What many don’t know, is that that the Anacortes Highschool Seahawks are the original Seahawks. Many people associate that name with flashy helmets and cheers droning over the smell of hot dogs in large, colosseum-Esque stadiums, perhaps the space needle, perhaps a giant cedar tree.
For many, the name Seahawks creates an association with the Pacific Northwest because of the football team that comes to epitomize it and characterize its region. with its dark navy and white patterns, and heritage team status.
However, the name Seahawks should recall something much more specific. It comes from a little town named Anacortes in an even tinier high school 80 miles away. Which, in 1925, founded this name. And in 2015, was designated the original Seahawks. As a region, we went a long time without recognizing this history, yet We here at the Seahawk journal, have ignored ours as well for longer.
The Newspaper began its life as The Anchor in 1915, being changed sporadically throughout until 1924, when an article simply titled “A Name” sparked this idea of going by a school mascot; the Seahawk.
A little-known fact is that the name Seahawk actually referenced a popular novel and film released in 1915. Yet nonetheless, the school caught on after this article was printed and because of this newspaper proposal, Anacortes High School adopted the bird as their emblem.
The school newspaper at the time titled The Skyrocket decided the school newspaper should follow suit to represent the new Anacortes High Identity. And in 1927, they rebranded, creating the logo pictured at the top of our site, and creating the tagline; The Seahawk; a paper for the whole school.
throughout the Great Depression, WWII, and long after mid-century, the newspaper remained a crucial piece of the high school even though the early 1980s to today.
But, over the decades the Seahawk lost its original logo; being re-interpreted over and over becoming a shadow of its original self. Low and behold, like many things in history books, our forebears’ memory crumbled to dust and we forgot our history entirely.
when I moved here, under the heat of the Corona Virus pandemic – nearly 93 years after those kids had created the Seahawk – I found myself needing to feel connected to this community I had joined, yet never seen.
One day, on a drive through this town, in something that looked like a post-apocalyptic setting I went by the Anacortes Museum. It would be a year before I would be able to step inside its old swinging doors, but it inspired me to take deep dive into Anacortes history.
If I wouldn’t be able to know this place I was in now, why not know what it was?
I turned Anacortes history into my COVID-19 pastime. I bought books, searched for hours and hours on the online historic archive, and squinted through websites late at night in Ad nauseam.
Eventually, I would join the Seahawk journal under Allie Perez.
fast forward just over a year from then, I have visited the museum 4 times, and I am the current Editor-In-Chief of the Seahawk.
I’d never questioned it before, but the tirade of research to feel a connection to my hometown proved to be helpful in giving back to those that built the Seahawk before us.
For during my late-night research I had discovered a photographed document torn from an original, print Seahawk Journal edition, dating back to 1927.
I frantically texted my friend Lucy, who is now our lead Media manager about this finding, and with it she redrew the original, modernizing where necessary, to produce the proud logo that now sits at the top of our website.
I used mostly old documents and accounts to piece together a history that validates this, as well as a few articles to prove its accuracy.
As many of you may know, it used to read “quality reporting since 2016” on the “old” logo, but the slogan wasn’t the original ideal the Seahawk was founded on. The original 1927 slogan places the paperback where it should be; grounded in history, and united in Anacortes Highschool.
Just like the students got credit for being the original Seahawks, the kids who built the foundations of this identity get credit for the beginning of this paper.
I hope this piece of Anacortes history makes what many views as something new, as something storied, because it is.
the logo above has been covered with 94 years of cobwebs, and it has been long forgotten, but as of October 17th, 2021, it has seen the electronic screen for the first time-something impossible on the day of its conception in 1927.
Over the course of the Seahawk’s life, there have been 3 major economic recessions, a world war, a global pandemic, and terrorist attacks on US soil. As well as a man on the moon, the end of segregation, and the invention of the miraculous machine I am writing this on now.
If anything, the Seahawk Journal is a testament to the survival of our town, and a story of the 20th century.
Let us hope it lives to see another 94 years. And let us do it with its rightful logo this time.
One Paper For All
“Have you ever thought that the A.H.S. teams should have a name? The school has come to the place where such a thing is necessary. There are the Bulldogs, Cougars and Tigers; so it remains for the A.H.S. to complete the list with a distinctive name of its own. We favor the name “Sea Hawks,” because it suggests speed, strength, certainty and the fighting spirit.”
The SkyRocket, A Name, February 5th, 1925