TEXARKANA MAGAZINE
MEET THE MASCOT TEXAS
so proudly worn by thousands of students during this last century. One notable piece of information from The Half Shell is the formation of a football team in the 1910-1911 school year, but even then, the photograph of the grim-faced team of 11 didn’t bear any distinguishing symbols; the color of their uniforms isn’t distinguishable because of the limited technology of those years. It can only be assumed that Texas High didn’t truly become the Tigers until the 1913- 1914 school year when The Half Shell was replaced by a newspaper: The Texas Tiger . Yet even then, we see nothing of school colors until a song of unknown origin in 1926, preaching the meaning of orange and white and the virtues of Texas High... “Here’s to the orange of Texas. The hue of the rising sun. Here’s to the white for Texas. It stands for might and right.” These colors would eventually be found in the uniforms of Texas High’s various spirit groups and their mascots (children dressed
up to match the group they represented). These mascots first appeared in the 1937 yearbook. In the 1960s, a live tiger, Tawyna, would be brought onto the football field; however, that ended in 1964 when an 8-AAAA conference ruling barred live animals from the football field. This merely sparked a new tradition. In 1964, Margaret Westerman, a senior, became the first student to serve as Trochia the Tiger, a name decided on by a contest run by the Tiger Times staff. Today, Texas High students more than makeup for the lack of spirit from their predecessors over a century ago. Every fall, they don their orange shirts on pep-rally days to cheer with Trochia and paint their faces with orange and white for games each Friday night. While they may not know why they are Tigers, they are without a doubt proud to be one.
HIGH SCHOOL Trochia the Tiger BY SOPHIE KELLER, CLASS OF 2024 PHOTOS BY MATT CORNELIUS
*All information can be found in “Pages from the Past,” compiled in 1992.
43
2023 FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs