Need some creative inspiration? Olingers mother was a resident of Nagasaki when the bomb dropped. It is time to change the Bomber mascot to one that doesn't receive weird looks from people outside of Eastern Washington. Youve finished packing and found out you passed all of your classes! Prep Sportswear is not affiliated with the Richland High School Bookstore or the RHS Bookstore. Infinite rows of lockers that stretch from floor to ceiling, mundane patterns on the tile floors, colorful posters declaring pep rallies and blood drives, freshmeat dressed to a tee and seniors slopping on sweatpants that may or may not have been washed in a month. Peace! the local newspaper headlines cried on Aug. 14, 1945. Our bomb clinched it!, This town just went totally nuts, said Burt Pierard, 74, who remembers beating pots and pans in a parade of children around his neighborhood. The rays of music may salsa on her skin, but they dig deep into mine. The sights, sounds, and smells of a summer day in your hometown. The construction of Hanford during the 1940s and 1950s had impinged upon plans for the nearby lands and river which, in New-Deal plans for the Columbia Basin Project, had been earmarked for development through irrigation and hydroelectricity. Forget about political correctness, forget about the snowflakes who cry that we are horrible people. Whether the name of the team came from the Nagasaki Bomb or from another source seems to be open to debate, see discussion here: BEAVERS ATOMS BOMBERS RESEARCH PROJECT. Beginning in 1943, the site was used to produce plutonium for the bomb that brought an end to World War II. 2022-23 . One participant exclaimed, Lets not talk about the bad things, then changed the subject to presidents who had visited the site and a local graduate who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Mushroom clouds found their way onto the school crest, class rings and football helmets. Lets create a culture that celebrates expression rather than forces unrealistic expectations. We need to remember it for what it is: A time filled with fear, bloodshed, sorrow and hatred. [2].mw-parser-output .locmap .od{position:absolute}.mw-parser-output .locmap .id{position:absolute;line-height:0}.mw-parser-output .locmap .l0{font-size:0;position:absolute}.mw-parser-output .locmap .pv{line-height:110%;position:absolute;text-align:center}.mw-parser-output .locmap .pl{line-height:110%;position:absolute;top:-0.75em;text-align:right}.mw-parser-output .locmap .pr{line-height:110%;position:absolute;top:-0.75em;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output .locmap .pv>div{display:inline;padding:1px}.mw-parser-output .locmap .pl>div{display:inline;padding:1px;float:right}.mw-parser-output .locmap .pr>div{display:inline;padding:1px;float:left}. However, in the 1950s the people residing in the vicinity of Hanford began pushing to have their voices heard, too. Those two exams just stripped you of your pride. The bomber mascot warps the war into a time filled with only glory and hard work. The Hanford Site, near Richland, is where the US government and military performed top secret work to produce plutonium bomb-grade material as part of WWII's Manhattan Project. They called it the R-Cloud. The secrecy around Hanford, a part of the Manhattan Project, came to light on Aug. 9, 1945, when U.S. forces dropped a thick-bellied, 10,000-pound plutonium-filled bomb called Fat Man on Nagasaki, Japan vaporizing some 60,000 to 80,000 people in an instant and leading to the end of World War II. Im glad to tell anybody that I was born and raised in Richland, and if indeed the bomb did end the war, then Im so glad it saved a lot of lives, she said. Looking for a way to spend your summer doing something creative and fulfilling? As the region has diversified since its past as a federally owned Atomic City where 90% of the population was either employed by or a dependent of Hanford, the school has since received criticism for its depiction of a mushroom cloud as an unofficial logo for the school, believing that the logo and the mascot to be a shameful reminder of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[5]. Photo by Robley L. No appeal has made a dent in it. Indeed, the troubles associated with the development of nuclear power had helped to spur the rethinking of those attitudes in the years after 1970. Confident that nuclear power plants were the wave of the future, they lobbied the federal government to authorize construction of a ninth reactor at Hanford, one that could produce both plutonium for nuclear weapons and kilowatts for the BPA power grid. People who supported the war effort and people who despised it. Hanford and the Bomb: An Oral History of World War II, Legend and Legacy: Fifty Years of Defense Production at the Hanford Site, n the Home Front: The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Nuclear Site, River of Life, Channel of Death: Fish and Dams on the Lower Snake, Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, University of Washington. 85, No. Of course, the pride Richland has in the bomb may have its price, as there may be consequences for a town which has worked with radioactive poisons since 1944.3 I direct attention to the following article: My relationship to the bomb as image begins with my birth in Richland, Washington, in 1950, home of the Richland High School Bombers, where pretty cheerleaders still wear the logo of a mushroom cloud across their bosoms. Tears fall from my face the same way petals fall from wilted flowers. Wayback Mchine: Two-Sport Ace Gene Conley, SportsIllustrated.cnn.com Baseball Stats Website, Tri City Herald's #2 Sports Story of the Century. (Reproduced in "Engineering Report: Hanford Electric Generating Project." 2023 Sportswear Inc. All Rights Reserved. A walk-up hamburger joint sells Bomber Burgers with names like the B-17 Flying Fortress and the Meltdown.. Always expecting to be on the cutting edge of nuclear technology, Tri-City residents were consistently disappointed by the twists and turns that the atomic age took. Road-trips In Arizona That You're Missing Out On. In the past, he had expressed his personal distaste for the R-Cloud after visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. Worried that technological obsolescence or improved international relations could destroy their one-dimensional economy, residents of the Tri-Cities began pressing the AEC and Congress to diversify Hanford. As a writer for Odyssey, youll have the opportunity to share your voice with our community of readers from all over the world. Sorry, your comment was not saved due to a technical problem. Proud of the Cloud, written on a mushroom cloud symbol, is what it says on Bomber Boosters memorabilia, which can be purchased online at: RHS Bomber Boosters Memorabilia. The school is now part of the Richland School District. Richland High School is a public secondary school in the northwest United States, located in Richland, Washington. Peers called them names. [3], Richland's mascot is the "Bomber", officially named for the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress built in Seattle, but also in recognition of the city's contributions as an "Atomic City" in World War Two. Richland is a town whose prosperity rests on an atom bomb factory, a plant for creating plutonium.2 A quote from the Richland Chamber of Commerce Web site: Farming remained the prime industry until World War II when government surveyors arrived and announced that the federal government was assuming ownership of the area. If we truly wanted to celebrate our contributions, we would focus on celebrating scientific and engineering accomplishments that have occurred at Handford that didn't directly cost thousands of people their lives. They worried in particular about the local economy, not the health risks presented by Hanford wastes. But he no longer has the energy to fight it. Dressing for you and not for others is easier said than done. When we chant that we are proud of the cloud or use the hashtag, we are taking pride in the death of a schoolgirl or schoolboy. For example, at Miami University, I see a lot of girls in sororities wearing similar outfits throughout the day. She claps. Light On A Distant Hill - Winner, 2011 WILLA Literary Award - on Amazon. These existed but they do not make it OK to forget those whom lost their lives. For some, Richland Highs mascot embodies political incorrectness: a symbol that glorifies destruction and the deaths of innocents, a mark of hatred and fear. The bombs the mascot are referring to are Fat Boy and Little Man, which were dropped on Japan in the beginning of. In 1985, one newspaper said the logo gave the impression that Washingtonians viewed the atomic industry with chilling flippancy. In 1988, Tom Brokaw brought television cameras and a Japanese delegation to watch students vote in favor of keeping the cloud as their mascot. Like, Lets celebrate the fact that we can destroy and kill with this atomic technology. She sees it as a blight on Richland. In an article titled The Bomber, The Bomb and the Bombers, Maupin wrote that the school used the mushroom cloud prior to any reference of Days Pay., Tastes do indeed change, Maupin wrote, but facts do not.. Hagley Museum and Library.). You show up to your 8 a.m. final with about three hours of sleep, no coffee and only half of the information you studied readily available in your mind. MAXPREPS; CBSSPORTS.COM; 247SPORTS; B. Richland has won three state championships in boys' basketball, most recently in 1979, a team led on the floor by Mark Hoke, Bob Kennedy, and Brian Kellerman. Other nearby towns, including Pasco and Kennewick, had also expanded considerably beyond their 1940 size. (Special Collections, University of Washington, Nell Lewis MacGregor papers, box 1. . The time has come for Richland High School to change the Bomber name. My whole family got wiped out, she said. The Space Needle and Pacific Science Center attest to the future-minded, high-tech, aerospace-oriented thinking around Puget Sound. All along at Hanford, they had been contributing to the war effort,producing plutonium that would make up the core of Fat Man. Washington's "Hottest Market" in 1958. They blanketed the community and beyond with radiation, and they didnt tell us. The residents of Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland generally supported construction of dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers. (The bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 was fueled by uranium produced at Oak Ridge.) Turn it on in Settings to view this website. Richland High has an enrollment of roughly 2,000; its WIAA classification is 4A, for the state's largest schools. But in Richland, there is an interesting story about the high schools nickname and how peoples opinions about it have changed over the years. . The end of plutonium production at Hanford prompted new debate over what to do with the river. Construction of the three WPPSS reactors continued during the 1970s, fueling the local economy, but by 1982 it had become clear that nuclear power plants would not be an anchor for the future. So, here is an account for how your finals week may have went or will be going as your final days left in school come to an end. The high school is decorated with an absurdly large BOMBERS plastered on the side of the gym that can be seen from the opposite side of the Yakima River; atomic clouds litter the buildings; an over-sized, gaudy R-Cloud lays on the center of both gymnasiums.