© 2024
This history of South Central High School emphasizes its unique mascot, Satellites. Read the footnotes (by placing your cursor arrow over the small red numbers) for humorous tidbits, points of interest, and sources. The stories behind the Satellites history are as entertaining as they are charming.
South Central High School was formed in the summer of 1962, a consolidation of Clinton Township School, Hanna School, and Union Mills School. The first superintendent was John Dunk. In the beginning, the Union Mills school building housed all of the high school students plus the elementary and junior high school students of Noble Township. Clinton Township and Hanna continued as elementary and junior high schools for the students in their respective townships.1Originally, the school corporation was named for the three townships from which it was comprised: Clinton-Hanna-Noble Consolidated School District. It became South Central Community School Corporation in 1979. First formed in 1958, it operated as three separate schools until they hired John Dunk as superintendent in 1962.
Originally, the school corporation was named for the three townships from which it was comprised: Clinton-Hanna-Noble Consolidated School District. It became South Central Community School Corporation in 1979. First formed in 1958, it operated as three separate schools until they hired John Dunk as superintendent in 1962.
During pre-registration, incoming high school students were invited to meet in the Union Mills gymnasium to suggest new school colors and a mascot. Many students attended and they chose red, white and blue for the colors. Clinton Township students united and lobbied to have navy blue and white—their former school’s colors—declared the dominant colors. Students also submitted suggestions for the new mascot. However, the school board would choose, so everybody left without knowing what name they’d be known. Among the names put forth, Norma Kay Young submitted the nickname, Satellites.2Source: Sue (Stroh) Werner, South Central High School class of 1963.
On July 30, 1962, the school board convened and voted approval for the school colors to be “red, white and blue, with navy and white to be the predominating colors” 3Newspaper clippings – Ron Clindaniel’s scrapbook. and of the submitted mascots, the school board chose Satellites. Although the first satellite, Sputnik, had been launched five years earlier, space themes were in vogue in 1962 and the alliteration in South Central Satellites had a nice ring to it. Miss Young received an award for her winning submission.4Astronauts would have been a more-timely mascot name since the United States launched the first person into space in 1961 and John Glenn became the first person to orbit Earth in February 1962. It would have been easier to manifest a mascot. Surely, some student(s) submitted Astronauts for the first school mascot.
From the beginning, Dunk and the school board wanted to construct a new school building. One legend held that community members resisted—the old schools were good enough for them, so it will good enough for the next generation (This same attitude kept Union Mills High School from building a new basketball gym in the 1930s and 40s, when in fact the existing gym was inadequate and unsafe). As the story went, Dunk scheduled some classrooms to be painted on the same day representatives from the Indiana State Board of Education visited and desks were moved into the hall. State officials saw desks filled with students in the hallway. Dunk told them they didn’t have enough classroom space for all of the students, so the State Board of Education forced them to build a new building, expediting the search for a site and eventual construction.5This story has not been substantiated. On one hand, this would have been consistent with John Dunk’s clever, get-it-done style. On the other hand, it seems far-fetched—wouldn’t officials look inside those classrooms? Perhaps officials were complicit with the scheme. Regardless, it’s a fun story.
The name, South Central, came from its geographic location in LaPorte County. Dunk’s vision was to add a fourth township, Cass, before building the new school.6The LaPorte County School Re-organization Commission recommended 7 townships consolidate into a new school corporation: Cass, Clinton, Dewey, Hanna, New Durham, Noble, and Prairie. The South Central School Board was open to the idea. If all of the townships had cooperated, South Central High School likely would have been built in or near the town of Wanatah per the commission president’s advice. Clinton, Hanna, Noble, and Cass Townships were square-shaped and all met at one corner. Cass Township refused to join, so South Central School officials searched for a building site near the intersection of the townships, but not in Cass Township.7There’s a lot to unpack here. . .
In August 1962, South Central had an option to buy 40 acres of land about three miles west of Hanna along U.S. Highway 30, which would have put the new school within a mile of the Cass-Clinton-Hanna-Noble Township intersection (LaPorte Herald-Argus, August 23, 1962).
According to Jim Smoker (South Central School Board, 1967 – 70), John Dunk promised to build South Central School in Cass Township near that intersection if they would join. Cass Township officials demanded the new school be built in their town of Wanatah, four miles west. Dunk wouldn’t agree to do that.
On September 6, 1962, Cass Township Trustee Oliver Mitzner said Indiana school reorganization “might be all right in a foreign country but not here” and he “didn’t think much of the school to the east” (meaning South Central).
South Central’s option on the 40 acres was never exercised.
Cass Township’s attitude toward a new school frustrated Dunk. He began his education career as a teacher and coach at Wanatah High School (Cass Township) in 1947.
In June 1969, The Indiana School Commission decommissioned Wanatah High School due to “violation of state school laws and rules” and failure to develop a reorganization plan during the previous 10 years as required by state law. Cass Township Trustee LaVerne Guse called the move “pressure to get us into South Central High School.” Cass Township’s attorneys tried to invoke two outdated laws to keep Wanatah High School open; the plan failed.
The first property owner willing to sell land to South Central was Ed Richman. Along with his brother, Milfred, they sold 33 acres and the school broke ground in 1964 at its present location at 600 West and 1000 South, two miles north of the junction of the four townships.8At least one local official wanted to build South Central School on Ben & Betty Werner’s property at the northeast corner of 600 West and 1100 South. Werner didn’t want to sell and he put them onto Ed Richman. Years before, Richman got Werner to invest in a business opportunity that didn’t pan out. When Richman sold the real estate to the school, he used proceeds to repay Werner (Source: Robert Werner, Union Mills High School class of 1962).
The new South Central School building, which housed kindergarten through high school seniors, opened for the 1965-66 school year. Faculty and the high school principal developed the idea for an insignia that captured the Satellites mascot, which became a mural on the gym wall. Tony Wesolowski, industrial arts teacher, and artist Wayne Cooper cooperated on the final design. Cooper was a 23-year-old former welder and developing artist who lived in Kouts, Indiana. He showed school administrators some of his artwork and they told him to get to work. Cooper made some drawings, Wesolowski cut the shapes from plyboard, then Cooper painted the cutouts with oil paints in the basement (tunnels) beneath South Central School.
Principal Norbert Jankowski was quite proud of the art installation. He assembled the student body in the gymnasium where a giant dark cloth draped over one wall. Everyone was seated, there was a brief presentation, someone pulled a rope, the cloth dropped, and the room let out a collective “Ooooo!”9Source: Steven E. King, South Central High School class of 1968. For the first time, everyone saw Cooper’s artwork—a rocket passing Earth surrounded by stars, space objects, and a satellite—hung on the south wall of the South Central gym, where it remains today.10The large metal ball with antennae protruding from it resembles early satellites Telstar 1, Telstar 2, and Alouette 1. Cooper went on to become a prolific artist well-regarded for Southwestern and Native American motifs.11Wayne Cooper became a prolific artist. Born in Depew, Oklahoma, he arrived in Indiana on a crew building steel tanks. He was a welder. After a fall in 1961, he chose to dedicate his life to art, beginning with two years of study at Valparaiso University. After two decades in Indiana, he returned to his hometown. His artwork is in the permanent collections of the Will Rogers Museum, Oklahoma State University Museum of Art, and the Oklahoma State Capital. He has done several large-scale paintings, including one in the Oklahoma State Capital and an eight-feet canvas at Three Forks Lodge. The South Central Satellites installation “was my first go of something like that,” said Cooper in a December 24, 2023 phone interview.
Over time, graphic representation of the Satellites mascot varied. In the school’s first two years, many students sported sweatshirts printed with the words “SOUTH CENTRAL SATELLITES” surrounding a large image of a satellite in the center. In 1965, Wayne Cooper’s wall mural of a rocket passing Earth went on the gym wall. In 1968, the boys basketball team warmup jackets had a large image of Saturn stitched to the chest. In 1972, the school yearbook aptly changed its name from Echo to Orbit. The school newspaper was The Central Orbiter. Students in 1974 witnessed a broad array of space imagery. Varsity cheerleader sweaters and football team helmets featured a squarish rocket. Physical education t-shirts had a graphic depiction of Cooper’s wall art. The uniform of the boys basketball team featured Saturn on the shorts. In 1979, the dance team became known as the Rockettes. Years later, football helmets featured a flying SC with a comet tail trailing from it. It seemed that anything space-related was acceptable conveyance of South Central Satellites.
As for physical mascots that could walk and participate in cheers, South Central was stymied. In 1980, Cheryl Hardy concocted a new iteration of the school’s mascot: the Space Chicken. Piggy-backing on the San Diego Chicken’s national popularity, someone recruited junior Frank Lumm to wear the costume. Not only was Lumm originally from San Diego, providing a nice little tie-in, but he swore not to tell anybody about the plot until the plan was hatched. Lumm was measured for the costume and he practiced some cheer stunts in anticipation of the Space Chicken reveal.12Cheryl was the wife of the boys head basketball coach Bruce Hardy. Cheryl recalled the idea came from conversation among coaches and their spouses. “They didn’t have a mascot, so we came up with something” and the Space Chicken was intended to be humorous, she said in a January 2024 phone interview. Cheryl found a seamstress and bought the supplies for the costume to be made.
It is a mystery who chose Frank Lumm and asked him to be the Space Chicken. It wasn’t Principal Dave Geise or Bruce or Cheryl Hardy.
Only two other students knew about the upcoming reveal of the Space Chicken—junior cheerleaders Theresa Utroske and Mary Ellen Meiu. They secretly taught Frank Lumm cheer stunts in the Mezzanine/gymnastics room. They planned to have Lumm participate in cheers; however, the costume design foiled that plan.
When the costume arrived, Lumm realized there would be no physical stunts. Lumm said, “Each foot was three giant carrots. I can’t do backflips in this! I’ll be lucky to walk in this. The head just bobbled around.”13December 8, 2023 phone interview with Frank Lumm. The costume’s orange tights didn’t thrill Lumm either. However, he committed to the idea and pressed on. He secured the head by wiring a football helmet inside it.
Friday, December 5, 1980, marked South Central’s first home basketball game of the season. It had gone 3 – 0 on the road against Kouts, John Glenn, and North Liberty, so there was a good crows on hand. That night, Frank Lumm walked out onto the corner of the court as the public address announcer introduced fans to Space Chicken.
The pep band played, the basketball teams warmed up, the scorer’s table sat slack-jawed14Mark Potrzebowski worked the scorer’s table for 39 years and the two things he remembered about the reveal of the Space Chicken were being totally surprised and thinking, what did a chicken have to do with satellites?, the room buzzed at the sight of this new mascot, and Lumm stood beneath a basket dressed as a giant chicken. Nobody knew who was inside. With nothing to lose, Lumm closed his eyes and started dancing to the pep music. Fans laughed and cheered. The crowd’s response and Lumm’s anonymity boosted his confidence and he began to have fun with it and goof off. Space Chicken was immediately popular.15Lumm noted that if the Space Chicken flopped, it would have been OK. Lumm said, “A mascot is supposed to be a clown and nobody knows any better, so that’s it. What happens, happens. Everybody ended up loving it. I didn’t know how people would react, whether they’d like it or boo. If they booed, that would have been that, but it worked out.”
Memories vary regarding the lights during the Space Chicken reveal. Lumm thought the lights were off and a spotlight was put on him when he walked onto the court. Of 11 people interviewed, recollections varied whether the lights were on or off—most were unsure. The gym had mercury vapor lights that came on very dim and took some minutes to warm up to reach full illumination, meaning the teams would have run out and warmed up in a dimly lit gymnasium. Principal Dave Geise said due to the mercury vapor lights they would not have turned them off before warmups (Superintendent Max Spaulding said the same), but thought something special might’ve happened with lights that night.
For a few games, South Central did turn off the lights for the announcement of the starting lineup according to Mark Potrzebowski. His recollection was that occurred during the introduction of the starting lineup before the playing of the “Star Spangled Banner.” As Potrzebowski recalled, that practice was short-lived and during one game, the lights above one basket never returned to full illumination.
According to Lumm, nobody knew who was inside the costume until his name appeared below a photo of Space Chicken in the LaPorte Herald-Argus the following Tuesday, as you can see in the scrapbook photo below.
The Space Chicken attended home gymnastics meets, wrestling matches, and girls basketball games, but traveled only twice: the basketball sectional championship game and regional game in 1982. Mid-1980s, Space Chicken disappeared and for a short period of time, a shiny gold Martian man served as mascot for a couple basketball games, but quickly faded away.16Matt Coldiron dressed as the Martian man. It lasted less than one season.
Throughout the 1980s, images using a version of Wayne Cooper’s art work were the dominant graphic for t-shirts, satchels, and sports team warmups. The center circle of the Old Gym was a giant white star, while the center of the New Gym17When South Central built a second gymnasium in 1979, the two gyms were known as the Old Gym and New Gym. They carried these names for decades until someone changed the nomenclature to north gym and south gym. The north gym is in the middle of the building. featured a rocket, flame shooting from its tail, with “SATELLITES” across the fuselage in Data70 font.18Think 1970s era computer screen font and you get the picture.
There was no walking, cheering mascot for 5 or 6 years. Dave Masterson, a fifth-year senior unknown for school extracurricular activity participation, resurrected Space Chicken in 1991 as part of an art class project. During a football game, a flatbed pickup truck drove onto the field hauling a giant paper mâché egg with “Super Dave” painted on the shell. The truck stopped and there was a brief pause. Then the top of the egg flipped off and Masterson jumped out wearing a chicken costume in a football jersey. He dutifully attended several football and basketball games that year as Space Chicken. The following year, the student senate asked Joan Grott19Joan Grott’s older sister, Anne, was student senate vice president. to be the Space Chicken and she filled that role for three years. Grott’s senior year, Space Chicken traveled to Purdue University for High School Mascot Day and stood on the field of Ross-Ade Stadium during the football game.20It rained the day Joan Grott attended the Purdue football game as Space Chicken. To protect the costume, she created a giant hooded poncho from plastic storm window sheeting. As a Purdue student a couple years later, Grott’s roommate learned she was in the Space Chicken costume on the football field that day. Turns out, the roommate’s family attended that game and referred Space Chicken as “the shake and bake chicken.”
Joan and her dad, Norm, attempted to attend a second high school mascot day at a Purdue women’s basketball game that winter. The pair gave a valiant effort, but a blizzard forced them to turn around before reaching LaCrosse, Indiana. Then Space Chicken again went dormant.
During the 1998 football homecoming, a new mascot debuted: Space Guy. He wore a quilted silvery jacket and pants cinched by a belt, tall boots, and an astronaut helmet with tinted visor.21Space Guy’s costume resembled a cross between the space suits worn in the 1960s TV show, Lost in Space, and MC Hammer’s 1990 outfit. In 2012, Space Guy replaced his shimmering outfit with a white NASA-looking jumpsuit; the helmet remained. Space Guy had the longest continuous run as school mascot, but faded by 2014. In the 2014-15 school year, Blake Werner seized the wave of South Central’s growing school spirit, donned the white NASA-looking jump suit and replaced the astronaut helmet with a chicken mask adorned with yellow feathers and a red comb atop its head. Riding an airhorn-equipped bicycle to football games and a scooter during basketball games, Space Chicken was reborn.
So has gone the history of the Satellites, one of the most unique mascots in North America.22Thus far, the only other “Satellites” mascot I found was a co-ed roller derby team. Will Space Chicken continue? Will Space Guy return? Will a South Central student one day dance to a pep band dressed as a satellite adorned with antennae and solar panels? Time will tell. But whatever happens, it is sure to be interesting.
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NOTES
- 1Originally, the school corporation was named for the three townships from which it was comprised: Clinton-Hanna-Noble Consolidated School District. It became South Central Community School Corporation in 1979. First formed in 1958, it operated as three separate schools until they hired John Dunk as superintendent in 1962.
- 2Source: Sue (Stroh) Werner, South Central High School class of 1963.
- 3Newspaper clippings – Ron Clindaniel’s scrapbook.
- 4Astronauts would have been a more-timely mascot name since the United States launched the first person into space in 1961 and John Glenn became the first person to orbit Earth in February 1962. It would have been easier to manifest a mascot. Surely, some student(s) submitted Astronauts for the first school mascot.
- 5This story has not been substantiated. On one hand, this would have been consistent with John Dunk’s clever, get-it-done style. On the other hand, it seems far-fetched—wouldn’t officials look inside those classrooms? Perhaps officials were complicit with the scheme. Regardless, it’s a fun story.
- 6The LaPorte County School Re-organization Commission recommended 7 townships consolidate into a new school corporation: Cass, Clinton, Dewey, Hanna, New Durham, Noble, and Prairie. The South Central School Board was open to the idea. If all of the townships had cooperated, South Central High School likely would have been built in or near the town of Wanatah per the commission president’s advice.
- 7There’s a lot to unpack here. . .
In August 1962, South Central had an option to buy 40 acres of land about three miles west of Hanna along U.S. Highway 30, which would have put the new school within a mile of the Cass-Clinton-Hanna-Noble Township intersection (LaPorte Herald-Argus, August 23, 1962).
According to Jim Smoker (South Central School Board, 1967 – 70), John Dunk promised to build South Central School in Cass Township near that intersection if they would join. Cass Township officials demanded the new school be built in their town of Wanatah, four miles west. Dunk wouldn’t agree to do that.
On September 6, 1962, Cass Township Trustee Oliver Mitzner said Indiana school reorganization “might be all right in a foreign country but not here” and he “didn’t think much of the school to the east” (meaning South Central).
South Central’s option on the 40 acres was never exercised.
Cass Township’s attitude toward a new school frustrated Dunk. He began his education career as a teacher and coach at Wanatah High School (Cass Township) in 1947.
In June 1969, The Indiana School Commission decommissioned Wanatah High School due to “violation of state school laws and rules” and failure to develop a reorganization plan during the previous 10 years as required by state law. Cass Township Trustee LaVerne Guse called the move “pressure to get us into South Central High School.” Cass Township’s attorneys tried to invoke two outdated laws to keep Wanatah High School open; the plan failed. - 8At least one local official wanted to build South Central School on Ben & Betty Werner’s property at the northeast corner of 600 West and 1100 South. Werner didn’t want to sell and he put them onto Ed Richman. Years before, Richman got Werner to invest in a business opportunity that didn’t pan out. When Richman sold the real estate to the school, he used proceeds to repay Werner (Source: Robert Werner, Union Mills High School class of 1962).
- 9Source: Steven E. King, South Central High School class of 1968.
- 10The large metal ball with antennae protruding from it resembles early satellites Telstar 1, Telstar 2, and Alouette 1.
- 11Wayne Cooper became a prolific artist. Born in Depew, Oklahoma, he arrived in Indiana on a crew building steel tanks. He was a welder. After a fall in 1961, he chose to dedicate his life to art, beginning with two years of study at Valparaiso University. After two decades in Indiana, he returned to his hometown. His artwork is in the permanent collections of the Will Rogers Museum, Oklahoma State University Museum of Art, and the Oklahoma State Capital. He has done several large-scale paintings, including one in the Oklahoma State Capital and an eight-feet canvas at Three Forks Lodge. The South Central Satellites installation “was my first go of something like that,” said Cooper in a December 24, 2023 phone interview.
- 12Cheryl was the wife of the boys head basketball coach Bruce Hardy. Cheryl recalled the idea came from conversation among coaches and their spouses. “They didn’t have a mascot, so we came up with something” and the Space Chicken was intended to be humorous, she said in a January 2024 phone interview. Cheryl found a seamstress and bought the supplies for the costume to be made.
It is a mystery who chose Frank Lumm and asked him to be the Space Chicken. It wasn’t Principal Dave Geise or Bruce or Cheryl Hardy.
Only two other students knew about the upcoming reveal of the Space Chicken—junior cheerleaders Theresa Utroske and Mary Ellen Meiu. They secretly taught Frank Lumm cheer stunts in the Mezzanine/gymnastics room. They planned to have Lumm participate in cheers; however, the costume design foiled that plan. - 13December 8, 2023 phone interview with Frank Lumm.
- 14Mark Potrzebowski worked the scorer’s table for 39 years and the two things he remembered about the reveal of the Space Chicken were being totally surprised and thinking, what did a chicken have to do with satellites?
- 15Lumm noted that if the Space Chicken flopped, it would have been OK. Lumm said, “A mascot is supposed to be a clown and nobody knows any better, so that’s it. What happens, happens. Everybody ended up loving it. I didn’t know how people would react, whether they’d like it or boo. If they booed, that would have been that, but it worked out.”
Memories vary regarding the lights during the Space Chicken reveal. Lumm thought the lights were off and a spotlight was put on him when he walked onto the court. Of 11 people interviewed, recollections varied whether the lights were on or off—most were unsure. The gym had mercury vapor lights that came on very dim and took some minutes to warm up to reach full illumination, meaning the teams would have run out and warmed up in a dimly lit gymnasium. Principal Dave Geise said due to the mercury vapor lights they would not have turned them off before warmups (Superintendent Max Spaulding said the same), but thought something special might’ve happened with lights that night.
For a few games, South Central did turn off the lights for the announcement of the starting lineup according to Mark Potrzebowski. His recollection was that occurred during the introduction of the starting lineup before the playing of the “Star Spangled Banner.” As Potrzebowski recalled, that practice was short-lived and during one game, the lights above one basket never returned to full illumination.
According to Lumm, nobody knew who was inside the costume until his name appeared below a photo of Space Chicken in the LaPorte Herald-Argus the following Tuesday, as you can see in the scrapbook photo below. - 16Matt Coldiron dressed as the Martian man. It lasted less than one season.
- 17When South Central built a second gymnasium in 1979, the two gyms were known as the Old Gym and New Gym. They carried these names for decades until someone changed the nomenclature to north gym and south gym. The north gym is in the middle of the building.
- 18Think 1970s era computer screen font and you get the picture.
- 19Joan Grott’s older sister, Anne, was student senate vice president.
- 20It rained the day Joan Grott attended the Purdue football game as Space Chicken. To protect the costume, she created a giant hooded poncho from plastic storm window sheeting. As a Purdue student a couple years later, Grott’s roommate learned she was in the Space Chicken costume on the football field that day. Turns out, the roommate’s family attended that game and referred Space Chicken as “the shake and bake chicken.”
Joan and her dad, Norm, attempted to attend a second high school mascot day at a Purdue women’s basketball game that winter. The pair gave a valiant effort, but a blizzard forced them to turn around before reaching LaCrosse, Indiana. - 21Space Guy’s costume resembled a cross between the space suits worn in the 1960s TV show, Lost in Space, and MC Hammer’s 1990 outfit.
- 22Thus far, the only other “Satellites” mascot I found was a co-ed roller derby team.