If you have been in the Arcola High School Gym this winter, you may have asked “what happened to all the banners?” As most of you know, the banners were taken down last summer so that the gym could be repainted. The paint project was completed in late August and the new wall pads were installed in early September. As many of you may have also noticed, some of the banners were in pretty bad condition. For example, several of the Sweet 16 banners had lettering falling off and the 1985 “A” State Championship Banner was unusable anymore. This problem was only compounded when the banners were removed from the walls when painting began. When the maintenance staff pulled out the banners to be reinstalled in the fall, we realized how damaged, dirty and non-functional several of the banners had become.
First and foremost, I want to say that nothing has been disregarded or thrown away. The old banners are still being stored. But, simply rehanging the old banners is no longer a viable option.
The school district administration and school board building committee have engaged in many conversations about how to proceed with the banners. The building committee and administration have met with several companies in an effort to redo the banners. The discussion has gone all the way from recreating the old banners as closely as possible to creating a new design that allows the district to still embrace the tradition while creating a new and more consistent look.
At the most recent building committee meeting, the committee met with a graphic designer that is working on a design that will allow the district to get new banners while still trying to maintain the original look and feel of the banners as much as possible. The plan is to have the banners completed and everything hung by graduation!