Terry Bliss, committee chairman, said the committee began last September with an outline of what they wanted to include in the report. Community support, he said, is overwhelmingly on the side of maintaining the Redskins tradition.

"We're going to present the information in a factual, straightforward way," said Bliss, "and offer a suggested course to follow. I can say right now that the general feeling of the committee is that the continued use of the name and logo is acceptable. We haven't used a mascot in years, so that isn't much of an issue."

The committee originally consisted of nine members, but the three students appointed to the task did not attend any of the meetings. Bliss said the committee "totally understood," because the students are busy. The committee includes Keith Additon, a school board member, Rosemary Craig of the PTO, athletic director Mike Cring, Ken Kiser from the Friends of Football, and Bob Snyder from the Booster Club.

Bliss spoke with Deputy Commissioner of Education Jim Kadamus about a letter that was sent to all public schools in the state by Richard Mills, State Commissioner of Education. Mills' letter specified that using Native American symbols, mascots and nicknames are barriers to building a nurturing educational environment and asked schools across the state to consider changing them.

"We wanted to be sure that we were going through the right motions here," Bliss said. "Mr. Kadamus said we were, absolutely. And we wanted to ask if the state was going to step in and mandate a change anyway. He dispelled those thoughts. That's not going to happen."

Kadamus did not respond to requests for a comment.

Bliss said the problem as the committee sees it is not with the use of Native American imagery, but rather with incorrect usage.

"There's a big difference between Eastern Indians and Plains Indians. People become sensitive to an eastern school using a logo from another part of the country," Bliss said.

Kiser researched the origin of the name in the district, Bliss said, and found that it first appeared in yearbooks around the 1930's or 1940's.

"We don't want to ignore any of the information we received from the community," said Bliss. "We want to put everything into perspective and get all that stuff together under one cover."

The committee used an array of internet materials, Bliss said, put together by Additon. Bliss said he was unaware of a report, available on the internet, by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The report, entitled, "Use of Native American Images and Nicknames as Sports Symbols," states that the use of such images and nicknames is, "particularly inappropriate and insensitive in light of the long history of forced assimilation that American Indian people have endured in this country."

A student survey was in support of keeping the nickname and logo as well, Bliss said.

The report will be made available to the public after the school board has a chance to peruse it in June. Kelly Branigan, school board president, said the committee was originally appointed for the sake of conducting research.

Bliss said he does not see the term Redskins on par with Blackskins because "Redskins has been a part of the vernacular for so long. You say those two words together and it doesn't stand out."