Bearcats to get new look
Leader photo by T. SCOTT BOATRIGHT
Ruston High School’s “R” logo, pictured here Tuesday afternoon at the Jimmy “Chick” Childress Field House, will soon be replaced with a new logo school officials are working to design following legal action taken by Rutgers University.
It’s no secret that sports have become big business in the United States, even down to the high school level.
And that is the reason that Ruston High School will soon have a new logo.
RHS Director of Athletics Jerrod Baugh said the school is looking into companies that might help come up with the design of a logo after Rutgers University took legal action against the RHS block letter “R” logo, filing a cease and desist order saying that it owns the rights to the symbolic “R.”
Ruston High, which was first contacted by Rutgers in February, signed a non-disclosure agreement with Rutgers and agreed to phase out the RHS “R” branding over the next 10 years.
“We’re getting things finalized in upcoming weeks,” said Ricky Durrett, Lincoln Parish Schools supervisor of secondary education. “The end of August was the goal to get a new one done.”
The goal is to find a new logo that will be acceptable for Bearcat fans while still being one unique to the school.
“We’re working to find something that doesn’t conflict with any other school,” says Jerrod Baugh, Ruston High athletic director and football coach.
While changing the RHS logo on everything from uniforms to the football field and jumobotron scoreboard will be costly, the 10-year phase out will help ease things.
“It’s never cheap whenever we replace anything these days,” Baugh said. “It never is. And if we had to do it all immediately, it would be a big issue. We’ll figure out our new logo and then start taking the steps to replace things one step at a time.
“That way it won’t really be any different than when we have to replace things anyway. Because it’ll be a process over years, I don’t think it’s going to cause any more issues than we’d normally have.”
