What's In A Name?

While surfing the web the other night I found a site with a lot of Tennessee high school football helmets:

http://www.mghelmets.com/Tennessee.html

Which includes this nifty little number here:



That got me to thinking about the hoopla over team names that are seen as offensive to Native Americans. Well, you can't get much more offensive than calling a Native American a redskin. I know, I've heard all the arguments about how it's not meant to demean anyone, in fact, a lot of people say it's meant to "honor" them. Well, I'm not here to start an debate, but that's almost like saying you're trying to honor me by calling me fat and ugly.

So I did some more searching on the internet and guess what? I can not find Loudon's name on any list that is considered "offensive". I saw a lot of other schools listed, included a bunch from Tennessee --- but no Loudon. How did we make it under the radar?

One of you folks who've lived there all this time answer a question for me. Has there been any attempts or recommendations to change the name?

All that aside, I am proud of my high school and it's history, and that includes the name, which is the most visible symbol of my high school, whether it's good or bad.

And I think the helmet is very sharp.