This is for mothers and grandmothers of high school teenagers. Most teenagers don’t read newspapers so this information will give you some trivia to use to impress your high schooler.

This week I am addressing a question put to me recently. The question was, where did Edwardsburg High School mascot, the Eddies, come from? Not the drawing, but the name. In others words, who named the “Eddies” the “Eddies?”

To do this research I had to go to a reliable source, which was Marjorie Federowski. Mrs. Federowski was a student at Edwardsburg High School, graduating in 1946. The principal at that time was Bertrand Long. He served the high school as its principal from 1928 to 1955.

During the 1940s, Edwardsburg had a good basketball team as well as the best gym in Cass County. Mr. Long decided to give the team a new nickname. It had been called the Golden Bears, but since there were no bears in the area, let alone golden ones, it probably wasn’t the most fitting name.

Now, an eddy is a fast-running water. The Wikipedia definition says it is “fluid dynamics; an eddy is the swirling of a fluid and the reverse current created when the fluid flows past an obstacle.”

Since we do have an abundance of water in the area, even if it is not swift-moving, Mr. Long may have thought this described the basketball team and was more fitting for the team.

Being a science teacher as well as the principal may have influenced Mr. Long and played a part in the name. Who would have thought that the name would have stuck this long and morphed from an eddy (small e) into Eddie (big “E” and an “ie”)?

The change of the spelling came about quite quickly because the first form of a yearbook was named “Eddie’s Diary” in 1946. The yearbook was just a few typed pages with a few team pictures. It wasn’t until 1948 that the book featured individual pictures of the seniors.

These can be viewed at the museum, which has copies of most the yearbooks. Even copies of yearbooks from 1980 to 1999 are for sale in the museum.

Along with yearbooks, the museum has the commencement invitations and programs from as early as 1897, when there were three seniors graduating: Andrew Hadden, Inez Smith and Fred Harwood. Some diplomas are on view, with the earliest being 1888, when Laura Snyder graduated.

Over the years the Eddie (big “E”) has been used in many instances such has the Edditorial, the Edwardian, school newspapers and of course the big man, Eddie. It would be hard to create a picture of a fast-moving body of water for a mascot.

The museum has made it one of its missions to preserve as much school history as possible, starting with the one-room schools that populated the area, as well as the first Edwardsburg schools buildings.

This is just a few of the stories about Edwardsburg that can be found in the Edwardsburg Area Historical Museum.

Now moms and grandmas have the story and can dazzle their teens with these amazing facts about Edwardsburg High School.