Preparing for our 50th class reunion in summer 2010, I was motivated to do something extra, as love, adventure and fate had driven me overseas to the land of my forefathers.

I asked Judie Vinnedge and Denny Kime, fellow Niles Vikings, if it might be interesting for everyone to receive a report about the real Vikings — the ones that lived a thousand years ago on the German-Danish border. Denny approved, and upon learning that a museum had been constructed where a settlement once stood, he instructed me to bring back as many objects as possible to the reunion. So, it was off to the diggings!

What I found was a closed museum, with all kinds of valuable objects recovered from the earth, sea and mud. What a fantastic job they had done trying to reconstruct daily life in those times! And what else? A real Viking ship in the colors of blue and gold! I was amazed. Outside was an open air area and village built up similar to the Pilgrims Village in Plymouth, Mass.

Books, videos and an amber necklace were all that I could bring back to Denny.

When I got home, I checked the old Tattlers at the Niles District Library just to see when we became the “Vikings.” Back around 1920 or so, we were known as the “Tornadoes,” and we didn’t have a winning athletic record. So, in 1940, there was a competition to rename the mascot.

Believe it or not, it was the mother of my aunt, Mary Crouch (née Blackmond), who came up with the name.

Her suggestion, “Vikings,” won the competition, and at the beginning of the 1940s, the school invited one of the Four Horsemen from Notre Dame to come and help celebrate.

All of the sudden, the “Niles Vikings” started to improve their athletic record, likely as a result of their mascot change.

Doug Crouch

Germany