The Crookston High School is showing its Pirate Pride in bigger ways than ever with the addition of two new signs on the front of the school. The first one is a large, glowing sign on the outside of the Auditorium and above the Pirate Ship saying, “Crookston High School” with the Pirate logo. The other is above the front main entrance that says, “Home of the Pirates.” They put the “Home of the Pirates” sign up last week and completed the “Crookston High School” sign on Tuesday.
A few years ago, Crookston Public Schools Superintendent Jeremy Olson was assigned a project by the High School Board to increase Pirate Pride in the District. So, Olson came up with the idea of making the logo of the Pirates and the school’s colors a uniform focus for the district, students, and even for visiting schools and teams. “One of the jobs the School Board tasked me a few years ago was to increase Pirate Pride within our District. One part of increasing Pirate Pride is to focus on not only the spirit within our school, but also to embody the emblems, logos, and so forth,” said Crookston Public Schools Superintendent Jeremy Olson. “We’re trying to incorporate throughout our district a more uniform focus on our logo and our colors and building that Pirate Pride aesthetically while we also build that Pirate Pride within our student body and our staff.”
The main focus of the project came from the thought of trying to make the school stand out visually and make it clear to any visitors and opposing teams who they were coming to see and what the school was about. Before settling on the final designs, Olson and the School Board went through many different designs for many months before making the final choice. “We included the “Home of the Pirates” above our main entrance as a theme, and this was something we reviewed with the School Board. We actually spent several months on it, talking about different design options and so forth,” Superintendent Olson explained. “Then the “Crookston High School” sign, we had a couple of different renditions of it, one was just “Crookston High School,” another was just having the Pirate head logo on there as well. As we started looking at different options, this was the option that the School Board ultimately selected and funded last spring, and of course, with lead time and the interesting winter, it took some lead time and delayed the project a little bit.” The school had hired Ross Lewis Sign Co. Inc. of Bemidji to hang the “Crookston High School” sign, and now they are waiting for local electricians to complete the wiring to have it light up at night.
Superintendent Olson believes that after years of planning and debate, the Crookston High School has completed another tremendous long-term project to help increase Pirate Pride for the school and district and gave his thanks to everyone in the School District that’s helped make it possible. “I am happy with how it turned out,” said Olson. “I think this is thanks to the School Board’s strong support, they’ve pushed to focus on Pirate Pride, and we want everything to be quality here at Crookston Public Schools, both aesthetically and with what we’re doing programmatically. These are the things we’re trying to do and build, and it’s been fun to be a part of.”
Pictures of the signs being built and completed can be seen below.
