to
push where we can. I personally donate to a lot
of the lawyers doing work for smaller outlets out there
because they needed a ton and don't necessarily have that
legal representation. So I just prepare myself. It wouldn't have
mattered who was president. It was going to get harder.
It maybe it get harder by a different degree, yeah,
(09:46):
under a President Trump, but it was always going to
get harder because the government tends toward hiding what it's doing.
And one of the things that I will say is like, look,
you can pull back on records and the government and
the executive branch especially can make it much harder to
get records. But I know a lot of journalists, and
journalists are relentless people. You tell me I can't have something,
(10:07):
and I want it more, and you know the truth
is it might not be anything. I think the government
tends to fight us on things that don't actually reveal
any wrongdoing. They just fight us as a reflex. And
so I lean on the fact that there's a lot
of good FOYA officers out there doing really great work
and helping us get things, and I make sure to
(10:28):
let them know when they're doing great work. And no
matter who's in power, you'll always have those people who
want the public to know what their government is doing
with their money, in their name, what have you. And
so I just think that even if or as FOYA weekends,
we will continue to have a lot of good information,
(10:50):
whether that's from journalists at places like the Washington Post
or journalists who are working off their couch using whatever
platform they have, whether that is just social media platform.
Anybody can do this and anybody can be a journalist,
is sort of how I feel about this, which means
that anybody can file a FOYA, which is what I
want people to do. I think that every person should
(11:12):
file a FOYA at some point in I just want,
at least want see what it's like, see how hard
it is to get information out of your government.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
And so listener, that's what we did.
Speaker 9 (11:23):
I'm walking the FOYA request for Boone County Schools.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
That's Janis or intrepid researcher.
Speaker 9 (11:29):
Walking it to the post office because they definitely don't
have like the online version. We're going old school.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
Here.
Speaker 9 (11:38):
I printed out a form, filled.
Speaker 10 (11:41):
It out, and I'm walking it over to.
Speaker 9 (11:43):
The post office right now. It is going to the
Open Records Department superintendent's office, and then they will physically
mail me in theory the documents we're looking for, hoping,
hoping we see some results. But yeah, it's night time,
(12:03):
walking over to the post office, going old school.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
We took it old school to send two requests, one
asking for what they were saying about me in this podcast,
and the other what they were saying about the rebel
team name and mascot. These were largely fishing expeditions. To
be sure, we didn't know if we'd get anything back,
but it did feel worth a try. Our two requests
went in the mailbox together, so we waited and waited
(12:34):
and waited, and finally we heard back more on their
response after this break, Well, we heard back on one
of our requests, the one about me. It was ninety
four pages and well it was mostly the emails me
and my producers had sent to the district and the
school over the last year, which well played. But the
(12:57):
other request, the broader one about discuss sessions about the
rebel team name and the mascot, went unfulfilled, so we
followed up in About a month later it arrived. It
was a single pdf containing three hundred chaotic pages of emails.
There was no order to any of it.
Speaker 11 (13:14):
Mister Melching, Hi, missus Black, thanks so much for getting back.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
You may not remember me so hello. Hi mister Melchich,
you're my fine arts teacher for half. Some emails from
July were next to ones from a year earlier.
Speaker 11 (13:27):
Hi, miss Black, before the holidays get the best of us.
I'd love to follow up on this obviously. We'd love
to talk with you.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Hello, miss Bird. I'm Akhila Hughes, a writer, comedian, and
podcast host who is, fun fact, the first student representative
to the Board of Education in Kentucky history. Mister Melching,
hope you're well. I'm a producer with ninth Audio. External
communications were mingling with internal communications.
Speaker 11 (13:48):
We're very eager to get an update on the committee
you told us about, and would also still welcome the
opportunity to talk with you.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
There were our emails again, and their responses to our
emails with our emails attached at the bottom, and then
so someone went forwarded in the chain would just start
up again.
Speaker 11 (14:02):
Miss Black. I wanted to follow up on the email
I sent one week ago. Miss Black. I wanted to
follow up on the email I sent one week ago.
Miss Black, I wanted to follow up on the email
I sent one week ago.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
It was endlessly maddeningly repetitive, but even looking at it briefly,
it was clear that we were getting much more than
what they had originally sent. I mean, if nothing else,
there was an enormous collection of emails from people complaining
about well me Hello.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
Miss Black.
Speaker 12 (14:32):
As an alumni from Boone County High School, I am writing,
like so many others, to voice my opinion on changing
the rebel name. It is absolutely unthinkable that because some
crazy liberal trying to make waves as a career move
would be able to create such a stir, she is
not part of our community and is in fact, two
thousand miles removed from this issue. Please do not cave
(14:55):
to the aspirations of one to cause problems and make
a social statement about something we hold dear.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Our rebels dare stay sye.
Speaker 13 (15:04):
I have been following the quest of a Killer Hughes
to change the history and name of the Rebel at
Boone County High School. She seems to be a self
serving individual, just wanting her fifteen minutes of fame and
increasing her podcast success. I am a nineteen seventy one,
proud graduate of BCHS, lifelong resident of Boone County and
(15:27):
totally against the change. I am a pall that this
is even being discussed. Please let me know how this
nonsense can be stopped.
Speaker 14 (15:34):
I have lived in Boone County all my life and
still live here. It would be a shame to change
the school name from Rebel to something unknown. The person
making the request hasn't lived here for years and probably
doesn't have her heart in this county or school. As
many other people in this county would find it offensive
(15:55):
to us to change what we are proud of and
have respected for years.
Speaker 15 (15:59):
I was a proud little reb as were my two sisters.
Two of us met our rebel husbands in high school,
and I am currently married forty seven years to my rebel.
Our best man and maid of honor were both rebels. Together,
we raised three rebels one of which was a Rebel
Athlete of the year. They are currently raising four Rebels
(16:20):
and little reps. This name is our history and never
had racial meaning to us. I hope when you make
your decision you not only think of the past, but
that you don't need to follow gen Z.
Speaker 6 (16:31):
When I attended BCHS over fifty years ago, one black
family lived in Boone County, the Webbs. They were around
when the name Rebels was selected reference in the movie
by the same name. I'm sure you have been made
aware if he want some name change, he is still
living in Burlington. I will stand by his decision, but
not by a list of Californians who have no idea
(16:54):
about our mascot.
Speaker 14 (16:55):
I feel strongly that the name should stay and the
image be changed. However, as much as many may be
offended by the Johnny Rebel reference, we can't deny that
the Civil War happened, and this can be a reminder
for future generations.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Listener, there were dozens of these emails strewn across the PDF.
It was clear that a Facebook group of alumni from
sixty years ago had banded together, created a few templates,
and had let it rip. The whole document was a mess.
While it was clear that there was something there, finding
it felt nearly impossible. So we did the one thing
that would make it easier. We printed it out. It
(17:37):
took twenty minutes, nearly a ream of paper in an
entire toner cartridge, but we got it all, all four
hundred pages across both documents they'd sent stack up. It's
over three inches high, and then we collated it, stapled it,
put the whole mess into chronological order, and then arranged
(17:58):
it all into folders and subfolders. And through all that
effort we were able to see past the old cranks
and the ccs and the endless, endless repetition and find
the signal in the noise. This isn't just a good
strategy for dealing with these documents. This is a good
strategy for everything at this moment in time. Organize, prioritize,
and work, always work to find the signal through the noise.
(18:23):
Suddenly we were seeing our reporting of this podcast, but
through the looking glass of the other side. There were
sixteen emails from our first trip to Florence in September
twenty twenty three. There's the journalism teacher willing to help
us before we shut down. There's board President Karen Bird
and Principal Stacy Black coordinating with who would say what
to us, And then there's Barbara Brady, the district's calms person,
(18:46):
shutting it all down.
Speaker 13 (18:47):
Hello, Karen, I'm sure you've been following the emails. I've
just tried to keep you in the loop. Even though
I've diplomatically tried to kill the issue with kindness, this
woman is still coming for us. We have determined after
talking with her that she is still trying to make
trouble for Boone County High School and the district. She
(19:08):
is still angry about the word rebel. It wasn't enough
for her that the rebel mascot Mister Rebel was removed.
She wants no mention of the word or the mascot
connected to the school. We've learned she plans to come
to homecoming tonight to try to stir up old wounds
about it. On her podcast, she will be interviewing students
(19:28):
to try to elicit anger about the nickname and former mascot.
She will still pursue a comment from Boone County School Board,
even if she has to talk to another school board member,
as our school board president, I didn't want you to
be blindsided.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
When we went back to Florence in December twenty twenty three,
there was a similar flurry of about a dozen emails,
But this time there's a twist. After I spoke at
the board meeting, board President Karen Bird told.
Speaker 10 (19:54):
Us continue to work with the council because that's where
that change has to happen. Us to do otherwise would
be in violation of the law.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
So I reached out to the Kentucky Department of Education
to find out what the law was tying their hands,
And here in our hands was a polite but verily
sternly worded series of emails between the district's lawyers and
the lawyers from the Kentucky Department of Education over who
actually has jurisdiction over school mascots. The verdict, of course
(20:28):
the school district can step in, but neither side really
wanted to see that, and for the record, neither would we.
We love the school to just do the right thing.
When we were back again in June of last year,
once again more emails from Barbara Brady, this time running
block on reporters asking about the mascot. It's fascinating to
(20:50):
see the last year and a half of my life
played out through this lens, to see what people were
saying to each other while avoiding, ignoring, or just blowing
me off. But digging for they're into these documents, there's
something else. It's hard to see it first because it's
strewn across many disparate pages, but connect them all and
you can see a series of teachers and administrators at
(21:11):
Boone County High School meeting last spring to discuss the mascot. Yes,
this appears to actually be the committee that Stacy Black
told us about. Now, granted it seems to have not
happened at the time she told us it was happening,
but here it was in black and white being planned.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
As coaches, you are well aware that BCHS has been
without a mascot for the past several years. Mss Black
would like to form a committee of teachers, coaches, parents
and students to discuss ideas for bringing a mascot back
to BCHS, and we would like to invite you to
be a part of this small committee.
Speaker 13 (21:45):
Can I suggest we invite the varsity cheer coach to
the committee. She is very passionate about building our school
spirit and all the traditions that go with it, and
she has some really great ideas.
Speaker 16 (21:56):
Next year is our seventieth anniversary. I feel like we
could do a lot with this, including but not limited to,
having a new mascot tradition meets the future. Can everyone
do Thursday?
Speaker 9 (22:07):
Will someone send an invite?
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Someone sent an invite. To the best of our knowledge,
there were two meetings, March seventh and April second, twenty
twenty four, But there was also something else in and
among these emails was an email inviting the recipients to
access a Google slideshow. You've gotten these a million times,
auto generated from Google when you hit share. It's so
(22:29):
boring and forgettable that we just missed it. At first,
it was just a single email, a loan sheet of
paper in our three inch thick pile. But here we
were staring at a document we could not click, entitled
BCHS Mascot rebrand Final Options Listener. I wanted to click
it so so badly, but alas it was unclickable until
(22:53):
it wasn't. We'll be right back after this break. Here
we were staring at an email we couldn't open that
seemed to contain a slideshow of new mascot ideas in
a rebrand for Boone County High School. The change we've
been working for all along. Was it coming true and
what would the mascots be? We needed to know, and
(23:18):
so we did what we've done countless times in the
last few months. We filed an open records request for
the slide show. This one was not a phishing expedition.
It was a simple request for a single thing, that
slide show. We knew the name of the document, we
knew the day it was sent out, we knew who
sent it. It should be the simplest of requests to fill
(23:39):
and listener for the first time. It was three weeks
after we sent in the request. At this point, perhaps
because of us, they'd changed their system from having to
physically mail things to submitting a digital request. We got
an email with the slide show really okay, BCHS mascot
(24:00):
brand April twenty twenty four. The options stay with the rebels,
decide on a mascot that would fit that brand. Change
rebels to something that fits a chosen mascot. This is
a real, basic, real basic PowerPoint. Option one is just
keeping the rebels and making it into a bison. The
(24:23):
second option is a bison and it's the same kind
of generic bison logos. Oh god, they have the mascot
ideas for the bison, and it's like a bunch of
just very cheaply made looking bison costumes. The rebels, but
it's more of a bull generic bull logos. They could
(24:43):
be the Boone County bulls, really really goofy looking bulls.
One of those is just a cow that's not it
just looks like a cute cow costume. And wow. The
school Life TIETS student section could be the Herd School
Spirit Award, the Spirit Horn.
Speaker 10 (24:58):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
They're high school. It's call to action as a stampede
bison country or bull country and then students doing finger horns.
I don't know. I mean, look, it's better than rebels.
I think we listener. It feels so close now, except
the slideshow was from last spring and there's not a
(25:20):
single mention of it in any email sent afterwards. And
those two meetings, well, we sent an open records request
for any minutes from those meetings or of any follow
up meetings that happened after and were told they had
no records. But there's more. When we printed it all
out and stacked it all chronologically. There was a glaring
problem with the document. The most recent email in the
(25:41):
huge stack was from August second of last year. We
made the request for these documents in early December and
asked for everything from January twenty twenty three to that date,
but we didn't get that. We only got documents through
the very start of August, which means that while we
have most of their emails from while we were doing
our reporting, we have nothing once school restarted in the
(26:02):
fall and our episodes actually started coming out. It's hard
to believe that everyone just stopped talking about the rebels
at that point, and so we filed yet another open
records request for everything since August second to Right now,
we're still waiting for them to acknowledge receipt, but we
expect to be able to fill you in next episode.
We've also reached out to people involved in those mascot
(26:23):
meetings last spring and to the person that created the slideshow.
So far as you might expect, nothing. Pouring through four
hundred pages of emails is exhausting. Doing it at a
time where Donald Trump has regained the White House and
on day one began an assault on exactly what we've
been talking about for the last six months. About creating
spaces where everyone feels welcome, about accepting our history even
(26:46):
when it's hard, About understanding how racism of the past
can still have ripple effects today. And DEI and birthright
citizenship and dread Scott and the Civil War, and and
and about our fundamental right to exist against the attempts
to write us out of the present and the past.
That part has been really exhausting. But there's one more thing.
(27:09):
In all those emails we got, there's one that I
keep thinking about. It's from March twenty twenty three. That's
before we showed up in Florence, before we started work
on this podcast, before the old cranks started writing in
to complain, before anything. It's an email from a student.
Their name is properly redacted to Principal Black in it.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
They right here, missus Black. I believe we should try
and get the school rebranded as of the fact that
we have no mascot and the gym feels very bland
without a big face or Boone County on the wall,
and a lot of other people believe that we shouldn't
be the rebels anymore, we don't have a mascot. Also,
the school spirit needs to be revived with this, it
(27:50):
actually may be revived. I have talked to teachers at
Boone County and they believe that we should rebrand or
just get a new mascot. I have talked to a
principal and he said we should. So is there anything
we the students can do to possibly get a new
mascot or a brand?
Speaker 3 (28:06):
In light of everything going on in the country right now,
changing a mascot might seem very small, because right now
everything seems so big and insurmountable. But this email, sent
before any of this began, by a student who is
just asking for the simplest thing to feel proud about
their school, about where they live, is a reminder that
(28:27):
small change is important too. Because if the seventy year
reign of the Confederacy could finally end in Boone County
and the seventy year rain of the Boone County Bisons
or the Bulls or yes, even the Biscuits could begin,
if that change could happen, for this kid who wrote
their principle almost two years ago, for all the kids
(28:48):
at Boone now, for those of us that still live
with the sting of the legacy of the past, then
maybe a small change is worth it, because if you
can change one small thing, if that is possible, then maybe,
just maybe the big things are too. Rebel Spirit is
(29:09):
a production of Ninth Planet Audio in association with iHeart Podcasts.
Reporting and writing by me Akila Hughes. I'm also an
executive producer and the host. Produced by Dan Sinker, edited
by Josie A. Zahm Additional editing on this episode by
Jennifer Dean. Music composed by Charlie Sun, Sound design and
mixing by Josia zahmb Our theme song is All the
(29:31):
Things I Couldn't Say, performed by Bussy and the Bass,
courtesy of Arts and Crafts Productions, Inc. Our production coordinator
is Kyle Hinton. Our clearance coordinator is Anna Sun Andschine.
Production accounting by Dill pret Singh. Additional research support from
Janis Dillard. Email reads by Nicole Thurman, Frank Garcia Hile,
Hal Lovelin, John Tynan Am, Jenna Goosch, and Mason Smith.
(29:56):
Executive producers from Ninth Planet Audio are Elizabeth baquett In
Jimmy Miller. If you'd like to see that Bison's presentation,
along with the selection of other documents we got from
the district, we've put them up on this episode's page
of our new website, Rebelspirit podcast dot com.
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