It appears the Manhattan High student body wants a physical mascot.

According to senior Lily Colburn, student body president, a survey conducted by Student Council about the issue resulted in over 1600 responses, with 55 percent in favor of having a physical mascot at games.

The survey was conducted in conjunction with Homecoming royalty voting.

“[Principal Greg] Hoyt and I met to talk about the process by which we were going to go through,” Colburn said, “and Homecoming voting was coming up at the same time, so we decided to do it just in one fell swoop, to both ask ‘Are students interested and if you are, what do you want it to be?’ We decided those were the two best questions to ask as a preliminary, kind of getting a feel for what the students’ views are on the topic.”

As the student body responded in favor of a physical mascot, more rounds of voting are in order.

“In the survey, we also asked people to have suggestions for a physical mascot,” Colburn said, “so the next rounds of voting are going to have to deal with narrowing down what our physical mascot would be if we had one. Bison was a common one, and there was like Blue Devils and a few other common ones, so we’ll present probably five to 10, and then from there like top three and then top two and then one. The final stage of voting will be ‘Do we want this physical mascot that has been voted on, or no physical mascot at all?’”

Though students voted in favor of a physical mascot, many students noted they would want the physical mascot to be the Indians. To do this would be in direct violation of the Board of Education’s motion, which stated that the physical mascot must be “distinct from the Indian name and image.”

“We’re hoping to do some sort of education about what [the physical mascot] would be in advisory,” Colburn said. “I think there’s kind of just some misunderstanding about what the physical mascot actually is, so StuCo and Advisory is hoping to kind of counteract that so that students actually understand what they are getting, what they would be getting and what they’re voting on.”

The student body’s choice of physical mascot will require board approval before being finalized. The approval or denial of the chosen physical mascot will come at the first board meeting in December.