Say hello to the new Tuscola Mountaineer logo
May 8—Tuscola has a new "mountaineer" logo after staff and students at Tuscola High School and Waynesville Middle School voted for the logo from four renditions of the traditional "mountaineer" image.
The winning design was created by Abraham Husmillo of Asheville, who will receive a $500 prize courtesy of the Haywood County Schools Foundation.
Husmillo must sign a legal agreement to give the school logo ownership, according to Haywood County School Board attorney Pat Smathers. School teams will then be permitted to use the logo on shirts, uniforms, signage and more.
The Haywood County School Board unanimously approved the winning design at a regular scheduled board meeting on Monday, May 8.
Copyright battle
The vote comes after Tuscola was embroiled in a copyright battle with Appalachian State University in 2022. After a back and forth with App State, a copyright attorney told the school that continuing to use the revised logo would risk being taken to court.
So Tuscola bowed out of the battle and set forth to find a new logo. The school board opened a contest to all interested artists, and over 500 designs were received.
The school board members, of which more than half attended Tuscola, then took on the task of weeding out the logos that included obvious copyright infringements, poorly designed artwork and more to come up with just under a dozen logos.
Those logos were sent to a copyright attorney, who eliminated a handful that would not pass a copyright test. The final four were given to the schools to vote on a winning design.
All four logos featured a bearded "mountain man" head, a brimmed hat and a beard. All four used black and gold, Tuscola's school colors, along with some white and a smidgeon of red on one logo.
Two have a pipe in the mountaineer's mouth, and two have a "T" on the hat.
